After languishing in the darkness for ten years, a national climate policy in Canada could take shape during an anticipated first ministers meeting in Vancouver next month. The meeting fulfills a Liberal election promise “to establish a pan-Canadian framework for combating climate change” and meet with provincial ministers within 90 days of the UN COP21 climate negotiations in Paris.    “If there ever was a time this could work it would be now,” Jennifer Allan, PhD candidate and researcher with International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD), said. “Canadians are mobilized and there’s more momentum for change than there’s been in the recent past, if ever.”   “The federal government and the provinces are not going to be able to sneak anything weak — or failure — out the backdoor,” Allan told DeSmog Canada.   Although Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has not officially announced the meeting to discuss a national climate plan with the premiers, the government of Newfoundland and Labrador published a media release earlier this week identifying March 3 as the date of the first ministers meeting to discuss a national climate change framework. 

Other sources confirmed the meeting will be held on March 3rd during the Globe Series, an international environmental business summit in Vancouver.

The early March date falls just within the federal government’s pledge to hammer out a climate framework with the provinces ninety days after the climate talks. The Liberal Party platform promised to meet with the provinces with the intended goal of establishing a national framework for combating climate change, “to develop real climate change solutions, consistent with our international obligations to protect the planet, all while growing our economy."   The task before the prime minister and premiers ­— figuring out how to rein in Canada’s rising greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions — will be a difficult one. The most recent emissions data from Environment and Climate Change Canada shows the country is way off course in meeting the weak GHG reduction targets set under the previous Conservative government.

  Source: Environment and Climate Change Canada, January 29th, 2016.

Under former Prime Minister Stephen Harper, Canada indicated it would reduce its GHG output only by roughly 14 per cent based on 1990 levels by 2030. The Trudeau government has said it wants to improve on this target, but has not said by how much.   Canada currently exceeds 1990 levels by 18 per cent.

Climate Action Creates Jobs 

Politically, the ground does not appear very fertile for the provinces, territories and federal government to all agree on a climate strategy that must include a plan on how to diminish Canada’s dependence on fossil fuels. Canada has agreed to phase out the use of fossil fuels by the end of the century and eliminate net carbon emissions by 2050.    Last month, Montreal-area mayors received criticism from Alberta and Saskatchewan politicians for refusing to support the proposed Energy East oil pipeline.   Even CBC personality Rick Mercer derided Montreal for suggesting the environmental risks of the pipeline outweigh potential economic rewards.   The low price of oil has sent the Canadian dollar on a downward spiral and triggered job losses in the oil patch. Many in Canada are concerned what a downward turn in oil production could mean for the economy.   “There’s unfortunately this old myth out there if the economy isn’t doing well it is certainly not the time to talk about environmental protection,” Allan said. “There’s been a lot studies done showing across the world climate action creates jobs.”   A 2014 report found the clean energy sector employs more people than the oilsands (also called tar sands), despite the $1.3 billion in subsidies the oil and gas industry receives from the federal government.   Globally, clean energy is a booming $300 billion industry right now.   Paris Agreement Should Guide a Canadian Climate Strategy

Under the Paris agreement, countries pledged to reduce GHG emissions in order to cap the rise in global temperatures at “well below 2C” (Celsius) and even “pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5C.”   “The reference to 1.5 is a call for greater ambition than we’ve seen in the past,” Allan said, who attended the Paris talks as part of IISD’s Reporting Services Division.   “I think this will give some leverage for those within Canada who want to see the contributions put forward by the Harper government strengthened,” Allan told DeSmog Canada.   But the Paris agreement is light on details in regards to actual hard GHG reduction targets. The agreement allows countries to set GHG targets and reduce emissions in whatever way suits them.   Allan says this may be a blessing or a curse.   “The Paris agreement gives countries a tremendous amount of flexibility. In Canada’s case, the doors are open for us to come up with meaningful climate action in a way that is best for our economy and political structure. This is a good thing,” Allan said.   “This also means there is very little guidance in terms of policies and targets we should undertake,” Allan told DeSmog.   The commitment to keep planet’s temperature increase “well below” two degrees or even at 1.5 degrees (Canada was one of the countries pushing for the inclusion of 1.5 during the Paris talks) will have to be guiding principle in creating a national climate strategy if Canada is serious about breaking with past climate inaction and meeting international obligations.   Another nugget from the Paris agreement that could inform the first ministers meeting in Vancouver is the concept of no backsliding on previous commitments. Countries are expected to submit their plans to cut GHG emission to the UN every five years. Each plan is suppose to outdo, that is, outline deeper GHG cuts than in the previous one.   “So in a way the conversation starting now with the premiers is the first go around. Chances are they are going to have this conversation every five years or so to see what they can do that is more ambitious than the last time,” Allan said. 

