Catherine McKenna’s most memorable moment as environment minister happened in August 2019 during a visit to the Northwest Territories — more than 2,840 kilometres away from Ottawa. 

It was August 2019 and McKenna was touring the newly announced Thaidene Nëné National Park, 14,000 square kilometres of wilderness that would be protected in partnership between the Government of Canada, the Łutsël K’e Dene First Nation, the Northwest Territory Métis Nation and the Deninu K’ue First Nation. 

The group camped on the land and went swimming in the freezing water. At night, they sat around the campfire and McKenna heard the Indigenous leaders speak about what the land meant to them. When they woke up early the next morning, McKenna watched an eagle in the sky. Later, she found an eagle feather near her. Her companions told her it was a sign: the park was meant to be. 

“I remember thinking: if only we could get every Canadian out on the land with the Indigenous people, and maybe they’ll care and understand why this was all so important,” she told The Narwhal through tears. “I felt like the luckiest person to do that job. I grew up in the Hammer [Hamilton, Ont.] and got to be in one of the most crucial portfolios and visit this land. And, I got to do it my way. I stayed true to myself and I left when I felt it was time to leave.” 

McKenna shared this memory in an exit interview with The Narwhal, sitting in a waterfront park in her hometown, where she is enjoying a mini-break with her parents and kids after announcing her retirement from politics. 

McKenna has been a leading minister in a government for six years as it made precedent-setting decisions such as implementing a national price on pollution, overhauling Canada’s environmental assessment regime and spending billions of taxpayer dollars to buy the Trans Mountain pipeline system and the rights to a proposed expansion project from a company that believed its proposal was too risky. She is departing as the infrastructure minister, a position in which she is leading the country’s first national infrastructure assessment. 

The decision to leave politics is rooted in just two things that McKenna says time and again: “My kids and climate change.” She adds: “There’s too little time on both.”

McKenna says she finalized her decision to leave after a conversation with John Kerry, the U.S. climate ambassador, about public and private sector climate financing and other global climate commitments. Two weeks later, she announced her retirement.

“The fact is, climate change is a global issue. There’s obviously a lot more to do in Canada, but the whole world needs to do what Canada has done,” she says. “The whole world needs to have a serious climate plan; they have to have a price on pollution; they have to phase out coal, they have to make investments in public transit and clean energy; they need to do it in partnership with Indigenous peoples; they need to make sure that inclusivity is part of it.” 

McKenna suggests that she’ll be adopting more of a global focus in her climate efforts moving forward. There’s a sense that she can’t do much more in government other than help make it better and safer for future female leaders. She repeatedly mentions the blowback she received from conservative premiers throughout her time in politics. She carefully hints her work was limited by the mechanics of federalism.

But she also makes a promise that when it comes to climate change, she’s not going anywhere. 

There’s been a lot of commentary around your departure that suggests the reason you’re leaving is you felt ineffectual on the climate file in your new role. How do you respond to that? 

I think we did loads in government, and I think we need new people to come in and continue the legacy. Climate is everything. I feel like I did what I came to do. When I came in, we were a joke internationally. We were trying to roll back everything as opposed to moving forward. We’ve done a lot since then, but I really think there are other ways for me, personally, to work on climate change. 

I’m not at all sure what it’s going to be, but COP 26 [the 26th meeting of the Conference of Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change] is really important. I started my political career at COP 21; I was just on the job for a few days. I know a lot of folks there. It needs to be a success and that means support for developing countries. So I’m going to do what I can on climate here but I think there’s a lot of work that needs to be done internationally. And I will certainly be working with the Inuit; they’ve done the least to cause climate change and they are the most impacted. They’re hunters going underwater. 

You were Canada’s second-longest serving environment minister. Were you willing to make the move to infrastructure or were you persuaded into it? 

I had become the face [of the climate portfolio] in a negative way, in a way that just focused on the politics with premiers. It became distracting. But I also saw an opportunity in infrastructure because we have to build the future we want. Every single dollar we spend on infrastructure has to be through a climate lens. I’ve totally transformed, I think, the thinking on infrastructure including the Canada Infrastructure Bank being really focused on getting private sector support for clean infrastructure. I’ve also tried to build this idea that you either increase emissions or reduce emissions when you build things. We brought in natural infrastructure; no one really thought about nature as infrastructure. 

It was great because now I had money to make these investments. And the pandemic made it even more important to build back better. People realized we have to do a lot better and think about climate and also equity when we’re building. 

