건강의료 정책(35%), 기후정의 25% 로, 지구온난화에 대한 캐나다인의 우려

캐나다 2019년 10월 연방 총선에서도 기후변화, 지구온난화가 쟁점이 될 것이다.

여론조사 기관에 따르면, 캐나다 83% 국민들이 2011~2018년 사이 기후 온난화를 경험했다고 답했다.

선거에서 기후 정의 주제가 중요한가? 퀘백 주 답변, 건강의료 35% 다음으로, 기후정의 34% (퀘백)가 중요하다.

캐나다 전체로는 건강의료 정책(35%),  기후정의 25% 로, 지구온난화에 대한 캐나다인의 우려를 보여줬다.

퀘백 주의 경우, 2017년, 2019년 홍수로 많은 피해를 입었다.

https://montrealgazette.com/news/local-news/parties-greening-up-pitches-as-environment-tops-list-of-voter-concerns

참고 1.http://Climate crisis as election catalyst: Will it change votes in Quebec? A growing number of Quebecers identify the environment as a top priority. It remains to be seen what impact that will have on voting day. MICHELLE LALONDE, MONTREAL GAZETTE Updated: September 28, 2019 SHARE ADJUST COMMENT PRINT 

Climate change has surged to the top of voter concern lists across the country during this federal campaign, nowhere more so than here in Quebec, where politicians are scrambling to respond to an unprecedented public call to action on the climate crisis. 

On Friday, Montreal was the backdrop to a massive climate rally, and dozens of other marches, protests and strikes demanding climate action took place all across Quebec and around the world this week. 

A number of federal, political and environmental leaders attended Montreal’s event, including marquee guest 16-year-old Swedish environmental activist Greta Thunberg who stood front and centre. 

Some businesses closed for the day on Friday, and many schools, CÉGEPs and universities cancelled classes or closed for the day to encourage participation by students, teachers and employees.

 “We are beginning to see a real shift in people’s attitudes,” said Erick Lachapelle, associate professor of political science at the Université de Montréal.

 “Whether or not that translates into what party they vote for come election day, that remains to be seen, but it’s probably one of the first elections in which the environment, which is rarely an election issue, might actually be one.” 

Lachapelle is one of the lead researchers on the Canadian Climate Opinion Maps project, an interactive map that allows voters and politicians to take the pulse of climate change awareness at the riding level. 

Using national surveys of more than 9,000 respondents from 2011-2018, the latest version of the project suggests 83 per cent of Canadians, and 89 per cent of Quebecers, believe that the planet is getting warmer. 

According to the map, a majority in every single riding in the country now believe the climate is changing and 79 per cent of Quebecers say this province is already experiencing the impacts of climate change.

 Federal, political and environmental leaders attended Montreal’s climate march Friday, including marquee guest 16-year-old Swedish activist Greta Thunberg who stood front and centre.

 JOHN MAHONEY / MONTREAL GAZETTE 

The map offers up some interesting surprises. 

For example, more than half of those surveyed in the riding of Beauce — where People’s Party of Canada Leader and climate change denier Maxime Bernier is seeking re-election — agreed with the scientific consensus that “Earth is getting warmer partly or mostly because of human activity.”

 And support for the idea of putting a price on carbon pollution is quite popular in the 12 Quebec ridings that voted Conservative in the 2015 election. 

In those ridings, support for a cap and trade system, which Quebec already has in place, hovers around 60 per cent, while support for the idea of increasing taxes on carbon-based fuels is around 50 per cent. 

Meanwhile, the Conservatives are campaigning on a promise to scrap the carbon tax. 

Lachapelle flagged the spike in Quebecers’ concern about climate change in the fall of 2018. 

He suggests awareness began to rise with the springtime flood waters in 2017 and surged again when Québec Solidaire put climate change firmly onto the political agenda during the 2018 provincial election. 

That October, the International Panel on Climate Change warned the world had little more than a decade to reduce CO2 emissions by 45 per cent in order to avoid the large-scale drought, famine, species loss, heat wave deaths, poverty and other dire consequences of warming beyond 1.5 degrees C. 

Record flooding in Quebec again last spring has only heightened awareness. 

