Environmental organizations fear that the “green budget” of the Coalition avenir Québec (CAQ) tabled two years ago was only a stunted regrowth in a desert environmental balance sheet. The exercise of March 22 will color the first term of the Legault team, they say.
On March 10, 2020, the Minister of Finance, Eric Girard, deposited the second financial framework of his mandate. The thick document quickly displayed its colors: we must “build a green economy”, could we read in the second chapter of the Quebec Budget 2020-2021.
By providing “record sums” of $6.7 billion to present its plan to fight climate change, Quebec “is giving itself the financial means to achieve [sa] target” for reducing greenhouse gases, set at -37.5% by 2030, then trumpeted the elected CAQ.
This text is part of our Perspectives section.
“But it is clear that the shift that the CAQ has started is timid, underlines the head of the Climate-Energy campaign at Greenpeace Canada, Patrick Bonin, two years later. I would even say that it is cosmetic. »
The 2020 budget was intended to chart the environmental course of the government of François Legault for the years to come. Of all the sums put in reserves, more than 6 billion were planned to finance the measures of the climate plan of the CAQ, the Plan for a green economy (PEV).
“We feel that a lot of progress has been made since the government came to power,” observes the director general of Nature Québec, Alice-Anne Simard. Without the “awareness” generated according to her by the climate mobilization of the fall of 2019 – the march of September 27 in the first place -, the delay would have accumulated, she analyzes.
“It’s a party that had almost nothing in its electoral platform on the environment,” adds Ms.me Simard.
The means of his ambitions
Faced with the behemoths of Health and Education, the Ministry of the Environment and the Fight against Climate Change (MELCC) has historically been a second-tier portfolio within the Quebec state. In 2020-2021, its expenditure budget swelled by about 30%, but continued to represent less than 1.5% of the coffers of Quebec.
In the following budget, tabled in March 2021, the MELCC’s share in the Quebec budget again increased by a few percentage points. However, investments in the fight against climate change have stagnated.
The time for wait-and-see is over, insists Patrick Bonin, who asks Quebec to “roll up its sleeves” and continue to invest in climate efforts. “What the CAQ is currently planning is a half-plan to fight against climate change,” he says, referring to the EPI of the Minister of the Environment, Benoit Charette. For the time being, it provides for half of the measures necessary to achieve Québec’s green objectives.
In February, Québec solidaire demanded that the CAQ take advantage of the last budget of its mandate to table the “greenest budget in the history of Québec”. “That’s what we need,” said left-wing party co-spokesperson Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois during question period.
“In 2022, we have both feet in the climate crisis, and the environment is still not one of the CAQ’s budgetary priorities,” he added between the walls of the Blue Room.
In line with “electrification”
It is still early to assess the impact of the CAQ’s 2020 budget. According to the Ministry of the Environment, “almost all of the sums” planned for the 2020-2021 financial year have been spent, “with the exception of two measures totaling 22 million” whose deployment has been postponed. For the following year — 2021-2022 — there is no way of knowing whether the sums have arrived in the field: “A detailed report will follow in the fall after the closing of the financial year”, was content to say the publicist at the MELCC, Caroline Cloutier.
In its “green budget”, Quebec provided $1.4 billion for the subsidy program for the purchase of electric vehicles “Roulez vert”. More than 53,000 people have used it since, said the Homework the Ministry of the Environment. Quebec wants to see 1.5 million zero-emission cars on its roads by 2035, and ban the purchase of emission vehicles five years later.
“All of this remains a question of economy and electrification for the Legault government, whereas it is a much broader question. Society as a whole must be restructured: transport, industry, food, agriculture, forestry, urban planning. It is not only by having an electrification policy that Quebec will be up to it,” says Patrick Bonin.
This week, the Chair of Energy Sector Management at HEC Montréal published a damning report on Quebec’s former “green plan”, the 2013-2020 Climate Change Action Plan. According to its experts, this strategy – which preceded the EPI – only reduced greenhouse gas emissions by 1.78 million tonnes over seven years.
The Chair calculates that the government spent $5.8 billion over this period, about $900 million less than what is currently planned for Benoit Charette’s EPI.
The solutions exist, the government knows them very well. But he still chooses to turn to electrification. The economy is back: we must stop subsidizing the expansion of the gas network. And we want at least 1% of the budget to go to green infrastructure.
Patrick Bonin urges Quebec to impose more “coercive measures”. “What is needed is a tax on the purchase of new gas-guzzling vehicles and rebates on the purchase of energy-efficient vehicles,” he points out. Investments in public transport must also be equivalent to the money that ends up in road transport, he suggests.
At Nature Québec, Alice-Anne Simard asks the Legault government to remove its “blinkers” in climate matters. “The solutions exist, the government knows them very well. But he always chooses to turn to electrification, ”she says.
“The economy is back: we must stop subsidizing the expansion of the gas network. And we want at least 1% of the budget to go to green infrastructure,” she continues.
far from account
Two years after its green budget, the government is at a crossroads. In its last climate report, the Ministry of the Environment announced that in nearly 30 years, Quebec has reduced its emissions by 2.7%. It will have to increase the stake more than tenfold to hope to reach its quantified targets in 2030.
“It hurts,” agreed Minister Charette last December. The step was already very high, it is even more so now. »
According to the elected Caquiste, it will take four or five years to observe the fallout from the climate mobilization he has started. In the meantime, Mr. Charette expects “there will be a certain stabilization, possibly an increase” in emissions.
Patrick Bonin turns his eyes to the 2022-2023 budget that Eric Girard will table on Tuesday. “It takes a strong signal,” he said.