For a capsule look at the various parties’ environmental platforms from the perspective of an environmental research group focusing on energy, the Pembina Institute offers the following:
Bloc Québécois:
The party supports a science-based 2020 target, a cap-and-trade system and an end to fossil fuel subsides — all important tools for reducing greenhouse gas pollution in Canada. However, once again the platform provides few details about when these policies should go into effect or how stringent they should be.
NDP:
Overall, we’re happy to see this platform commit to the kinds of policies that would help move clean energy to the centre of Canada’s economic future. Strong action on climate change can create more jobs than ‘business as usual,’ so the NDP’s clean energy commitments would be good news for Canadian workers and the environment.
While the platform leaves some unanswered questions about the NDP’s plans, the NDP’s proposals would help to make a clean energy transformation in Canada a reality.
Conservative Party:
The Conservative Party came to today’s announcement with a five-year track record of failing to meaningfully tackle greenhouse gas pollution and avoiding federal responsibility for oilsands development. The result is that Canada now risks falling further behind other countries in capitalizing on the rapidly growing global clean energy market.
Today’s platform would do nothing to reverse these trends.
Green Party:
The Green Party puts tackling climate change at the heart of its platform. The result is a commitment to a suite of strong policies to cut greenhouse gas pollution, along with national emission reduction targets based on up-to-date climate science. More clearly than any of the other parties have to date, the Green Party’s platform makes the case for urgent action to prevent dangerous global warming.
Liberal Party:
Overall, we’re happy to see this platform put clean energy at the centre of Canada’s economic future. While countries such as China and the U.S. are taking steps to succeed in the clean energy economy, Canada has been lagging behind. Strong action on climate change can create more jobs than ‘business as usual,’ so the Liberal Party’s decision to make clean energy a priority would be good news for Canadian workers and for the environment.
While Michael Ignatieff’s platform takes important steps to make that clean energy transformation a reality, it also leaves some gaps.
More detailed summaries can be found at http://www.pembina.org/.