A recent Ipsos poll suggests that 34 per cent of Quebecers say climate change will be the most important issue in determining how they will vote, almost on par with health care, which 35 per cent said was their number one concern.

 In Canada as a whole, 25 per cent said climate change was their key issue, after health care (35 per cent) and affordability and cost of living (27 per cent). 

This week on the campaign trail, Conservative Party Leader Andrew Scheer made a stop in Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau’s Montreal riding, where he raised the issue of the SNC-Lavalin scandal. 

He might want to take note of another recent poll that suggested 63 per cent of Quebecers say the environment is more important to their voting choice than issues of ethics

. Environmentalist Steven Guilbeault, the Liberal Party’s star candidate in Quebec, says:

 “I think we have a very good platform and I think we have a very good chance of being able to implement large chunks of it.” JOHN KENNEY / MONTREAL GAZETTE

 Trudeau, meanwhile, has been touting his Liberal Party as the only one that can really deliver on climate protection.

 The party’s star candidate in Quebec is Steven Guilbeault, a lifelong environmental activist who campaigned for Greenpeace for many years before he co-founded the environmental group Équiterre in 1998.

 He is running in Laurier—Saint-Marie riding. Guilbeault admits he took some flack from friends and fellow environmentalists when he joined the Liberals, considering the party approved the expansion of the Trans Mountain pipeline in its first mandate and then bought the project from Kinder Morgan for $4.5 billion.

 In a recent interview, Guilbeault said he disagrees with his party’s decisions on Trans Mountain, but he nonetheless chose to run with the Liberals because of their performance on climate issues.

 In its first mandate, he notes, the Liberal government managed to put a price on carbon pollution across the country, committed to eliminating coal plants by 2030, and is investing significantly in renewable energy. 

This week, Guilbeault announced the Liberals, if re-elected will commit Canada to attaining zero net emissions of carbon pollution by 2050.

 “Concretely, that means we would not produce more emissions than we eliminate. To be honest, it is an ambitious target.” He said the party would enshrine that target in a new law.

 “This doesn’t mean changing our lifestyles or eliminating our industries in a drastic way. It requires a transition. We would compensate for emissions produced with measures and technologies that capture carbon pollution, like planting trees, for example.” 

Guilbeault acknowledges that the Green Party and the New Democratic Party also have strong programs on climate change. “Fundamentally, if you look beyond some of the nuances, we all want to put a price on carbon, we want more transit, we want more green technologies, more electrification, we want less money to go to fossil fuel companies,” he said. 

But Guilbeault said he joined the Liberals because he didn’t believe the NDP or the Greens have a chance of forming the government any time soon.

 “I think we have a very good platform and I think we have a very good chance of being able to implement large chunks of it. I don’t think, unfortunately, that my NDP or Green friends can say the same thing, with all the respect I have for them.”

 In the last federal election, the Liberals took 35.7 per cent of the vote in Quebec, the NDP took 25.4, the Bloc 19.3, the Conservatives 16.7, and the Greens 2.3. Daniel Green, a well-known whistle-blower on environmental issues and the Green Party’s deputy leader, says: “We will not save the environment by investing in oil.”

 JOHN KENNEY / MONTREAL GAZETTE 

The Green Party, led by Elizabeth May, has its own star environmental candidate in Quebec. 

The party’s deputy leader, Daniel Green, a well-known toxicologist and whistle-blower on environmental issues, is running in Outremont riding. Green held a news conference this week in Montreal to denounce the other parties for supporting, or at least not denouncing loudly enough, a proposed natural gas pipeline project that he says is a “symbol of what is wrong with energy development in Canada.” 

The scheme would bring natural gas along a 750-kilometre pipeline from B.C. and Alberta through northern Ontario into Quebec, across Abitibi-Témiscamingue to a proposed liquefaction plant in La Baie in Saguenay–Lac-Saint-Jean. From there, the liquified natural gas would be transported via tankers down the Saguenay River to the St. Lawrence, through a protected feeding area for the endangered beluga whale. 

The goal is to export 11 million tonnes of liquefied natural gas per year to overseas markets. The Quebec government seems favourable to the project, despite the fact that about 50,000 Quebecers so far have signed a petition against it. 

GNL Québec, the company developing the liquefaction plant part of the project (Énergie Saguenay), is expected to submit its project to the independent Bureau d’audiences publiques sur l’environnement (BAPE), which will advise the Quebec government. 