Lately we’ve been hearing a lot about how to “build back better,” physically and more broadly. There has been a big debate happening in the U.S. right now about President Joe Biden’s $2 trillion infrastructure bill, which includes much more than just roads and bridges. It includes broader action on climate change and “human infrastructure” — measures like an expanded child tax credit and elder care and telecom investments. The bill has sparked a debate over what constitutes “infrastructure.” How do you define it? 

I think Canadians don’t know what “infrastructure” means because it’s a made-up, terrible, bureaucratic term. I think infrastructure is everything you build for the future you want. A clean future. An inclusive future.

Every dollar has to create jobs and growth, it has to tackle climate change and build resilience and it has to build a more equitable society. The good news about infrastructure is it’s tangible and real. We need a vision for our country and then we have to build it, and every day wake up and make sure we’re reducing emissions. 

(Note: the version of Biden’s infrastructure bill passed by the House of Representatives on July 1 is a much slimmed down version of what was originally proposed. The Senate is still debating the proposal.) 

Your government had this big idea that the government, through the Canada Infrastructure Bank, could attract private sector dollars to build things. Has this approach shown any results whatsoever? 

There’s a limit to taxpayer dollars — that’s just a fact. And there’s a lot of private sector dollars and the question is how do you get those dollars to build things that are in the public interest. I think this idea is now just hitting its stride. You’ve got to get the right projects. I think we can innovate but other countries are looking at this as a model too. The U.K. is building one. I had a great call with U.S. Secretary [of Transportation] Pete [Buttigieg] about it. We nerded out on how you do big things with focus and purpose.

This isn’t about making massive returns on investments. This is about getting more infrastructure built in the public interest than we would be able to do otherwise by bringing in the private sector. 

We’re talking as Lytton and Kamloops in B.C. are facing a record-breaking wildfire season. There’s a heat warning where we are today. Has the government done enough to prepare for the dire and deadly consequences of climate change? 

No one will ever do enough, because the whole point of even the Paris Agreement is that every five years you have to increase your ambition. Time is not on our side. What we’re seeing now, it has to be a wake-up call for everyone, including provinces who have to be part of the solution. That is always a bit of a challenge in Canada, to bring all provinces on side. 

When people say: ‘Can’t you do more in Canada to tackle climate change?’ Well the whole world has to [do more], not just Canada. I feel like I’ve left a legacy and a roadmap and everyone now has to grind away. 

We’re also talking soon after news broke that ExxonMobil lobbyists had admitted to using all kinds of methods to fight against climate science and legislation like the carbon price. During your time in government, you faced severe pushback for Bill C-69 and also for purchasing the Trans Mountain pipeline. Can you tell me about your relationship with oil and gas as environment and climate change minister? 

Look, I try to be a practical person. Some energy companies are very progressive and realize they need to be energy companies, not just oil and gas. Suncor supported a price on pollution, and that was extremely helpful. Others were less helpful — they fought tooth and nail. Sometimes it was acrimonious and I felt I got into these massive fights, including with premiers.

What happened with ExxonMobil is completely unconscionable. I don’t know if those tactics are used here but if they are they should be called out, because the reality is they are playing games with our planet and our future and the future of our kids. I’m hopeful that with our new net-zero legislation we will take some drama out of this and everyone’s just going to have to be held accountable to whether you meet your targets and industry has to be part of it. 

You’ve previously said Canada couldn’t phase out oil overnight and that the pipeline project would help with the transition to more renewable energy because all profits from the line will be directed to clean energy initiatives. Do you still stand by that? And how should Canada be phasing out oil? 

I think the world is changing very fast. The shift to clean energy is happening very quickly, faster than when I started this job. I think if [the oil and gas industry] don’t do it, they’re going to be gone like the dinosaurs. The good ones are trying to figure it out and are diversifying. The others have decided to wait it out. They’re not going to win. We have to move to a cleaner future; the risks of not doing that to their own business are enormous. But we have a premier in Alberta who spent a billion dollars on a project we didn’t have any control over, and now that money is gone when it could’ve been used for retraining or clean energy investments.

Looking back, is there anything you wished you had done differently in your dealings with oil and gas? 

Maybe I could’ve been more blunt, because I actually try to be polite. 

I don’t like vilifying people; I just want people to do the right thing. This is a competition to be clean; it’s a race to the top and I want everyone to be part of it. 

