Conservatives will miss their own environmental targets

The sector-by-sector Conservative approach is not working

The Environment Commissioner today confirmed what New Democrats have been warning for years: the Conservative government has failed to tackle climate change.

“We know the Conservatives have failed to regulate the oil and gas sectors, so it’s no surprise that the Conservatives will fail to meet their own targets on emissions by 2020” said NDP Environment critic Megan Leslie (Halifax). “They’ve even blocked our attempts to study these issues in Parliament.”

Despite Conservative promises that industry would bear the costs of environmental monitoring of the oil sands, today’s report also shows that taxpayers are paying 26% of the costs of that monitoring – an abandonment of the polluter-pays principle.

“While taxpayers are subsidizing the oil and gas sector, First Nations and Métis stakeholders and rightsholders are being ignored” said NDP deputy critic for the Environment François Choquette (Drummond). “This Conservative government is not a credible or responsible partner in resource development.”

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For more information, please contact:

Greta Levy, Press Secretary, 613-408-1642 or greta.levy@parl.gc.ca