The provincial and federal governments will also assess the environmental impact of the project, possibly in three separate parts: the pipeline, liquefaction plant and maritime transportation, which Green says will make it difficult to assess its overall impact on emissions. 

Green estimates the project will generate 7.8 million tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions, and says all the other parties have adopted a wait-and-see attitude toward it, waiting for studies by the BAPE and others. 

The Green Party platform calls for cancelling all new fossil fuel pipeline projects, including Trans Mountain and GNL Québec’s project. The Greens would allow existing oil and gas operations to continue but on a declining basis, with bitumen production phased out by 2035. Green said there is simply no way Trudeau can reach his zero net emissions target by 2050 if his government keeps approving pipelines to transport fossil fuels. 

“Justin Trudeau has to stop being schizophrenic. We will not save the environment by investing in oil,” Green said. For his part, Guilbeault acknowledged he has concerns about increased tanker traffic in the Saguenay River and the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and suggested the entire project could be subjected to a joint federal-provincial environmental assessment.

 He said a Liberal government would not approve such a project unless it could compensate for its carbon emissions. “Our very ambitious target for 2050 will need to be taken into account when evaluating the impacts of projects. If your project is going to emit a lot of greenhouse gases, you will have to show how you will compensate for those over time,” he said.

 While NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh has not taken a position on the GNL Québec project, his deputy leader in Quebec, Alexandre Boulerice, made his own position clear in a recent interview with the Montreal Gazette.

 “The question of GNL shouldn’t even be asked … It’s just not realistic if we are serious and coherent about the climate emergency,” said Boulerice, who is the NDP incumbent in the riding of Rosemont—La-Petite-Patrie. The floods of 2017 and 2019 sensitized Montrealers and the rest of Quebec to the scope of the climate crisis. 

ALLEN MCINNIS / MONTREAL

 GAZETTE Bloc Québécois Leader Yves-François Blanchet, who declared recently on Quebec’s most popular talk show, Tout le monde en parle, that the Bloc “has the most green and ecological program of all the federal parties,” has said he will wait for the BAPE’s advice on GNL Québec’s project.

 Blanchet took over as leader of the teetering party in January, and said he sees this election campaign as “an opportunity to really attach the idea of the environment to the idea of (Quebec’s) independence.” 

On the campaign trail, Blanchet is taking every opportunity to tell Quebecers how much greener Quebec is than the rest of Canada and how the federal government is using Quebec taxpayers’ money to expand pipeline projects and invest in fossil fuel projects.

 “For more than 100 years, Quebec has been operating on clean energy, but Ottawa, even as recently as this past mandate, sunk $19 billion into new investments in fossil fuel energy,” Blanchet said earlier this month in Mont-Laurier. Blanchet is proposing a new scheme to replace equalization payments, through which the federal government helps so-called “have-not” provinces, with a program that would reward provinces with the lowest greenhouse gas emissions and penalize those with higher emissions.

 He said Quebec would be entitled to “at least as big a cheque” as it gets now, if not more. But the NDP’s Boulerice said the Bloc’s credibility on environmental issues is “a bit stained” by decisions Blanchet made when he was environment minister of Quebec.

 “Yves-François Blanchet clearly opened the door to the exploitation of oil on Anticosti Island. So when he accuses Canada of being a petrol state,” he is being hypocritical, Boulerice suggested. He noted that as environment minister, Blanchet also green-lighted a heavily polluting cement factory in the Gaspé and approved the inversion of Enbridge’s 9B pipeline. 

“We are beginning to see a real shift in people’s attitudes,” said Erick Lachapelle, associate professor of political science at the Université de Montréal. The climate rally on Friday demonstrates that. J

OHN MAHONEY / MONTREAL GAZETTE As for the Greens, Boulerice said: “The biggest difference between the NDP and the Greens is that our program is based on environmental justice but also social and economic justice. 

We can’t fight climate change if we don’t fight social inequalities at the same time … notably by taxing the super rich and helping people in need.” “And what distinguishes us from the Liberals is that we don’t buy pipelines,” Boulerice said. He described the Liberal Party’s promise of net zero emissions by 2050 as a “bedtime story for children … completely ridiculous.” “The Conservatives are at least consistent,” Boulerice said. 