The carbon price has now been in effect for two years and has been increased. After all the political pushback and the court cases it was put through, is it doing what it was designed to?

The whole price-on-pollution trajectory was hard. I just felt the weight of having to carry a policy that was so important and thinking ‘am I doing everything to explain to Canadians about why it matters? How do I explain to them that this thing that seems a bit abstract is actually important?’ 

I just remember that one cover of Maclean’s: the resistance. The resistance to what? The resistance to a cleaner future? The resistance to change? The resistance to good jobs? The resistance to what kids want? It was just a bunch of men. It wasn’t always fun. I wish that we could have worked better. I tried really hard to work with every province but they doubled down so we doubled down. I explained to them that they could design this price however they want to. They didn’t buy it; it was just a game.

After the Supreme Court decision and after this two-year battle over it, do you think the carbon price is going to last?

The only way any policy is totally resilient is if Canadians believe in it, and that’s where I have faith. I remember in every question period being slammed by the Conservative Party on having a price on pollution, and even though I don’t agree with the way they’re doing it, they now have to say you have to have a price on pollution. I feel like that’s progress. That is progress.   

This interview has been edited for brevity.

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The federal government received a failing grade in a new national audit of freedom of information regimes across Canada.

The vast majority of federal departments under the Liberal government, which campaigned on a promise to increase information disclosure and transparency in Canada, failed to fulfill requests within the legal timeframe, the audit found.

“I was surprised at the depth of the how poor the federal performance in the audit was,” Fred Vallance-Jones, audit lead author and associate professor at University of King’s College, told DeSmog Canada. “That wasn’t expected.”

The report states, “this year, the audit has a special focus on the performance of the federal government led by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, and performance was even worse than in the latter years of the former Stephen Harper government.”

The national audit, which looks at freedom of information regimes federally, provincially and municipally, was conducted Vallance-Jones and freelance journalist Emily Kitagawa. The audit was prepared for and funded by News Media Canada and is the seventh report of its kind since 2008.

To avoid relying on government reporting and statistics, a team of researchers submitted a total of 428 requests to 24 federal departments, agencies and crown corporations as well as provincial and municipal offices over a period of four months.

At the federal level only a quarter of request were answered within the legal 30-day time limit and one-third of responses were still not fulfilled at the end of the audit timeframe. Two federal departments, the RCMP and the Departmetn of National Defense, provided no response to the requests whatsoever.

“When we were looking at the results, we were so surprised we actually sent emails to a bunch of departments asking, ‘what’s the status of the request,’ expecting them to say, ‘well, we sent our response to you, didn’t you get it?’ ”

Vallance-Jones said the requests, which are made available in the report, were standard and should not have led to delays in response.

Governments in Opposition, Not Power, Champion Access to Information Improvements

Vallance-Jones said he has seen many governments promise to improve the public’s access to information, but few deliver.

“Governments aren’t as enamoured with the idea of freeing information when they’re no longer the opposition,” he said.

“It’s not so shocking from that perspective. But it’s quite a contrast with the promises of government for sunny ways, greater transparency and accountability.”

Vallance-Jones added it’s worth noting the Harper government rode into power on a similar set of promises.

“They promised to change the system after the whole sponsorship scandal and did succeed in adding new crown corporations to the Act.”

“But the Conservatives back off most of the things they promised to do.”

The federal Liberals too have largely failed to move forward on their promised of open, transparent government, Vallance-Jones added.

Bill C-58, introduced by the Liberals in June proposes to amend the current Access to Information Act and Privacy Act, but has been called a step backwards by Canada’s Information Commissioner, Suzanne Legault.

The bill notably stops short of extending much-needed order-making powers to the commissioner.

Currently, the commissioner can review complaints filed under the federal system, but does not have the authority to order federal departments to release withheld information.

Several agencies with ties to the federal government are also left outside Access to Information legislation, meaning they have no obligation to release information to the public.

The Liberal government has stopped charging fees for fulfilling access to information requests, aside from a baseline five-dollar processing fee but the bill reintroduces the possibility of new fees as well as the right to deny requests deemed too large.

The audit found feed highly problematic in other Canadian jurisdictions. The City of Windsor provided the auditors with a $1872.60 fee estimate for a routine request, while the Ontario Ministry of Health cashed a cheque for a request but failed to provide the information paid for.

Overall the audit found the federal government’s proposed “watered-down” reforms  saying the Bill actually provides new avenues for agencies to deny the release of information.

