This article originally appeared on the Pembina Institute website.

For clean energy enthusiasts, yesterday’s budget brought lots of good news. From public transit to renewables in remote communities, the budget made investments that support a thriving low-carbon economy.

Here are our top highlights from yesterday’s budget:

Budget 2016 announced that the federal government’s Accelerated Capital Cost Allowances (ACCA) will extend to electric vehicle (EV) infrastructure and energy storage equipment. The ACCA is a policy tool that allows certain industries to write-off investments in equipment and technologies more quickly than the standard rate provided by government. As such, it supports investment and growth in those industries — making it a very useful tool to apply to climate friendly technologies.

This depreciation program will lower costs and risk to investors looking to jump into the energy storage or EV space. Canada needs more clean electricity to fuel its transition to a low carbon economy — and this commitment will enable further clean technology deployment across the country.

Generous tax measures have long been enjoyed by the fossil fuel sector — in fact, the ACCA has existed for oilsands mines and in situ facilities since 1972 and 1996 respectively. While you could make the case that the oilsands was a fledgling industry decades ago, that’s certainly no longer the case. In 2007, the federal government committed to phase out fossil fuel subsidies for exactly that reason. Progress has been stalled — and we encourage the federal government to continue to advance these important G20 commitments.

Further, while it’s encouraging to see the government think seriously about how to embed more zero-emitting electricity into Canada’s electricity grid, and also into our transportation sector, they’ve remained mum on a critical issue: phasing out emissions from coal-fired electricity plants more quickly. Under the former government, regulations were introduced to phase-out coal-fired electricity; but — after being weakened twice, from 40 years to 45 and then to 50 — they were widely panned as capitulation to coal industry pressure.

The previous government claimed considerable health savings from the regulations, including at least 900 avoided deaths and 120,000 avoided asthma episodes in the first 20 years alone. Of course, by weakening the regulations, the government actually caused a proportional number of deaths and health events. The Trudeau government can and should do more to accelerate this transition to secure these greater health savings. From our perspective, the government should make it clear they will join the international trend toward phasing out coal. 

Resources to Modernize the National Energy Board

Yesterday’s budget saw $16.5 million over three years allocated to the National Energy Board and the bureaucracy to deliver on the government’s interim review process for energy projects. This is great news: we were supportive of those interim principles when they were announced, and are pleased to see the government put the necessary resources behind it.

An allocation of this size — in addition to review-specific resources already earmarked to this work — should help ensure that Canadians have meaningful opportunities to participate in federal energy project reviews. Further, the money will be spent on Crown consultations — a hopeful signal that the government will work to repair relationships with Indigenous communities impacted by natural resource development across the country.

But much work remains to be done to modernize Canada’s federal energy regulator. Canada’s environment commissioner recently found that the NEB was not providing sufficient oversight on pipeline projects. Further, the NEB’s marquee publication,Canada’s Energy Future, does not consider the implications of continued domestic and international climate action. In order for the Board to become a world-class regulator, it must align its supply and demand modeling with the world’s stated climate policy objective — achieving the deep reductions outlined in the Paris Agreement. Though not perfect, the IEA’s World Energy Outlook 450 scenario is a good place for the NEB to start. 

New Funds for the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency

It may not always be obvious, but industry proponents and environmentalists share a common interest when it comes to environmental assessments. Both camps often advocate for rigorous and fair environmental assessments — and, ultimately, for evidence-based decision-making.

The Trudeau government seems to have received the message that building and maintaining credible environmental assessment processes is in everyone’s best interest. To that end, Budget 2016 proposes to provide $14.2 million over four years to the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency (CEAA) for consultation, compliance and enforcement activities.

This financial support should support CEAA as they continue to play a critical role in the government’s interim review process for major energy projects. Over the last two months, CEAA has been publishing assessments of the direct and upstream emissions associated with major energy projects. These assessments have been limited to LNG terminals to date, but will soon extend to midstream infrastructure, like oil and gas pipelines.  Judging by methodology released late last week, that work appears to be moving in the right direction. Critically, Minister McKenna and her Cabinet colleagues should review how proposed projects, and their upstream emissions, align with the federal government’s 2020 and 2030 emissions reduction goals and the government’s long-term reduction commitment vis-à-vis the Paris Agreement.

Standing up the Low Carbon Economy Fund

One of the big ticket environmental announcements yesterday was the commitment to provide $2 billion over two years (beginning next year) to establish the Low Carbon Economy Fund. This fund, as promised on the election trail, is designed to catalyze investment in projects that “yield the greatest absolute greenhouse gas reductions for the lowest cost per tonne.” With this mandate in hand, the fund can make strategic investments that support the country’s decarbonization efforts. We’re keen to see how the government designs and implements criteria for investment to ensure the funds are disbursed to achieve those goals.   

The Low Carbon Economy Fund is particularly interesting in the context of Canada’s renewed federal-provincial relationship on climate change. Just a few weeks ago, Canada’s first ministers met to reaffirm the urgent need to invest in a low-carbon economy for Canada.  Their meeting concluded with the release of the Vancouver Declaration on Clean Growth and Climate Change — a document that outlines a new and collaborative approach to tackling emissions reductions across the country.  

Canada’s ability to achieve long-term emissions reductions, consistent with those spelled out in the Paris Agreement, is now in the hands of our prime minister and premiers. It’s essential that those political leaders and their teams have the resources required to implement the Vancouver Declaration.