Photo Credit: US EPA

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The recent shelving of the Joslyn mine oilsands project in Alberta is a reminder of the fragile economics of the oilsands. No economic formula could be found to make the $11 billion project work and it has been put on hold indefinitely.           

Oil major Total E&P, the biggest partner in the project, said the Joslyn mine project “cannot be (financially) sustainable in the long term.” Interestingly, Total did not blame lack of new pipelines for squeezing profit margins either.

“You run the risk in developing fossil fuels that one day will either become fully depleted or too expensive to extract,” Philip Gass, a policy analyst at the International Institute of Sustainable Development, said from Winnipeg.

It would be difficult to deny Canada has economically benefited from developing the oilsands, a particularly difficult and expensive fossil fuel to mine and refine into light fuels — but failing to diversify the Canadian economy beyond an oil and gas ‘energy superpower’ makes for a very uncertain economic future for Canada.

“Canada could find itself an energy superpower overspecialized in the ‘old economy’ (resource extraction) in a world rapidly trying to cut carbon emissions and avoid catastrophic climate change,” Andrew Jackson, a senior policy advisor with the Broadbent Institute, told DeSmog Canada.

“Putting all your eggs in one basket is never a good economic strategy,” Jackson said.

Benefits of Energy Development Remain Largely Locked in the Sector

The idea that all Canadians benefit from a surging oil and gas industry is slowly turning into a farce. An International Monetary Fund (IMF) report earlier this year finds every dollar invested in the energy sector in Alberta grows Canadian gross domestic product — an economic vitality indicator — by 90 cents. Of this growth, 82 cents remains in Alberta, mostly in the energy sector (67 cents).

IMF‘s breakdown of $1 investment in the energy sector scenario.

“There appears to be an important scope to increase inter-industry linkages across Canada that would lead to wider sharing of benefits from the energy sector,” concludes the IMF report released in January.

Increasing inter-industry linkages or value-added jobs does not appear to be priority of the federal government. New oil pipeline projects are almost all geared to shipping Canadian oil and oilsands bitumen to refineries in the U.S. or overseas, not in Canada. Most of the heavy equipment for oilsands extraction comes from the U.S.

“The spin-off effects of the energy boom are not being felt in Ontario and Quebec, where most Canadians are,” Jackson says.

The federal government’s low corporate tax rate and the exemption of provincial resource royalties from the Canadian system of wealth redistribution (which ensures all Canadians receive the same public services) further locks the economic benefits of the energy sector within the sector and resource-rich provinces.

Energy Sector Is Not A Big Jobs Creator

“The oil and gas sector is capital intensive, not labour intensive. Manufacturing could employ more people,” David Macdonald, a senior economist with the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, says.

The same IMF report on the Canadian energy sector indicates that of the 752,000 jobs created in Canada between 2007 and 2012, the oil and gas sector can only take credit for less than 13,000, or 1.7 per cent, of them.

Job creation is not exactly Canada’s strong suit at the moment.

“The employment rate in Canada, that is the percentage of Canadians over fifteen years of age who are working, is sixty one per cent. This is the same level the employment rate was at during the worst of the recent financial crisis,” Macdonald told DeSmog Canada.

