home
français
contact donate
home
français contact donate

  • Our Ideas Our Ideas
    • Our Ideas
    • Income Inequality
    • Green Economy
    • Democratic Renewal
    • Social Democracy
  • Training & Leadership Training & Leadership
    • Training & Leadership
    • Online Leadership School
    • Training Signup
    • Request a Training
  • About Us About Us
    • About Us
    • Ed's Vision
    • Broadbent Fellows
    • Board & Staff
    • Awards
    • Progress Summit
    • Contact Us
  • Get Involved Get Involved
    • Get Involved
    • Events
    • Newsletter Sign-up
    • Support Our Work
  • PressProgress
  • News & Blogs

Pages tagged "environment"


Plus ça change... why Stephen Harper's cabinet shuffle disappoints

Posted on News & Blogs by Jonathan Sas · July 15, 2013 10:32 AM

1009892593_d597a0608e_z.jpg

Here are five important takeaways from today’s Cabinet shuffle. As the old saying goes, 'plus ca change, plus c'est la même chose'.

1. Economic (In)action Plan

Canadians hoping the government would signal willingness to address pressing economic concerns such as growing inequality, rising youth unemployment, a manufacturing crisis, and the rise of precarious work will be disappointed.

Read more

The nefarious impacts of Harper's omnibus budget bills

Posted on News & Blogs by Anna Stanley · July 06, 2013 5:25 AM

3679933265_a95b096157_z.jpg

The Broadbent Institute is pleased to present the first in a series of blog posts by a range of Canadian academics and thought leaders critiquing the record of the Conservative government. 

Stephen Harper once espoused the vision of a Canada built on “solid conservative values”, one that would prove “unrecognizable” to his then governing (Liberal) opponents. It is now almost a year since the Harper government’s most profound and concerted effort to craft that Canada: the passage of the two 2012 omnibus budget implementation bills—The Jobs, Growth, and Long Term Prosperity Act, and The Jobs and Growth Act; due time to assess the far-reaching implications of these bills. 

Read more

As climate landscape shifts, Canada sticks head in the (tar) sands

Posted on News & Blogs by Brendan Haley · June 26, 2013 7:49 AM

6919140042_f33f4760cb_b_0.jpg

Barack Obama’s new climate change plan could significantly shift the landscape for Canadian economic and climate policy. It should really invite reflection on the Canadian side of the border about the direction in which we should be heading as a country.

Lots of questions remain about the details and implementation of the U.S. plan. What will the Environmental Protection Agency’s power plant regulations look like?  Will the White House be able to bypass Congress and coordinate with cities and states? What are the implications for Obama’s eventual decision on the Keystone XL pipeline?

Read more

Obama's climate action — and Harper's moral failure

Posted on News & Blogs by Jonathan Sas · June 25, 2013 11:53 AM

2751393319_7a48d736fc_b.jpg

For Canadians who care deeply about acting to stave off dangerous climate change, President Obama’s landmark speech today outlining his administration’s climate action plan likely induced mixed feelings: delight to see the President speak so clearly and resolutely about the moral obligation to take action and to back those sentiments up with some concrete action. And distress at the clear contrast in both tone and substance we get from our Federal government here in Canada. 

Read more

Why Crowley has it wrong on cars, freedom, and public transit

Posted on News & Blogs by Matthew Paterson · June 14, 2013 8:29 AM

3282215713_47b74c57a5_o.jpg

In Wednesday's Globe and Mail, Brian Lee Crowley of the MacDonald Laurier Institute produced what he called a “homage to the (undeservedly) hated car”. In it, he reproduced a number of standard shibboleths against what he sees as “the paternalistic philosophy of centralized urban planning that has infected city halls in virtually every major city in the country” determined to get people out of their cars.

Read more

Farewell to the National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy

Posted on News & Blogs · June 13, 2013 6:39 AM

nrtee2.png

The National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy (NRTEE) closed shop at the end of March.

This move, announced in the 2012 Budget, was not unexpected, but was unfortunate and unwarranted. Now more than ever we need to take a careful look at the linkages between our environment and our economy, and this was precisely the role and mandate of NRTEE which drew upon the best available professional expertise.

Read more

It's World Environment Day and Canada's Not Doing so Hot

Posted on In the News by NationBuilder Support · June 05, 2013 6:15 AM

Today is World Environment Day, an appropriate moment to reflect on the state of our nation's journey towards sustainability.

In a nutshell, we're not doing so hot.

Measured against other OECD nations, Canada continues to rank near the bottom of the barrel for environmental protection. Once viewed as a constructive, conscientious partner, Canada is now a sort of pariah on the international stage, uninterested or downright unwilling to work with other countries to tackle major global environmental challenges from desertification to over-fishing, deforestation to climate change.

So singularly focused is our current federal government on oil-fuelled growth, for example, the Guardian newspaper in the U.K. referred to our Natural Resource Minister, Joe Oliver, as Canada's "Minister of Oil."

Our reputation in disrepute abroad, environmental degradation continues at home. We can't solve everything all at once, so if we were to really focus, what is the most important thing threatening the Canadian environment? Is it the destructive power of climate change? The cancer-causing effect of unregulated toxic chemicals? The downward spiral of water quality across the country?

