Throne Speech - Canada Falling Behind

It's pretty amazing in this day and age that you can have a section of a speech titled "Building the Jobs and Industries of the Future" and then in that section fail to recognize that the world's next industrial revolution will centre on getting carbon out of our economy.

Yet, this is exactly what today's Throne Speech by the Harper government does. Worse, in service of becoming a "clean energy superpower" the government promises to soften rules on energy exploitation. Many would say that the tar sands industry, for example, is already out of control, in part due to the failure of the federal government to enforce laws now on the books.

The speech does promise to invest in clean energy technologies, but fails to say whether this involves recapitalizing the successful ecoEnergy program that has now run out of money, or whether this will instead be more money for unproven carbon capture and storage programs.

The Speech closes by lauding the incredibly weak Copenhagen accord, and consistent with that, fails to articulate how - or even whether - it will reduce greenhouse gas pollution in Canada.

In all, a disappointing but not surprising speech by a government that seems frozen in the past while our competitors jump ahead in creating the new energy economy of tomorrow.

Matt Price
Policy Director
Environmental Defence Canada