Employment rate (blue) and unemployment rate (black) from 2003 to 2013. SOURCE: Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives 

The official unemployment rate (seven per cent) in Canada has returned to pre-recession levels, but Macdonald points out that Statistics Canada does not count Canadians who are not actively searching for employment as unemployed.

“Eighty per cent of the so-called ‘recovered jobs’ since the recession are Canadians who have simply given up looking for work,” Macdonald says from Ottawa.

Part-time/Temporary Job Creation On The Rise

Ninety-five percent of all net jobs created in Canada in 2013 were part-time according to the Canadian Chamber of Commerce. Part-time workers and the self-employed, who earn on average 20 per cent less than their employed counterparts according to CIBC, now make up 30 per cent of the Canadian work force.

Canada has created more full-time than part-time jobs since the recession but the rate of part-time job creation has grown faster than full-time. Fifty-three per cent of Canadians between the ages of 25 and 44 who found work since the recession could only find temporary jobs. The rate of Canadian part-time workers who want full-time work but cannot find it has grown 37 per cent during the same period.

“Since 2011 the number of underemployed workers has exceeded the number of unemployed workers — in 2013 there were 1.35 million unemployed workers and 1.43 million additional underemployed workers. And that is before we even begin to take into account skills-related underemployment. This is an issue that needs to be taken seriously,” a Canadian Labour Congress report concludes.

SOURCE: Canadian Labour Congress

Fourteen per cent of working Canadians are underemployed or unable to get enough work to meet their financial needs, a 28 per cent increase since 2008.

Canada Needs to Create Well-Paying, Long-Lasting Jobs

“Whether you are talking about green jobs or brown jobs (fossil fuels extraction) you want to create jobs that are fair, well-paying and long lasting,” Gass of the International Institute of Sustainable Development told DeSmog Canada.

“We would like to see federal policy facilitate the creation of more specialized manufacturing jobs and encourage unionization in the work place. Unions tend to create better paying full time jobs,” Macdonald says.

A report released last month by the Parkland Institute examining unions in Alberta (the province most hostile to unions) found in terms of economic performance, wage growth is lower in Alberta compared to other provinces with higher unionization rates, despite Alberta’s oilsands boom.

“There is $600 billion sitting on companies shelves in Canada that is not being reinvested in the economy. Companies only invest where there is an expectation for growth. At the moment it appears the expectations are low,” Jackson says from Ottawa.

Corporations operating in Canada are not the only ones with low expectations for growth. When polled earlier this year by the Broadbent Institute, Canadians between 20 and 30 believed they will face a future of precarious employment and the income gap will grow during their lifetimes despite Canada’s energy boom. Baby boomers (50 to 60 years of age) in the same poll stated they think their children are more likely to slip down an economic class than move up.

“With interest rates at all time lows I would like to see public investment into mass transit, passenger rail, etcetera ramped up. Public investment can pave the way for private investment,” Jackson said.

Unfortunately the current priorities of the federal government — tax cuts, tax breaks, battling unions and cuts to public spending — are taking Canada in just the opposite direction.

Image Credit: Cheryl via Flickr

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As cuts to federal science budgets continue, former government scientists and academics who’ve lost their funding say the cuts have upended their careers, compromised knowledge about Canada’s environment and undercut the development of the next generation of scientists.

The cuts were cast into the national spotlight earlier this year when CBC’s Fifth Estate ran an episode called Silence of the Labs.  

As the list of affected departments grows, DeSmog Canada has reached out to former government and university scientists to hear their stories.

Mercury and Climate Unwatched?

Britt Hall, a biogeochemist at the University of Regina, would travel every summer to the Experimental Lakes Area (ELA), a freshwater research institute, to study the way chemicals move in the environment. [view:in_this_series=block_1]

There, she examined mercury, a neurotoxin, found in the environment naturally, but predominantly from burning coal for electricity.

Thomas Duck, a climate scientist at Dalhousie University, spent 18 years travelling to a remote weather station on Ellesmere Island in the Arctic to do climate science at the Polar Environment Atmospheric Research Laboratory in Eureka, Nunavut.

