Recently, the day after the tabling of the IPCC report, the Trudeau government gave the green light to the Bay du Nord project, thereby discrediting both its government and its Minister of the Environment, Steven Guilbeault. A few days later, Hugo Séguin launched a book entitled Letter to impatient greens and those who find they are exaggerating (Ecosociety). In the process, he and Laure Waridel, also colleagues of Steven Guilbeault, therefore from the same environmental family, found a forum on Radio-Canada Première, at Alain Gravel, to comment on recent environmental news. The next day, Mr. Séguin was the guest of Michel Désautels.
I heard this interview and read Mr. Séguin’s book; I also listened carefully to the radio interview involving the latter, Laure Waridel and the journalist Étienne Leblanc. Also, during the same period, I caught a radio interview with retired environmental journalist Louis-Gilles Francœur, which prompted me to read his recent book, The green deposit (Ecosociety), with attention. From there, I couldn’t help but cross-check the comments of some with the observations of the other, to engage in a little exercise of cross-examination.
On the radio, Mr.me Waridel was essentially arguing that the Liberal government’s recent environmental decisions can be explained because governments and policy makers listen to polls and public opinion more than scientists. Not to mention that they govern with short sight, more concerned about their possible re-election than about the pressing environmental issues we face. Hence the importance, according to her, of working on public opinion and mobilizing it so that it puts pressure on the government. For his part, Hugo Séguin, in his book, makes the following proposals:
1. Ecologists must storm the places of power, or in any case invest them;
2. There is an urgent need to encourage the circulation of new and radical ideas; to follow up on them, instead of blockading them;
3. The Canadian oil industry should be nationalized.
The nationalization of the oil industry is Hugo Séguin’s radical proposal. For his part, M.me Waridel said she was surprised that the courts did not take up recent decisions by the Trudeau government since, according to her, it is failing in its obligations to protect the population from the dangers caused by the climate crisis, obligations enshrined in the Charter of Rights. She also reiterated her confidence in citizen mobilization capable of making us switch to a new paradigm in the near future.
Facts
Many other things could be said about these proposals as well as about those who put them forward. For my part, I was especially interested in what has not been said or written. In his book, which is not an opinion book, Louis-Gilles Francœur makes the facts speak, or rather, the figures. Money talks, as the other would say. And in fact ! The meticulous work of budget review by Mr. Francœur and Jonathan Ramacieri, who co-authored this book, clearly demonstrates that, since its creation in 1978, the Ministry of the Environment, year after year, has been busier supporting promoters than to dissuade them.
The authors come to the conclusion that over the years, regardless of the growing citizen mobilization on environmental issues as they arise in Quebec, the department is more occupied with the economic objectives defended by the other departments — which have themselves at heart to encounter no obstacle — except by environmental issues. And this, all parties combined.
This reality is verified in particular by the following facts: not only is the Ministry of the Environment a junior ministry, occupying the 16and place, sometimes even the 19and, in the rank of ministerial portfolios (out of 20!), but moreover, and as a corollary, this ministry still only has 1,958 employees, ie the same number as it had in the early 1990s! In fact, according to Mr. Francœur, those who work there have no way of seeing to the implementation and respect, on our immense territory, of the regulations, legislation and other evaluation and sanction measures, if necessary. .
How can we believe, then, in government action and, above all, how can we be so ignorant — here I come back to Mr. Séguin and Mr.me Waridel — the power of the powerful all-out pro-development lobbies which, according to Mr. Francœur, are interfering everywhere, despite promises, programs and facade intentions? How to ignore, until never speak about it, the power of money, companies, capitalism and growth? Because this is what Mr. Francœur depicts, and this, without resorting to the ideological discourse which he does not need; the numbers speak for themselves!
Fist on the table
I would like an exercise similar to that undertaken by MM. Francœur and Ramacieri be done by putting the Federal Ministry of the Environment under consideration this time. I have no reason to believe that the results would be different. It then seems obvious to me, like the nose in the middle of the face in fact, that beyond polls and good people, mobilized or not, it is first of all to business logic that our governments. Question of paradigm, precisely. In this case, I do not see how entrusting the federal government with the nationalized management of Canadian extractive companies would represent a radical decision.
When you put your fist on the table, it is, in my opinion, to strike a strong argument. What would be radical would be above all to name the beast that confronts us. Capitalism, its companies, its projects, its concrete, its bitumen, its innumerable lackeys, its growth, its dirty walls and all of us with it, worried and lost. Capitalism is killing us.
I am, of course, for citizen engagement and mobilization. But going backwards, that, no! It’s time we called a spade a spade and recognized that, up to now, our militant efforts, our confidence and our passion have been misdirected. And if we continue on the path of sustainable development, they will be even more so. Recognizing this and acting accordingly would already be a small step closer to radicalism.