In my view all of these challenges are symptoms of a larger problem: the unrelenting, aggressive hostility of our country's Conservative parties to environmental progress.

I once participated on a panel for the magazine Corporate Knights that voted Brian Mulroney "the greenest Prime Minister in Canadian history." That seems like a long time ago now. And many of Mulroney's signature environmental accomplishments -- such as the creation of the respected National Round Table on Environment and Economy -- have since been killed by Stephen Harper's Conservatives.

This is the same federal government that has recently questioned whether global warming is really as bad as everybody says it is, has used the Canada Revenue Agency to make life as difficult for Canada's environmental charities as possible, and presided over what is -- objectively -- the most significant rollback of environmental protections since Confederation.

At the provincial level, in a little-noticed speech during the last provincial election, Ontario Conservative leader Tim Hudak promised to abolish Conservation Authorities -- a creation of Tory governments dating back to the 1950s, and he has been uniformly hostile to environmental notions ever since. In Brad Wall's Saskatchewan, the David Suzuki Foundation has recently noted that "it is difficult to imagine any jurisdiction taking the threats of climate change less seriously."

And though some days it's hard to focus on his actual policies through the haze of circus-like shenanigans, Toronto Mayor Rob Ford has targeted green initiatives with a laser-like precision, making it very clear that in his world "green" and "gravy" are synonymous and equally deserving of elimination.

There once was a proud Tory environmental record: Brian Mulroney's battles against Acid Rain, and Bill Davis's protection of the Niagara Escarpment come to mind. The Canadian Conservative circa 2013, however, has not only turned their back on this legacy, they are busily dismantling it.

Conservatives today are of a different ilk. They view the environment through a distorted and Manichean lens, one where environmental policy is inevitably at odds with sound economic policy.

Yes, there are voices -- like that of Preston Manning -- calling for a renewal of a Conservative green ethic. But these voices make little impact, drowned out as they are by the chorus of pro-industry voices, granted privileged access to lobby Conservative ministers for changes to environmental regulations. Meeting so often with oil and gas sector executives, it's little wonder "Environment" Minister Peter Kent focuses on promoting "Ethical Oil" rather than environmental stewardship.

A commitment to reconciling environmental and economic priorities is now without a doubt one of the single greatest differences between Conservatives and non-Conservatives in our country. For progressives, the task is to demonstrate to Canadians that there are alternatives to the ecologically destructive and economically uncertain path we are on.

This op-ed originally appeared in Huffington Post Canada.

Photo: itzafineday. Used under a Creative Commons BY 2.0 licence.


Keystone XL and Canada’s Resource Trap

Posted on News & Blogs by Brendan Haley · May 24, 2013 6:24 AM

6320927574_8f7143ab21_b.jpg

Harper has just made a trip down the US, after the Canadian government has launched a “please buy our oil” publicity campaign promoting the Keystone XL pipeline on the American airwaves. The federal Conservatives have been tirelessly lobbying American officials. Thus far, this campaign has been quite bizarre, resulting in the Natural Resources Minister hurling threats at governments and insults at climate scientists.  

Read more

Pipeline dreams turn to ashes for Big Oil

Posted on News & Blogs by Rick Smith · May 17, 2013 12:10 PM

6326043604_807376c35b_b.jpg

Two years ago, shortly after the last federal election when I still worked for a national environmental organization, I had a private meeting with one of the more senior lobbyists for the Canadian oil industry. Over a lengthy coffee I suggested that the recent election of his friends in the Conservative party for a comfortable majority mandate presented him with two possible courses of action:

Read more

Unions and environmentalists: working together for strong communities and a healthy environment

Posted on News & Blogs by Tzeporah Berman et Steven Guilbeault · April 24, 2013 9:26 PM

4704630321_0ae281de1d_b_0.jpg

There was a time when you wouldn’t walk into the local union hall wearing your organic cotton “Save the Whales” t-shirt, and also when you probably wouldn’t take part in the local Earth Day parade wearing a hard hat and well-worn safety boots. But fashions change and so do perceptions. Union members and environmentalists have discovered they have much more in common than anyone once thought.

Like with any relationship, the road from mutual mistrust to grudging acceptance to warm embrace has had its share of potholes. But what we have come to recognize is that our planet needs us – and not us and them.

Read more

  • ← Previous
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • Next →

Sign up for email updates from Broadbent Institute

Receive our Best of the Month and stay up to date with the latest ideas, news, events and blogs from the Institute.


Connect with us:

  • Facebook iconFacebook
  • Twitter iconTwitter
  • YouTube iconYoutube
  • Instagram iconInstagram
  • Contact iconContact
Support our work. Please donate today.

Connect with us:

  • Facebook iconFacebook
  • Twitter iconTwitter
  • YouTube iconYoutube
  • Instagram iconInstagram
  • Contact iconContact
Broadbent Institute logo PressProgress

A project of Broadbent Institute

Contact us

Broadbent Institute
PO Box: Station B, PO Box 1273
Ottawa, ON K1P5R3

message iconSend us a message phone icon1-613-688-2071

Links

Our Ideas Training & Leadership Get Involved About Us Newsletter PressProgress

A project of Broadbent Institute

Broadbent Institute staff are proud members of UFCW 1006A

All material Copyright © 2019 Broadbent Institute

  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms & Conditions
  • Accessibility