Now that Prime Minister Mark Carney has scrapped Justin Trudeau’s failed $200-billion-plus climate strategy, Canadian taxpayers deserve a forensic audit into where the money went and where the unspent portion (if any) is going.
Background of the Climate Plan
The spending of more than $200 billion was confirmed in an April 14, 2023 press release by then environment minister Steven Guilbeault in the wake of the March 2023 federal budget. Guilbeault described that year’s federal budget as “the single biggest package of climate commitments in Canada’s history (that) will take total federal investments north of $200 billion” since the Trudeau government came to power in 2015.
It was administered by 149 federal government agencies, and that was more than three years ago. How much has actually been spent up to now is anyone’s guess.
Targets and Reality
All of it was aimed at meeting the federal government’s now-scrapped targets of lowering Canada’s industrial greenhouse gas emissions to at least 40% below 2005 levels by 2030, at least 45% below 2005 levels by 2035 and net zero emissions by 2050.
In December 2023, Guilbeault’s department said the Trudeau government was “projected to exceed Canada’s interim objective of 20% below 2005 levels by 2026” while remaining “firmly on track to meet our ambitious but achievable 2030 target” of 40% below.
This was nonsense. According to the latest government data from 2024, Canada’s emissions under the Trudeau government were a mere 10.3% below 2005 levels.
Comparison with the United States
By comparison, emissions in the U.S. fell 20% between 2005 and 2024, without a national carbon tax. Some of that was due to different energy mixes in the two countries, which made it easier for the U.S. to replace coal-fired electricity with natural gas, compared to Canada’s cleaner electricity grid.
But another major reason was that Canada’s population grew at almost double the U.S. rate from 2005 to 2024 — by 28.9% compared to 15.2%.
Immigration and Emissions
The Trudeau government’s decision to open the floodgates to more immigration starting in 2022 — which even it had to admit was a mistake — worked against its policy to lower emissions, one of many blunders it made.
The problem is that while what the Liberals did on this file merits a forensic audit, it’s the last thing they’re going to allow, given their majority government.
