Ottawa in the dark about climate threat

At the very centre of the Trudeau Liberal government’s environmental policy is climate change and how Canada should react to it going forward. It’s why we already have or will be getting a price on carbon. It resonates through the Liberal election platform.

So how is it the bureaucracy that actually runs the country on behalf of the elected government is largely in the dark about the impact and threats posed by climate change?

And worse, hasn’t even figured out what the risks are, let alone how best to deal with them?

That’s what Environment Commissioner Julie Gelfand says in her recently released report. The government isn’t nearly ready for the increase in massive storms, frequent floods and fires that are expected to result from climate instability.

At a news conference last week, Gelfand said her “biggest concern” is that “… the federal government is not prepared to deal with the impacts of climate change that we are feeling right now.”

The audits her office conducted surveyed the readiness of 19 major federal departments, including National Defence, Infrastructure Canada and Transport Canada. The latter, auditors found, has done a good job of risk assessment and impact mitigation in areas like the effect of rising seal levels on ports and the impact on railways of extreme cold and lost permafrost. That’s the good news. The bad is that only five of the 19 departments audited had identified climate threats and required action.

Not that the remaining 14 departments aren’t aware of the evolving situation. They generally agreed it would be beneficial to have risks identified. They just haven’t done anything about doing that. So they’re concerned enough to acknowledge they are worried, but not enough to act. How’s that for small comfort?

If this doesn’t boggle your mind, it should. Climate change and its impacts are among the most pressing priorities around the world. They’re not some dark shadows on the horizon. They’re happening right now. Rising sea levels. Violent storms. Unprecedented wildfires. Drought. Flooding. You may be among those who minimize the threat climate change poses overall, but you can’t minimize things like the Alberta and Saskatchewan wildfires and shrinking ice in the Arctic. They’re happening, and all predictions are they will get worse, not better.

Given all this, is it too much to expect our government to have plans and policies in place, or at least under development, to mitigate risk and damage?

It would be easy to lay this at the feet of bureaucratic Ottawa. But the bureaucracy implements while elected officials steer the ship. On this file, Canada is off course and the Trudeau government needs to change that, with all due haste.