PHOTO CHRIS YOUNG, THE CANADIAN PRESS ARCHIVES
Pierre Poilievre poses with a young supporter at a rally in Toronto on Saturday.
Do you think the Liberal government in Ottawa is not taking the fight against climate change seriously enough? Fasten your toques with brooches, the Conservatives who want to seize power have no intention of raising the bar.
Posted yesterday at 9:00 a.m.
Construction of pipelines, new hydrocarbon production projects, elimination of the carbon tax… The Conservative Party’s leadership race is giving rise to a one-upmanship that will surely please a large group of voters… in Alberta!
The candidate who makes the crowds run more than all the others, Pierre Poilievre, is resolutely conservative, among other things on the economic level. But when it comes to the conservation of the planet, it’s a whole different story.
First, he promises to eliminate Justin Trudeau’s carbon tax, which still represents, according to many experts, one of the best tools for reducing our greenhouse gas emissions. On this subject, he did not hesitate to attack Jean Charest, whom he accuses of supporting the idea of a price on carbon.
Pierre Poilievre definitely has a lot of ties with those who, in the west of the country, defend tooth and nail the hydrocarbon industry. He also promises the elimination of what he describes as “anti-energy bills”, including the one on environmental assessments adopted by the Liberals to plug the loopholes made under Stephen Harper ten years ago.
The populist candidate has also pledged to give federal approval to the LNG Quebec project if he is elected, while the file has been extensively examined, then closed, and the government of François Legault has no appetite. to reopen it.
O surprise! Jean Charest has also decided that this project deserves to be resurrected from the dead! And he also says he’s bothered by the more extensive environmental assessments for energy projects.
He also promised to abolish the carbon tax. But on this subject, he is more moderate than Pierre Poilievre. If he takes power, there will still be carbon pricing, but “for industries”. That said, it would no longer be mandatory for the provinces to subscribe to it.
This would be a major setback, while the federal government fought all the way to the Supreme Court to be able to impose its tariffs from coast to coast, which makes perfect sense since pollution knows no borders and that we don’t want one province to compete unfairly with others by eliminating its carbon tax.
Reducing greenhouse gas emissions is so unpopular with the Conservatives that the former Premier of Quebec says he wants to review the country’s objective by 2030. He is proposing a 30% reduction, while that the Liberals’ target is between 40% and 45% of 2005 levels.
Among Jean Charest’s allies, it is rightly pointed out that the Liberal government may have more ambitious targets, but it never manages to prove to us that it is capable of achieving them.
The absence of substantial results remains a handicap for the Liberals, even if their plan is credible.
Still, that’s not a good excuse to reduce targets. We rather want to see our politicians redouble their efforts for the climate.
Despite everything, Jean Charest stands out from his main Conservative rival because he has made public a more substantial plan that contains several climate and environmental measures. Among other things, it mentions the desire to introduce a price on carbon at the border and to reduce the carbon intensity of transport fuels by 20%.
The decline proposed by Jean Charest is therefore less marked than that of Pierre Poilievre. But the fact remains that the two conservatives suggest that we backtrack.
Scientists, for their part, are begging us to move forward faster, before it’s too late. To give it up is probably the price to pay, alas, if we want to win the race for the leadership of the Conservative Party.