Federal Freedom of Information in #Canada Worse Now Than Under #Harper: New Report https://t.co/B7waLPEspS #cdnpoli #cdnfoi @carollinnitt

— DeSmog Canada (@DeSmogCanada) September 29, 2017

Electronic Data. Because It’s 2017

The audit found the feds consistently failed to provide electronic, machine-readable documents.

The release of paper files or static PDFs that cannot be searched for keywords or data creates an “error-prone, complex process that many would not even attempt and which often yields poor results,” the audit found.

Despite requesting machine-readable records, the auditors found several federal departments did not comply.

“This is an ongoing problem,” Vallance-Jones said.

“Many places did a good job of this, but the feds did a particularly poor job of releasing machine-readable records.”

“This is the 21st century,” he said. “Journalists and the public need access to government data to do their jobs. But there is still a reluctance.”

Vallance-Jones added the audit found information released in electronic format is less likely to be released in full.

“Am I surprised? No. Am I disappointed that we’ve still not moved to a day where information is released electronically? Yes,” he said.

Systemic Problems of Secrecy Left Unaddressed

Not enough has been done to address the level of secrecy baked into the system, Vallance-Jones said.

“The federal government has done something but they haven’t addressed the systemic problems of exemptions, a lack of access to ministers’ offices and that kind of thing.”

“In a sense it’s an old baseline — we have a Westminster Parliamentary system which has always been founded on idea of cabinet secrecy and a civil service that is not heard from, that is silent.”

That lands Canadians in a situation where what is public is what the Minister says is public, Vallance-Jones said.

In addition, over the last several decades governments have become more sophisticated in how they restrict information.

“In general they have become better at turning the apparatus of government to private ends,” Vallane-Jones said, adding this was prevalent in the Harper government’s muzzling, reliance on spokespeople and long communications delays.

“You add that up, and it results in a lot of government secrecy.”

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One month from now, arguably the most significant climate negotiations the world has ever seen will begin in Paris — and Prime Minister-designate Justin Trudeau plans on being there with a gaggle of premiers in tow, a show of Canadian representation unimaginable in previous years.

The COP21 UN-led climate summit is organized around one seemingly impossible outcome: a binding international climate agreement to limit global warming to 2 degrees Celsius.

B.C. Premier Christy Clark said she has been planning on attending the negotiations for several months. “I’ve already booked my ticket,” she said in a statement e-mailed to DeSmog Canada, adding she’s “delighted” Justin Trudeau will be in attendance.

“I’m delighted…we’ll have a real full contingent. I think almost all premiers are already planning to attend.”

Manitoba NDP Premier Greg Selinger confirmed he will attend the negotiations as well.

“Yes, I think you’re going to see a pretty good turn out this year,” he told DeSmog Canada.

Selinger added: “I just chatted with [Justin Trudeau] and I think it’s positive that Canada is going together. I think it’s good for the country and sends a positive message.” 

Alberta Premier Rachel Notley’s office also confirmed her attendance, as did the offices of Prince Edward Island Premier Wade MacLauchlan, Nunavut Premier Peter Taptuna and Quebec Premier Philippe Couillard.

Nova Scotia Premier Stephen McNeil will send Environment Minister Andrew Younger in his stead.

“It's encouraging that the premiers seem to be interested in attending COP,” Torrance Coste, who will be attending the conference as a member of the Canadian Youth Delegation, said.

Coste added that he’s hopeful that attendance will “translate into serious commitments around carbon emissions reductions and climate action in every province.”

Trudeau Taking a Cautious Approach to Provinces and Climate

In addition to attending the climate talks, Trudeau has promised to convene the provinces within 90 days of the conference to “work together on a framework to combat climate change.”

“There is no one-size-fits-all solution,” Trudeau stated on the campaign trail.

The Liberal party has been criticized for failing to commit to specific greenhouse gas reduction targets — although the party platform does agree with the world’s top scientists and policy makers that temperatures must be kept from rising more than 2 degrees Celsius.

In the week before the election, Trudeau told the CBC he would not commit to specific emissions targets.

“Everybody has thrown out numbers and different targets, and what they’re going to do and what is going to happen,” Trudeau said.

“What we need is not ambitious political targets. What we need is an ambitious plan to reduce our emissions in the country.”

