GOLDSTEIN: Mark Carney says Justin Trudeau blew $200 billion on a failed climate strategy

After years of nonsense spouted by Canada’s Liberal government, Prime Minister Mark Carney acknowledged in year-end interviews with CBC that “Canada is not going to reach our 2030 and 2035 climate targets” under former PM Justin Trudeau’s climate change plan.

He said it had “too much regulation, not enough action” with a lot of talk “and then nothing happens,” thus admitting the failure of Trudeau’s taxpayer-financed, $200-billion-plus strategy.

That funded 149 government programs administered by 13 federal departments to reduce Canada’s annual industrial greenhouse gas emissions to 40% to 45% below 2005 levels by 2030, 45% to 50% by 2035 and net zero by 2050.

According to the federally-funded Canadian Climate Institute, Canada’s emissions last year were stalled at 694 million tonnes, the same as in 2023, just 8.5% below 2005 levels.

Meeting the minimum federal target of a 40% cut in annual emissions compared to 2005 by 2030 would require reducing them to 455 million tonnes, or by 239 million tonnes annually, in five years.

To achieve that, Canada would have to shut down the equivalent of all annual emissions from Canada’s oil and gas sector and more than half of the electricity sector by 2030, causing a recession.

Current estimates project Canada will achieve only half of the 2030 target and even that is optimistic given the government’s record to date.

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So credit Carney with telling the truth – with two caveats.

First, Carney publicly committed to Trudeau’s targets under the United Nations 2015 Paris climate agreement prior to the Liberals’ November budget.

Second, Carney must have known Trudeau’s targets were unachievable when Trudeau appointed him to chair his task force on economic growth in  September 2024.

At that time, Carney was the UN’s special envoy for climate action and finance and co-chair of the corporate Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero emissions globally by 2050.

Given that, it’s reasonable to assume Carney has long known Trudeau’s targets were unachievable.

Anyone who bothered to read the federal government’s publicly-available data on annual emissions knew it a long time ago.

I first predicted it eight years ago and was astounded by the years of uncritical reporting about Trudeau’s absurd emission targets by many media outlets and NGOs.

This despite reports by the federal environment commissioner, the parliamentary budget officer, the Fraser Institute, the Canadian Climate Institute, the Trottier Energy Institute, the C.D. Howe Institute and, ultimately, the federal environment department, that Trudeau’s targets were unachievable.

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No federal government, Liberal or Conservative, has ever met a single emission target it set in the 37 years since the first commitment was made in 1988.

Trudeau’s targets were what politicians call “stretch” or “aspirational” goals as an excuse for failing to achieve them.

Eddie Goldenberg, former prime minister Jean Chretien’s top political aide, acknowledged this as Liberal policy in 2007 after the Liberals lost power in 2006.

He said when Chretien signed the UN’s Kyoto protocol in 1998 to reduce Canada’s emissions to an average of 6% below 1990 levels from 2008 to 2012, the Liberals knew it was unachievable.

This raises the question of whether Trudeau and his cabinet ministers knew they weren’t going to reach their emission targets while publicly insisting for years that they would.

Then-Liberal environment minister Catherine McKenna testified before the Commons environment committee in April 2019 that, “Canada is on track to meet our Paris agreement targets. We have committed to that,” back when Trudeau’s target was 30% below 2005 emissions annually by 2030, which he raised to at least 40% in 2021.

In July 2022, the office of then-Liberal environment minister Steven Guilbeault insisted Canada would meet its 2030 target, despite slightly loosening the timeline for Canada’s oil and gas sector to achieve them.

In October 2022, Trudeau responded “yes” when asked by a reporter at a climate change conference if he would guarantee Canada would meet its 2030 target.

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In December 2023, Guilbault and then-natural resources minister Jonathan Wilkinson said the government would achieve its emission targets based on a report by the federal environment department that Canada was on track to “exceed” its 2026 interim target of reducing  annual emissions to 20% below 2005 levels and “firmly on track” to meet its 2030 target.

All of this was nonsense.

To meet the 2026 interim target, based on the latest government data, Canada would have to shut down the equivalent of all annual emissions from Canada’s buildings sector by next year.

The latest federal environment department report released earlier this month said Canada is now moving further away from its 2030 target compared to 2023.

Guilbault resigned from Carney’s cabinet last month after the PM signed a memorandum of understanding with Alberta Premier Danielle Smith aimed at constructing a new oil pipeline from the oil sands to tidewater in northern B.C., saying if the project goes ahead as described, along with other measures announced by Carney, it won’t be possible for Canada to meet its 2030 emission target.

That’s more nonsense. Under Trudeau’s plan, Canada was never going to meet its targets, years before Carney became PM.

The question now is whether his energy and climate plans will grow the Canadian economy while being environmentally responsible, or strangle it as Trudeau’s failed policies did.

lgoldstein@postmedia.com