Rethinking Lifestyle

Two events have been in the news this past few weeks that highlight why Canada is falling further and further behind in addressing the environmental problems caused by poor regulation of the use of natural resources.

The first incident, in Vancouver, involved a small but very visible spill of heavy fuel oil. The Natural Resources Minister defended the slow clean-up response and reassured the public that as always happens in Canada “the polluter pays” for the cost of the clean up.

On the other side of the country, provincial premiers met to confirm their commitment to taking action to fight climate change. The can’t however, agree how to go about it – Quebec and Ontario want to cap and trade carbon emissions and have set hard targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, whilst Manitoba, Prince Edward Island and Alberta have less clearly defined targets to reduce carbon emissions, while Saskatchewan says Canada’s priority should be investing in innovative projects that will help make burning coal cleaner. This lack of agreement hinders significant progress and creates a complex and varied regulatory regime for “polluting” businesses. In the end, the premiers did not agree to any specific goals in their joint declaration – only to “adopt” and “promote” ways to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and “advance” new technologies.

The Federal government, meanwhile, continues to hold out against any suggestion that fiscal incentives are required to reduce the production of greenhouse gases. They are concerned that increasing the cost of doing business in Canada could drive companies to move to the USA or further afield. In this case it seems that companies are free to “pollute” without paying any costs, leaving tax-payers to bear the cost of an unstable and warming climate.

I worry that part of the problem may be that many on the right still do not believe that climate change is caused by man made emissions of GHGs and in fact see warming in the arctic as an opportunity to extract more resources more cheaply. They also see the idea of “polluter pays” as something that is done after the fact. The mess is made and once the profits are in there can be a clear up of what has been left behind. Unfortunately, we have seen time and again in Canada how poorly this idea has served us, leaving tax-payers to pay both the direct financial costs of a clean up and to deal with the long term health and social consequences of resource extraction. Despite attempts to introduce new insurance guarantees with greater sums promised to pay for environmental disasters these are largely untested and rely upon effective legislation, appropriate monitoring and strong enforcement. The track record for implementation of these three elements is poor however, and pollutions goes on unregulated, and chronic long term effects are not even identified. Even when provinces have tried to hold polluters to account we find that dealing multi-nationals companies and free trade agreements the legal system will rarely take the moral high ground, leaving new owners to enjoy the profits and ordinary Canadians to pay the costs of dealing with pollution.

Do you want to go on paying?