Both Duck and Hall worked at world-renowned research institutes that faced elimination in 2012 — and then were saved, but their careers have by no means returned to normal.

The ups and downs of the Experimental Lakes Area’s 58 lakes in northwest Ontario have been well recorded in the media. When the federal government chopped the area’s $2-million annual funding in May 2012, world-renowned scientists decried the cuts.

All seemed lost until the Ontario and Manitoba governments stepped in to support the International Institute for Sustainable Development as the new manager.

For seven years, Hall and other scientists had been feeding a lake, a forest and a wetland with mercury at the Experimental Lakes Area. They were studying how long it takes mercury to leave fish when the doors were shut.

Funding for Duck’s polar lab dried up after the Harper government cut off money to the Canadian Foundation for Climate and Atmospheric Sciences, a fund for climate science created by the Chretien government.

Running on reserves until early 2012, the lab was forced to close for part of the year when it couldn’t secure $1.5 million in annual funding. Then, a year and a bit later, the government stepped in with $1-million-a-year for five years.

Prior to the doors closing, Duck was working on “cutting edge” research into how the atmosphere and permafrost were interacting. The Arctic’s infrastructure — roads, buildings and bridges — is built on the permafrost and if it melts “we have real problems,” Duck says.

A recent survey of Arctic dwellers found residents want research to be focused on issues relevant to their daily lives. 

Just because the Experimental Lakes Area and the Polar Environment Atmospheric Research Laboratory were saved doesn’t mean Hall and Duck’s return is certain, however.

“I am hoping to get out there [the ELA], so we will see if I can scrape together a small amount of money to go,” says Hall, who says she lost her funding as a result of a fundamental reordering of the way science is funded in Canada.

Duck, meanwhile, says funding was restored — 40 per cent lower than the original amount — but the closure kneecapped his research and gutted his capacity to carry on research into the impact of climate change on the permafrost.

“It took the ability to even propose these kinds of ideas out of our hands — the loss of capacity meant we could no longer make a credible case for it,” he says.

Disappearing Dollars

For environmental scientists, the main source of funding for research has traditionally been the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, Hall says.

Changes to the council over the last few years cut back money for discovery grants for blue-sky science and shifted internal money to research with an industry partner. These changes resulted in Hall losing her discovery grant, she said.

She contacted three industries that release mercury, but to no avail.

“I can’t solve a problem for industry,” Hall says. “I can help study the release of the mercury, but I can’t stop their mercury release — I am not an engineer.”

Disappearing support for research that doesn’t directly benefit industry was a story we also heard from former federal forestry scientist Philp Burton. He told DeSmog Canada in Part 1 of our Cuts to Science series that this is the first time in his 30-year career he has run out of ideas on where to look for research dollars.

In addition to the changes at the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, “there are no other programs specifically related to forestry as there had been in the past,” Burton said.

Lost Capacity

Duck’s team at Eureka helped build a $1.2-million advanced laser radar called lidar, but it’s currently turned off and “its future remains somewhat in doubt,” Duck says.

When the polar lab closed, Duck went from working with 10 people — undergraduate and graduate students, research associates, and a senior scientist — to having one graduate student. All of the instrument operators, who were highly skilled at operating 25 different complex instruments in the hostile Arctic environment, were laid-off, Duck says.

“It was a loss of exceptional people…it also breaks the chain in training graduate students,” Duck added.

The two-year break halted the cycle of senior graduate students passing their knowledge onto junior graduates, resulting in huge loss of “institutional knowledge and capabilities.”

Hall echoes the sentiment. Losing federal funding halted her research and dropped the number of students working under her from around five to one (who is only there because he gets his salary from someone else), she said.

“That engine of training scientists, training students to be scientists, and producing new knowledge basically stopped,” Hall says. “I have seen it throughout my entire department.”

If more funding for research does not become available, Hall says she would take on more teaching responsibilities, while Duck is contemplating changing his research focus after such a major setback.

“This was a life-changing event,” Duck says.

Photo: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center

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