NDP plan would make polluters pay: Mulcair
Polluters would have to pay for their actions under a plan to put a price on carbon and set limits for greenhouse gas emissions, New Democrat Leader Tom Mulcair said Sunday.
Speaking in Toronto, Mulcair laid out a platform he said was needed to restore Canada’s environmental credibility shredded by the Conservatives under Stephen Harper.
“He’s done absolutely nothing — nothing but damage to our global reputation and to our planet,” Mulcair said.
An NDP government would develop a national cap- and- trade system that sets hard targets for the emissions most scientists say are contributing to global warming and potentially catastrophic climate change, Mulcair said.
Some provinces — British Columbia, Alberta, Quebec and Ontario — have already implemented their own measures on climate change such as implementing a carbon tax or cap- and- trade system.
Mulcair, a former Quebec environment minister, said provinces would be allowed to opt out of a national scheme if their efforts are as good or better.
“We’re not going to replace something that’s working,” Mulcair told an enthusiastic crowd.
Details on those objectives would come at the UN climate change conference in Paris in December — after consultations with the provinces and activist groups, he said.
To head off any criticism that he would be imposing a new tax, Mulcair said money raised from carbon pricing would go to the provinces to bolster their pollution- fighting efforts. He refused to say what the carbon price would be, saying the market will dictate that.
“Polluters will pay because it’s not fair to ask Canadian families to clean up somebody else’s mess,” Mulcair said.
The NDP would also reintroduce a bill first proposed by his predecessor, Jack Layton, to ensure Canada meets long- term targets for reducing greenhouse gases.
Mulcair took repeated aim at both Liberal and Conservative governments.
The Tories have failed to regulate the oil and gas sector — the single fastest growing source of emissions in Canada, he said.
Canada is the only country to have withdrawn from the Kyoto Protocol on harmful emissions, but the Conservatives say the agreement would not have helped combat climate change.
John Trent, a senior fellow at the Centre on Governance at the University of Ottawa, said Mulcair’s cap- and- trade plan could let large corporations continue emitting by allowing them to trade their pollution for economic benefits from other companies or sources.
It is also a difficult system to implement, Trent said.
Critics, such as the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, have argued increasing carbon prices would cost industry hundreds of millions of dollars.
A July 2014 analysis by Brattle Group international consultants said increasing Alberta’s carbon tax to $ 50 a tonne — a hike of almost 70 per cent — would be the best way to reduce its harmful power- generation emissions.
Polluters will pay because it’s not fair to ask Canadian families to clean up somebody else’s mess.