NDP set to unveil energy plan, return of efficiency rebates

The NDP will roll out details of its “pan-Canadian” energy plan Wednesday — a plan focused on sustainability, partnerships with provinces and First Nations communities and long-term prosperity, Postmedia News has learned.

Leader Tom Mulcair is expected to announce plans to overhaul and strengthen the environmental assessment regime many critics and environmental activists accused the government of gutting in last year’s budget.

The NDP would ultimately overturn cabinet’s ability to unilaterally ignore the outcome of an assessment. Critics fear the new rule would give the government the power to approve a pipeline, for example, even if the project fails to meet environmental standards.

He will also announce the NDP’s intent to bring back the ecoenergy home retrofit program introduced by the Conservatives in 2007. The program, which ended last year, provided grants up to $5,000 to help homeowners increase energy efficiency.

Mulcair will also speak about investing in renewable wind, solar and geothermal energy in a bid to create 20,000 new jobs in Canada, and in rail, tanker and pipeline safety standards to encourage energy projects rather than stymie them due to disasters and protests.

He will also talk about the possibility of a national version of an initiative he introduced in Quebec when he was that province’s environment minister.

Quebec’s Europe-inspired Sustainable Development Act, something Mulcair often talks about as his crowning achievement in provincial politics, affirms the government’s commitment to the concept, which requires that economic, social and environmental impacts be taken into account before development decisions are made.

The bill also made it a right under Quebec’s Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms to live in a healthy environment in which biodiversity is respected, and created a green fund to support provincial and municipal sustainable-development initiatives as well as provide stable funding to environmental groups.

Mulcair is expected to make the announcement during a speech to the Economic Club of Canada in Ottawa.

It follows a promise during the party’s September caucus retreat in Saskatoon where he vowed to focus more on “proposition” — that is, on unveiling what the party would do if it formed the government — instead of just opposition.