Canada’s current climate commitment, formed under the Conservative government, is to reduce emissions by 30 per cent by 2050 from 2005 levels, a target the Liberals along with climate analysts have criticized as weak and inadequate.

Critics also pointed out that Canada’s total lack of climate legislation means the country is unlikely to meet that target, even though it is much weaker than commitments made by other industrial nations.

Trudeau has promised to work with the provinces on case-by-case basis to address location-specific sources of emissions and appropriate solutions.

A New Post-Harper Era

The approach goes against the grain of the Conservative government under Stephen Harper, which was accused of taking credit at the federal level for emissions reductions achieved by the provinces.

Some provinces even expressed frustration that the federal government claimed to be consulting with the provinces in advance of last year’s climate summit in Peru when those consultations hadn’t actually taken place.

The Harper government also warned the provinces that Trudeau would impose provincial carbon taxes if they agreed to work with the Liberals. But with strong public approval of B.C.’s carbon tax and Ontario jumping on the carbon pricing bandwagon with Quebec, it’s clear that ship has already sailed.

Coste said Trudeau’s approach represents a major departure from the Harper government, “whose hostile approach on climate change was to do essentially nothing at all.”

He added he does have some concern, however, that a lack of consensus between the provinces might act as an impediment to Canada’s meaningful participation on the international stage.

“Will the premiers of, say, B.C., Saskatchewan, Ontario and Nova Scotia all be willing to commit to the same level of climate action? And if they did, would it be the serious commitments that climate scientists around the world are calling for? A big concern is that the new Prime Minister would use a lack of consensus among the premiers as an excuse to not sign a legally binding agreement in Paris.”

"Trudeau has an opportunity in Paris to remake Canada's reputation as an international leader," Tzeporah Berman, B.C. environmentalist and adjunct professor in the faculty of Environmental Studies at York University, told DeSmog Canada.

But to do so will require strong federal leadership, Berman said. "The essential question is whether [the new federal government] will step up to this challenge or leave the Provinces to do all the heavy lifting."

Berman said although it is clear Justin Trudeau will be a very different Prime Minister than Stephen Harper, more than strong provincial policies are needed to reset the stage.

"Our new federal government must set a level of ambition and a floor for the carbon price that ensures we have a coherent National climate plan that Canadians can be proud of in Paris and beyond."

Premiers Optimistic About Working with Ottawa on Climate

The provinces, for their part, seem excited at the prospect of fresh blood in Ottawa.

Premier Clark indicated she supports Trudeau’s province-by-province approach.

“I think that the federal government is really wise to take the course of allowing provinces to lead when it comes to addressing climate change,” Clark said. “Each of us has such different approaches.”

“I think what the federal government is wisest to do, and I think this is what Prime Minister Trudeau was talking about, is making sure the provinces are as coordinated as we can be, make sure that every province is doing everything that they can to lead, but not to start to fiddle with real success that we've seen in some places.”

“Climate change can be a source of innovation,” Premier Selinger told DeSmog Canada. “I think we’re all going to have to work together and I think we’ll see a variety of approaches across Canada.”

Selinger added he is looking forward to seeing a national climate target and more collaboration between provinces in achieving it.

“It’s not going to be perfect, but it’s going to be good to get started.”

Image: Justin Trudeau

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Holy smokes.

Polls are in and Canadians across the country are expressing surprise at the strong win for the federal Liberal party.

While there’s much ink to be spilled over former Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s reign, he’s likely locked in a bathroom now, so we’ll save that for another, less change-y time.

Canada, you have a new Prime Minister. I would say ‘go home, you’re drunk.’ But don’t, because you’re not. This is actually happening.

But wait, what is actually happening? We have a new majority government. Before the fun gets away with us, let’s do a quick reality check for what the Liberal Party and incoming Prime Minister Justin Trudeau have been promising all y’all on some of our top DeSmog Canada topics: climate, environment, science and transparency.

Justin Trudeau’s Liberals on Climate

On the issue of Canada’s climate commitments for the UN climate summit this fall in Paris, the Liberal platform is underdeveloped. On the campaign trail last week party leader Justin Trudeau told the CBC he would not commit to specific emissions targets.

“Everybody has thrown out numbers and different targets, and what they’re going to do and what is going to happen,” Trudeau said.

“What we need is not ambitious political targets. What we need is an ambitious plan to reduce our emissions in the country.”

The federal Conservative party promised to reduce emissions by 30 per cent from 2005 levels by 2050, a target that has been roundly criticized as weak. Others have pointed out the Conservative plan made no mention of the Alberta oilsands, the fastest growing source of emissions in Canada.  

