EDITORIAL: The Liberals’ $200 billion climate boondoggle

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Since coming to power in 2015 the federal Liberals have earmarked more than $200 billion for 150 programs presided over by 13 government departments, ostensibly to address climate change.

The total comes to 202 if you include joint agreements with Canada’s provinces and territories.

The results have been a massive failure.

The Liberal government now headed by Prime Minister Mark Carney remains far behind its targets of reducing Canada’s industrial greenhouse gas emissions by at least 40% compared to 2005 levels by 2030, and to net zero by 2050.

As of 2022, the latest government data available, emissions were down just 7.1% since 2005 and have gone up in the last two years.

To hit their target, the government would have to reduce current emissions by 251 million tonnes annually in 2030, the equivalent of shutting down emissions from Canada’s entire oil and gas sector (216.7 tonnes annually), causing a recession, and still coming up short.

An investigation by auditor general Karen Hogan of the now-disbanded, $1-billion Sustainable Development Technology Fund, aka “the green slush fund,” suggests many programs may be rife with fraud.

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Others, according to federal environment commissioner Jerry DeMarco, who warns the government is far behind achieving its targets, lack transparency, may be overestimating and/or double-counting emission cuts and basing calculations on outdated computer modelling.

The consumer carbon tax Carney says he has cancelled, was a minor component of the Liberals’ climate change agenda even though they claimed it was the most efficient way to reduce emissions.

In fact, in addition to carbon taxes (the Liberals’ industrial carbon tax remains in place), the government is handing out massive subsidies to the private sector while simultaneously imposing costly regulations on it.

Parliamentary budget officer Yves Giroux estimates the cost of subsidies to the auto sector alone to manufacture electric vehicles and batteries at $52.5 billion on 13 major projects – $31.4 billion, or 60%, paid by federal taxpayers and $21.1 billion, or 40%, paid by provincial taxpayers.

That’s $6.3 billion more than the announced investments of $46.1 billion the auto sector is contributing to the projects.

This Liberal fiasco cries out for a forensic audit to determine what has gone wrong, one we’ll never get if Carney and the Liberals win the looming election.