I have a weakness for the politician who finds himself somewhat in spite of himself in an impossible situation. It’s classic. To advance his ideals, he agrees to swallow a snake. Then two. But he examines the twentieth with less appetite. So I tried to put myself in the shoes of Steven Guilbeault, in this year when our forests are burning to see us act against global warming. Let it be said for the skeptics: each degree of temperature more triples the size of the firesregardless of their root causes.
Always willing to help, I propose here to the Minister of the Environment a draft letter that he could sign and send to Justin Trudeau.
Dear Justin,
Like me, you have seen the two disasters of which the country is now a victim. On the one hand, as you said in the House, “Canada is burning”. On the other hand, the conservatives of Pierre Poilievre have an eight point lead in the last Angus Reid. There will be an election no later than 2025, but time, inflation, interest rates and Chinese interference are against us. This will be your last campaign. It would be a shame to end your career with a defeat. Knowing you, you would rather want, as your father had said, to leave “with a bang, not a whisper.”
There is an opportunity to be seized to make this last term a historic turning point and make you, and Canada, a global example in the greatest challenge of our time: the climate crisis. Building on the awareness born this summer of the fires, I suggest that you ask the voters, from this month of August, the mandate to break with our oil policy. To protect our forests, our children, the planet, you would commit: 1. to impose a refusal to any new request for expansion of oil and gas exploitation (2023 is a record year for oil investment in the country, 40 billion invested to exacerbate the problem of global warming!); 2. End our $10 billion a year subsidies to the oil industry, including subsidies disguised as “carbon capture”; 3. to redirect these sums in the prevention and protection of forests and riverbanks, in the fight against fires and floods; 4. financially support Alberta and the Prairies in the reconversion of their economy.
This plan will pit you against three major political forces. The oil provinces and Alberta, of course, where we only have one MP. Our election will provoke a push for independence there. This is doomed to failure, because, outside of Canada, Alberta would no longer have access to our pipelines (the cost of your TransMountain pipeline, which was supposed to be 7.5 billion, is now 31 billion! ). The entire oil industry, including the Irving family, which is a pillar of the Liberal Party in the Maritimes. The Toronto banks, finally, heavily invested in oil, which have lined our electoral coffers for generations and which treat our Ministry of Finance as their branch.
You will have noticed that the oil companies and the banks have started to pivot in favor of the conservatives for a few years. Even Power Corporation dropped you for O’Toole in 2021! We would only be hastening the inevitable. Freed from their influence, we can finally act against their tax havens.
The main thing is to win the election and make it a referendum on the future. Do you want your grandchildren to live on a habitable planet or not? If not, vote Poilievre! If so, every forest fire tells us, we must immediately turn the tide on the hydrocarbons. If Canada, the world’s fourth largest oil producer, leads by example by agreeing to the urging of the UN and the International Energy Agency to halt all production expansion and end subsidies, we have a small chance of having a ripple effect on other producers.
To win the election, we would have to turn our agreement with the NDP into an electoral alliance. We would pledge not to campaign aggressively in the constituencies we respectively already hold, same for the Green Party, and we would concentrate our forces to beat conservatives in tight ridings. The theme of the campaign, the environment, would mobilize the vote of millennials like never before, whose political weight is growing.
On a more personal note, dear Justin, you have noticed the funeral head which has become, in cabinet meetings, my trademark. The other day, on Quebec TV, after my approval of the Bay du Nord oil project, an impertinent host asked me how I could still look my children in the eye. It hurt me deeply. Because it’s true. I also have to avoid places where I might meet my old environmentalist friends, as they now look at me with anger, contempt and pity.
I therefore owe it to our friendship to announce to you that I will no longer approve, as minister, any oil project or any subsidy. As much as I would be delighted to do with you, in a few months, the campaign that I propose to you, as much, if you refuse to do so, which is your right, I will soon have to regain my dignity, my ability to look calmly at my children. in the eyes. When I leave your government, I will publicly explain why.
That doesn’t mean we won’t see each other again, dear Justin. When, with my rediscovered green friends, I go to climb the central Tower of the Parliament of Ottawa to hang on its top a banner denouncing your oil policies, I will wave to you, don’t worry.
But another future is possible. It’s up to you.
Sincerely, Steven Guilbeault
Father, columnist and author, Jean-François Lisée led the PQ from 2016 to 2018. | [email protected] / blog: jflisee.org