“They say they will exploit all the gas and oil imaginable and hope for a kind of miracle solution (to climate change), the magic wand of technology will solve everything.” Scheer has indeed made it clear the Conservatives favour natural gas projects like GNL Québec. Richard Martel, the Conservative incumbent in the riding of Chicoutimi—Le Fjord where the liquefaction plant would be built, touts the jobs it would bring. 

Conservatives say Canada’s natural gas could replace dirtier fuels in foreign markets. When Scheer annouced his party’s climate plan in Gatineau in June, he called it “the most comprehensive environmental platform ever put forward by a political party in Canada.”

 A Conservative government would impose emissions limits on heavy industrial emitters and require companies that exceed those limits to make investments in research into emissions-reduction technology.

 The plan also includes tax credits for homeowners to encourage energy-saving retrofits. Scheer hasn’t committed to a specific emissions reduction target, but says only that his plan “gives Canada the best possible chance of achieving” the Paris Agreement target of 30 per cent below 2005 levels by 2030.

 The Conservatives would scrap the carbon tax that the Trudeau government has imposed on provinces that refused to put a price on carbon pollution and his campaign is mainly focused on warning Canadians that the carbon tax will shoot up if the Liberals get back into power. 

That kind of talk may not go over well in Quebec, a province that introduced its own carbon tax in 2007, without major opposition. That tax was replaced by a cap and trade program in 2012 when Quebec joined the Western Climate Initiative. 

The program puts limits on industrial sites and on businesses that import or distribute oil or fuels sold in Quebec for use in the transportation or building sectors.

 Those who exceed their cap must buy credits, while those who emit less than their limits can sell credits. The money raised from the carbon market goes into a provincial green fund, to be used for environmental protection projects. This has meant slightly higher gas prices in Quebec, but the populace has not revolted, notes Chris Ragan, an economist at McGill University and director of the Max Bell School of Public Policy. 

“Nobody debates this in Quebec. It is not debated at the lunch table, in the streets or by political parties.” So he doesn’t think Conservatives will improve their fortunes in Quebec by fear-mongering about a carbon tax that doesn’t even apply here or by threatening to cut the clean fuel standard, which Scheer has called a hidden carbon price.

 “If the logic is that any policy that has a cost is a hidden carbon price, then you are going to do nothing on climate,” Ragan said. “They say they will promote technological advancement and that’s great but it’s aspirational. It’s not really a policy designed to reduce emissions.” 

Then there is the People’s Party of Canada, the only one of the six parties with a chance of winning a seat in parliament that actually denies scientists’ assertions that climate change is caused by human activity or that fighting it is an urgent issue. “The main reason for climate change, it is not human activity,” Bernier said at his party’s first convention in August. 

In its platform, the party promises to pull Canada out of the Paris Accord, abolish the carbon tax and “leave it to provincial governments to adopt programs to reduce emissions if they want to,” abolish subsidies for green technologies and invest in adaptation strategies “if problems arise as a result of any natural climate change.” 

In the end, observers agree the parties that are taking the climate crisis seriously have the best chance of winning over voters in Quebec. In Ragan’s opinion, the Liberals are on solid ground with their climate plan, but they need to do a better job explaining to Quebecers how pipelines fit into it. 

The NDP and the Greens will appeal to what he called “hardcore environmentalists” for their calls for stronger emissions targets, although he said many voters, including himself, worry Canada’s economy would suffer if heavy industrial emitters aren’t cut some slack. 

The Conservatives, he said, might win some votes by emphasizing other kinds of environmental action, but if they avoid explaining how their plan will reduce emissions, “they are probably the most vulnerable” of the mainstream parties in Quebec. But with three weeks to go before the vote, Ragan says it’s too soon to say whether the climate change issue will truly decide the election, even in Quebec. “Federal elections are like the Grey Cup. 

You don’t leave the stadium in the last five minutes, because stuff can change.” mlalonde@postmedia.com RELATED Montreal climate march: 'We are the change,' Greta Thunberg tells throng ‘It’s our future’: Youth take the lead in Montreal's massive climate march Hanes: Plante puts Montreal front and centre at UN Climate Action Summit