Provinces, U.S. call nation's shots

"WHO speaks for Canada?" Apply former prime minister Pierre Elliott Tru­deau's famous question to today's con­joined issues of climate change and energy policy and the answer wouldn't be the federal government. It would be a bizarre com­bination of the U.S. and the provinces.

Ottawa has ceded its policy-making responsibility to set overall national targets for greenhouse gas reductions to U.S. President Barack Obama's administration. Following America's lead, Canada has pledged to reduce emissions by 20 per cent from 2006 levels by 2020, considerably less than Europe's pledge of 20 per cent from 1990 levels.

Even so, the emission reduction regulations required to reach this modest goal are fraught with danger for any Canadian federal government, especially the minority Harper Conservatives who are based in the Western oil patch but need Ontario and Quebec votes to win a majority.

Not surprisingly, the Conservatives have twice postponed the release of their plan, putting it off until sometime next year. And Federal Environment Minister Jim Prentice has fallen back -- again -- on the U.S., saying Canada will follow the U.S. lead on emission reduction regulations because Canada's must be comparable to those of its biggest customer/trading partner.

Last week, the Calgary-based Canada West Foundation warned that Canada's national unity will be imperilled if Canada's climate change strategy imposes national greenhouse emission targets requiring Alberta and Saskatchewan to match those of non-oil producing provinces.

"While there is no doubt that Alberta and Saskatchewan are Canada's largest per capita GHG emitters, it does not follow that they must suffer the most to meet Canada's international commitments," says the foundation. "The residents of Alberta and Saskatchewan will suffer unduly and the federation will be severely strained."

Foundation chairman Roger Gibbons predicts that if the federal government doesn't move off its current course, "we're going to be mired in a swamp of regional and interprovincial conflict."

The Conservatives may be listening. The CBC reported Monday the government is considering giving the oil and gas industry special smaller emission reduction targets of 15 instead of 48 megatonnes and allowing tar sands emissions to grow by 165 per cent by 2020.

The foundation's study was based on a report by the Pembina Institute and the Suzuki Foundation financed but not endorsed by the TD Bank. It found Alberta, B.C. and Saskatchewan would bear the brunt of Ottawa's emission reduction targets. While their economies will still grow, their 2020 GDPs would be much smaller than if carbon output was allowed to roar ahead at today's pace. Alberta's contraction would be $22 billion; B.C.'s, $5.02 billion; and Saskatchewan's, $0.61 billion.

By contrast, the economies of Manitoba, Ontario and Quebec would all enjoy bigger GDPs in 2020 than under today's carbon status quo: Manitoba's by $1.02 billion; Ontario's by $3.9 billion and Quebec's by $2.45 billion.

The governments of Ontario and Quebec are also warning of political trouble should their more ambitious plans to reduce emissions be obliterated by vastly increasing emissions from Alberta's tar sands. Late last month, Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty gave this warning to Ottawa: "When we have (a national) plan in place, it had better not discriminate against Ontarians who have in fact worked long and hard to reduce our emissions."

The ultimate irony of the government's political nightmare is that the Conservatives were the originators and once the strongest proponents of a "Made in Canada" climate change and energy policy. That, of course, was in the days when they believed the real problem was air pollution, were in bed with the climate-change deniers, and were convinced that, in Prime Minister Stephen Harper's words, the Kyoto Protocol was a "socialist scheme to suck money out of wealth-producing nations."

Perhaps the Conservatives should heed the remainder of Trudeau's famous quotation: "Our strength lies in our national will to live and work together as a people. Weaken that will, that spirit of community, and you weaken Canada. Weaken Canada, and you damage all the parts, no matter how rich some of those parts may be. My friends, you and I must stand up for Canada and we must see that there is a national government that has the courage to do so as well."

Frances Russell is a Winnipeg author and political commentator.

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition December 16, 2009 A15