Although the Liberals don’t have a specific plan yet, the party has promised to establish a new climate change framework by February 2016 that includes an eventual phase out of fossil fuel subsidies. The plan will also include investment in climate resilience, clean technology and low-carbon infrastructure.

The party will also set aside $2 billion for emissions-reducing projects through a new Low Carbon Economy Trust.

Trudeau has also promised to attend climate negotiations in Paris with all of the premiers and to work with the provinces on emissions reduction plans that are location specific.

Importantly the Liberals have also promised to work with other countries like Mexico and the U.S. in developing shared clean energy plans.

Liberals on Environment

The Liberal party is promising to undo some of the damage done to Canada’s environmental laws and environmental assessment process for projects like pipelines.

The party promises to establish new, credible reviews for proposed development that are comprehensive, consider full and cumulative impacts, including upstream impacts like development in the oilsands, as well as greenhouse gas emissions.

Their revamped review process promises to be evidence-based and allow for more meaningful participation by the public.

Liberal party candidate Jonathan Wilkinson, who took the North Vancouver riding with 56 per cent of the vote, has also promised to scrap the current Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain pipeline review in favour of a revitalized process.

Trudeau has voiced his support for pipelines, including the Kinder Morgan and Keystone XL pipelines, but has also acknowledged “even though [it is] governments that grant permits, ultimately it’s only communities that grant permission.”

In that light, the party is also promising to engage more respectfully with First Nations during the consultation process. Considering cumulative impacts around the oilsands has been a major issue for local First Nations. On this note the Liberals have also promised to immediately implement the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples — something that will alter the manner in which First Nations are approached and consulted on major energy projects.

Since 2012 the Conservative party has weakened and eliminated many of Canada’s strongest environmental laws, including the Fisheries Act and the Navigable Waters Act.

The Liberals have promised to review changes to both of these Acts, re-instate what was removed from them and possibly up protections where warranted.

Significantly for B.C. the Liberal party has promised a moratorium on crude oil tanker traffic on the province’s north coast.

Liberals on Science

The Liberal party has taken a strong stance on the war on science in Canada, promising to free scientists to speak publicly about their work.

Trudeau has also promised to instate a Parliamentary Science Officer to ensure transparency, expertise and independence of federal scientists. This position will mirror that of the Parliamentary Budget Officer.

In addition to unmuzzling scientists, the party also wants to work collaboratively with the provinces, First Nations and other stakeholders when it comes to ocean management.

This is significant in light of the Conservative government’s de-funding of numerous marine science programs, including the only research being conducted into the effects of industrial pollutants on marine mammals. The Liberal party has promised to reinstate $40 million of funding for the Department of Fisheries and Oceans.

The Liberals plan on incorporating more science into federal environmental assessments including the consideration of climate change and environmental impacts of oilsands development on pipeline projects. Under the Conservatives both emissions and environmental impacts of the oilsands were considered ‘outside the relevant scope’ of pipeline reviews.

The federal Conservatives also fought against First Nations and conservation groups regarding the Species at Risk Act and its implication for major projects like oilsands mines or pipelines.

The Liberal party has promised to respond more quickly and more scientifically to the issue of at risk species. This means species will be listed faster and mandatory timelines will be put in place for species once they are listed as at risk.

A new version of the Species at Risk Act is already on the Liberal’s environmental plan.

Liberals on Transparency

When it comes to dealing with media, Trudeau has promised to have a much more open and transparent relationship with journalists.

Through its Transparency Act, the party has promised to make access to information much easier for Canadians, including making all government documents freely available online.

The Access to Information Act will be amended to make information ‘Open by Default,’ that is, more easily available to the public, on quicker timelines and for less money.

Current requests under the act cost $5 per request but may be subject to additional fees if the request is large or requires a lot of time. The amended act will limit the possible fee to the initial $5 charge.

In addition the Act will be reviewed every five years and expanded to include the Prime Minister’s Office, which is usually exempt from disclosure rules.

Trudeau has also promised to repeal certain elements of the Conservative’s controversial anti-terrorism legislation Bill C-51.

Former prime ministers, national editorial boards, tech experts, legal scholars, civil society organizations, democracy watchdogs and droves of citizens opposed the bill, saying it undermined the democratic rights of Canadians.

Many were outraged at the Liberals’ decision to support it.

