NDP must do better on environment

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 16/12/2023 (908 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Scott Forbes

From its beginning, the NDP has claimed environmentalists as part of their core constituency. Many would like to think that the NDP has deep environmental roots, but growing evidence suggests that’s no longer true. The NDP, especially at the provincial level, has repeatedly embraced policies that drive environmentalists crazy.

In B.C., it was the Horgan government spending billions on fossil fuel subsidies. On leaving office Horgan wasted no time joining the board of a coal company. In Alberta Rachel Notley pushed hard for more pipelines, more oil and gas production. During their recent election campaign, conspicuously absent was any mention of climate change or renewable energy. Those are dirty words to card-carrying NDP members in Alberta.

In Manitoba the NDP government under Greg Selinger made its anti-environmental stance clear. Selinger was booted from office for his spendthrift ways and broken promises about taxes. While politicians may feign environmental interest with flowery rhetoric, they cannot hide from their cold, hard budget numbers. By that measure, the Selinger government was as anti-environment as they come.

From the 2011 through 2015 budgets, spending rose almost everywhere, roughly 10 per cent on average. There were three exceptions: the budget for Indian and Northern Affairs was cut 5.65 per cent. Agriculture, 10.1 per cent. In a fourth, Infrastructure, spending fell too, but that was due to enormous flood costs in 2011-2012.

And the biggest spending cut of all? It was, wait for it, Conservation and Water Stewardship. That was cut a whopping 11.5 per cent. The environment was the top priority, but only for budget cuts.

Now skip ahead to 2023. The key election focus of the NDP was understandably health care. The environment? Token promises were made to appease that constituency. An EV rebate here, some heat pumps there.

But the key environmental promise?

Let’s jack up burning of fossil fuels in the name of ‘affordability.’ We’ll eliminate (temporarily) the provincial gas tax. Progressive voters concerned about the environment were dismayed. As an affordability measure it stinks. It benefits the wealthiest the most. F-150 owners, however, were happy.

Critics might have held their noses, excusing it as a necessary hardball tactic during a tight election campaign. But not when right after the election Finance Minister Sala and Premier Wab Kinew joined the baying hounds of Conservatives calling for a repeal of the carbon tax on home-heating. It’s for ‘affordability’ they said.

Because of the progressive nature of the federal rebate, rescinding the carbon tax makes life more, not less expensive for most Manitobans.

Some counter that the recent agreement with Ottawa to purchase new generators for Manitoba Hydro dams is a big green step. Hardly. It’s a blatant subsidy for a Crown corporation, something they should’ve paid for. That federal money would’ve been better spent building out wind and solar.

Now a major environmental litmus test for our new government comes with the Vivian sand-mining proposal.

Few projects approach its massive geographic scale: thousands of large-bore wells drilled across and through an aquifer spanning most of southeastern Manitoba. The potential environmental risks are enormous: biological contamination of aquifers by bacteria, viruses, and fungi; non-biological contamination by heavy metals or other toxic chemicals; and mixing of upper and lower aquifers allowing surface contaminants like pig manure sprayed as fertilizer to potentially flow into drinking water, among others.

The review by the Clean Environment Commission identified myriad knowledge gaps and uncertainties. Under such circumstances, the precautionary principle must hold. Move carefully. It’s up to project proponents to prove the project is safe in all its elements. It’s not the responsibility of local landowners, municipalities, First Nations and Métis people to prove it’s risky.

Our new government has given cause for skepticism about its environmental bona fides. But it is still early days and not too late for a course correction.

For that, two key steps are needed.

First, they need to roll out a clean energy plan with full details of not just aspirations, but concrete actions, and soon. In their first budget.

Second, they must stop undermining Environment and Climate Change Minister Tracy Schmidt. This needs to be a high-priority portfolio, not a ministerial backwater where you search for budget cuts when deficits soar. Like the last NDP government.

Scott Forbes is a University of Winnipeg ecologist.