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June 29th, 2021

REALITY CHECK: Trudeau's Green Failure - Fossil Fuels Edition

In 2015, Justin Trudeau promised big. He promised that a Liberal government would end subsidies to the fossil fuel industry.

At the time, he stated:

"The environment and the economy, they go together. They go together like paddles and canoes. If you don't take care of both, you're never going to get to where you're going." CBC, June 29.

This was clearly a change in tone from the Harper era.

But how did it really turn out?

In 2019, the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development issued a scathing report. She said that "the Department of Finance Canada’s assessments to identify inefficient tax subsidies for fossil fuels were incomplete, and that advice it provided to the Minister was not based on all relevant and reliable information."

In response to this report, Canadians got more pretty words with no concrete action. The former Minister of the Environment announced new “public consultations” to eliminate "inefficient non-tax subsidies to fossil fuels".

The same year, Justin Trudeau spent over $4 billion to buy a pipeline.

In 2020, federal subsidies for fossil fuels have exploded. The International Institute for Sustainable Development indicated in a recent report that Ottawa funded the industry to the tune of $1.9 billion - a 200% increase over last year.

It’s time Trudeau stopped treating Canadians like a bunch of fools.

Canadians and the environment deserve so much better.