Manitoba’s surprisingly anti-climate government

Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 05/04/2024 (552 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Last fall, some suspected the Manitoba NDP entered office unprepared to tackle climate change. It’s not unimportant. The energy transition will drive Manitoba’s future economy, feeding the horse that pulls the social cart.

Those suspicions were confirmed in last Tuesday’s budget.

The only significant action on climate change from the Wab Kinew government has been to cut the gas tax, promoting more, not less, use of fossil fuels.

That action alone, at a cost of about a quarter billion dollars, dwarfs any token measures in the opposite direction.

From Day 1 in office, our new government has failed to articulate a clear policy on the most important issue of our era. The premier and finance minister were initially equivocal about carbon pricing, which is a key tool in the move to a low-carbon economy as more than 100 economists (the experts) recently declared.

Carbon pricing is not the only tool in the toolbox, but it is the most efficient tool.

But in recent weeks, and to the dismay of many, Kinew threw his support behind federal Opposition Leader Pierre Poilievre and the “axe the tax” crowd.

B.C. NDP Premier David Eby had the integrity to call out Pierre Poilievre’s nonsense. Premier Kinew should have done the same.

Last Tuesday’s budget deeply disappointed those expecting serious action on climate change after seven years of a do-nothing PC government. Manitobans got more of the same.

One need look no further than page 71 of the Estimates of Expenditure and the budget for Climate Action and Energy Innovation. In the description it states that it does this: “Works across departments, with Crown agencies and external stakeholders to co-ordinate climate and energy related matters that contribute to Manitoba become a clean energy leader while taking bold action to address climate change.”

Under the PC government in 2023/24, the budget was a paltry $3.473 million.

In 2024/25 under the new NDP government the budget was… wait for it… $3.473 million.

In real, inflation-adjusted dollars, that’s a budget cut.

The only difference was that new government added flowery rhetoric about “bold action to address climate change” without adding another dime.

Similarly, the Green and Carbon Reduction Fund (page 171 of the Estimates of Expenditure) was frozen at the same level as the previous PC government.

One hoped that Kinew and Finance Minister Adrien Sala, after some early missteps last fall about carbon pricing, would steer the ship back on course at budget time.

They did not.

The premier’s most recent rhetoric, that Manitoba deserves a free pass on carbon pricing because of our clean energy grid, is nonsense. More than 70 per cent of our energy use is fossil-fuel-based, mainly for heating and transportation. Getting to net zero means reducing our use of those fossil fuels. Other than cosmetic measures, there was nothing in the budget to address climate change, and no plan presented to chart a path to do so.

An EV rebate? Fine, but without a plan to build out a charging network, EV uptake will proceed at a snail’s pace. A promise of 5,000 heat pumps won’t move the needle on a shift to a low-carbon economy. These are window dressing, not a serious climate-action plan.

And axing the carbon tax won’t make life more affordable for most Manitobans. In fact, quite the opposite. The rebate makes four out of five families better off. And despite the claims of the “axe the tax crowd”, carbon pricing has a trivial effect on inflation.

Kinew is Canada’s most popular premier. He should use that bully pulpit, as Eby has done, and denounce the misinformation about carbon pricing.

It may be that those in Manitoba who care about the environment, climate change, and without exaggeration, the future of the planet, will need to find a new political home. That will likely require a grass roots effort.

Kinew’s government gained office by a narrow margin. The NDP majority rested upon just a few thousand votes in less than a dozen urban ridings. They were successful because they ran a carefully choreographed campaign targeting those ridings, squeezing out some surprising wins.

A motivated group, bringing together disaffected NDP, Liberal and Green voters, and targeting those same ridings, could easily alter a future election result, even without electing an MLA.

Franklin Roosevelt is said to have once remarked to a lobbyist group pressing for legislative action: “I completely agree. Now go out there and make me do it.”

It is now time for progressive voters in Manitoba concerned about the environment to do just that.

Scott Forbes is an ecologist at the University of Winnipeg.