Trudeau has promised to “take a constructive approach to improving the bill” including instituting greater oversight of Canada’s national security agencies and establishing an “all-party committee of Parliamentarians, to provide oversight of various agencies, including CSIS, CSE, the RCMP and DND.”

No matter what, Canadians are in for a real mix up under this new leadership. Reuters is reporting Justin Trudeau will bring “glamour, youth and charisma” to Ottawa in the dawning of this new age. I’ll reserve that kind of cheer for another moment. For now, I’ll just say the Liberal party certainly has their work cut out for them.

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Mel Arnold, a federal Conservative candidate from the North Okanagan-Shuswap riding in B.C., told the CBC he remains “unconvinced” by climate science and that the role of human activity in the rise of global temperatures remains undetermined.

In an interview with the CBC’s Daybreak South radio show this week, Arnold told host Chris Walker he believes only 1.5 per cent of greenhouse gas emissions are human-caused.

Arnold also said cycles in climate could be responsible for recent changes in temperature.

"I don't know that it has been determined for sure that human activity is the main cause. It is part of the process," he told Walker. “But how much of it is actually naturally occurring, that's I think where the debate is."

"As you know, this area was once buried in kilometres of thick ice during the ice ages. And we have approximately 30-year cycles on weather conditions here. Those types of things are still in play."

Cindy Derkaz, federal Liberal candidate from the North Okanagan-Shuswap riding, said Arnold was simply toeing the Conservative Party line.

“I wasn’t surprised,” Derkaz said. “I feel that he is following a party line and bound to do that and I’ve noticed that there’s been no rebuttal of [Arnold’s statements] from the party.”

Derkaz said the science of climate change, including the role of human activity, is “unequivocal” and that constituents in her region are already feeling the effects of warmer global temperatures.

“We are experiencing some of the hottest years on record one after another. We are experiencing serious forest fire seasons, problems with our water supply drying up which leads to a diminished flow in rivers which negatively affects the return of fish.”

“These are all problems we are dealing with.”

NDP candidate Jacqui Gingras said Arnold is “actively denying climate change” and it is “outrageous and dangerous to hold the view” that humans are not contributing to increasing temperatures.

“We’ve been measuring climate change for 150 years and have been able to reconstruct climate going back 8,000 years,” Gingras said. “Thirteen of the 15 warmest years on record have occurred since 2000.”

Gingras said that researchers from Climate Central calculate that the odds of climate change not being attributable to human activity is one in 27 million.

Gingras said Arnold is apparently willing to bet against those odds.

“To the south of us in Kelowna there were terrible fires this year that had enormous costs on people's lives,” she said. “Our local industry, the forestry industry, relies on those trees.”

“We’re on the brink of something traumatic, not only locally, but globally there’s a crisis building.”

Wildfires and trees were also present on the mind of federal Green Party candidate Chris George.

“These fires have been a big issue,” George said. “All of the surrounding forests are vulnerable to beetle kill because winters don’t get cold enough to kill the insects off which means that more dry standing forests and they are more vulnerable to wildfire.”

George added that before this season’s wildfires, heavy rainfall caused mudslides in the Shuswap region.

“We basically lost our tourism season. The mudslides wiped out roads, filed our lakes and streams with mud and shut down houseboat operators.”

George said the increased intensity and frequency of both drought and heavy rainfall are “easily linked to climate change.” Both tourism and agriculture, which the area depends upon, are being “disproportionally hit” by the effects of warmer temperatures, he said.

George added he’s surprised to hear any candidates would question the impacts of human activity on the climate. “I was a bit astonished that that’s still a position out there.”

According to Environment Canada, greenhouse gasses are released into the atmosphere as a result of transportation, oil and gas development, the production of electricity, energy use in buildings, industrial and trade activities, agriculture and the production of waste.  

Andrew Weaver, climate scientists and MLA for the B.C. Green Party said the comments are “outrageous” but he is “not surprised” to hear them coming from a representative of Conservative Party.

“This is common within the Harper Tories to find people whose views are based on… I don’t know where they get their views from, but they’re not scientific,” Weaver said.

He added the statements point to the larger problem of scientific literacy in political decision-making.

“If you make decisions as a matter of faith — ‘I believe this to be true’ — it’s the beginning of the downfall of society.”

Campaign manager Linda Hawkes said Arnold was unavailable for comment.

Image: Mel Arnold via Twitter

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