The first ministers and their teams will be busy over the summer with working groups to study the policies required to hit our 2030 goal — and are tasked with reporting back by September 2016. The first ministers need resources to hit the ground running: to call experts, conduct studies, and ensure the best available science is informing those political discussions. What they don’t need are squabbles over who picks up the bill, which the budget allocation handily takes care of.

Since the government’s election last year, Canada has upped its game on climate change. We’ve seen political commitments from the highest levels of federal, provincial, and territorial governments to reduce emissions. And with yesterday’s budget, governments and civil society will now have more resources to do so.

Next, we need the policy ambition required to get Canada on track to meet or exceed its existing climate targets. We’re optimistic Budget 2016 has begun to lay tracks for the ultimate success of the first ministers’ process — and supports the low-carbon economy we’re ultimately working to build.

Image: Prime Minister's photo gallery

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Canadians have long been labouring under “the myth of abundance” when it comes to our water resources and we’re in the midst of experiencing an abrupt wake-up call, according to experts.

“We often think of the earth as this wonderful blue pearl, but how much water is there?” says Oliver Brandes, leader of the Water Sustainability Project at the University of Victoria. “Only 2.5 per cent of that water is fresh. A much smaller amount, about 0.3 per cent, is the ground or surface water where we live.”

Brandes told an audience at a September Walrus Talks event that Canada needs to modernize its thinking about water.

“Water, not oil, will define the 21st century,” he said, adding climate change and global conflict will only increase the value of water as a resource.

“If climate change is a shark, water will be its teeth — that’s how we’ll feel it.”

With World Water Day on our minds, here are five things you might not have realized about Canada’s water.

1) Climate Change is Already Threatening Canada’s Water Supplies

“In 2015 the drought spread northward” from California, renowned scientist David Schindler told the Walrus Talks audience in Victoria. “In this part of B.C. you enjoyed a summer of water rationing and red sunset in a grey sky with air quality you normally wouldn’t see outside of Beijing.”

Schindler reminded the audience how much the drought affected emergency teams trying to fight wildfires across the northwest.

“We’re assured by politicians and media that we have lots of water,” Schindler said. “But the water we can see isn’t the sustainable water that we have to work with.”

Schindler cautioned that the delicate balance between precipitation, winter snow pack and glacial runoff provides the foundation for freshwater. That foundation is threatened by the warmer temperatures and drier conditions attributed to climate change. 

2) Canada’s Water Isn’t Being Replenished

Although Canada has about 20 per cent of the world’s fresh water, it’s estimated that only about one per cent of that resource is replenished each year by rain or snowfall, according to the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives.

3) 73% of First Nations’ Water Systems At Risk of Contamination

Across Canada, the issue of water is of special concern for indigenous communities.

According to the Council of Canadians, 73 per cent of First Nations’ water systems currently face medium or high-level risk of contamination. That figure is unchanged from 2012.

The group further reports that as of January 2015 there were 1,838 drinking water advisories issued in Canada, some of which date back to the 1990s.

The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives reports that in the fall of 2015 alone 120 First Nations communities were issued 168 drinking water advisories.

In good news, the Trudeau government has committed to ending First Nations drinking water advisories in five years and in today’s budget pledged $141.7 million to accomplish that task.

4) Canadians Guzzle Water

According to the federal government, Canada is one of the highest per-capita consumers of water in the world.

About 70 per cent of Canada’s fresh water is used for agriculture and because a high portion of those agricultural products are exported, Canada is the second highest virtual water exporter in the world (virtual water meaning the hidden cost of water used in the production of a product).

Canada’s net virtual water exports (so, exports minus imports) amount to nearly 60 billion cubic metres each year. That figure, according to the Council of Canadians, is based on outdated data and is likely much higher.

Beyond our personal and agricultural consumption, Canada’s energy industry also uses massive amounts of water for oil and gas production.

In 2011, companies in the Alberta oilsands used a reported 370 million cubic metres of water which is more than the city of Toronto, with a population of 2.8 million, uses annually.

It takes approximately 3.1 barrels of water to produce one barrel of oil from the oilsands, according to the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers.

Fracking also uses massive amounts of water. In B.C. alone gas companies were granted permission to withdraw 33.3 million cubic metres of water through long and short-term water licences. A single fracked well can require between 5,000 and 100,000 cubic metres of water, according to the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers.

5) Water Protections Gutted Under Conservatives

The Conservative government’s omnibus budget bills removed water protections from the Navigable Waters Protection Act and the Fisheries Act as well as requirements to consider environmental impacts of major industrial projects under the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act.

Changes to these legal frameworks left 99 per cent of Canada’s freshwater bodies without protection and put thousands of federal scientists and researchers out of work.

Canada has a significant amount of work to do to restore the research and monitoring programs weakened during the last several years.

But in more good news, funding announced in the federal budget today gives some indication that work will be supported at the federal level.

Between 2011/2012 and 2015/2016 an estimated $73.4 million in funding was cut from water programs at Environment Canada and the Department of Fisheries and Oceans.

The budget earmarks $197.1 million over the next five years to be funnelled back to Fisheries and Oceans Canada for ocean and freshwater research. In addition, $81.3 million is allocated for Fisheries and Oceans and Natural Resources Canada to protect 10 per cent of coastal and marine areas by 2020.

Another $3.1 million is allocated to Environment and Climate Change Canada to preserve the Great Lakes.

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