By Tim Weis
This year’s federal budget plays like a bad sequel to a film that never made the Oscars.
Canadian environmentalist Tim Weis
The plot behind last year’s “Economic Action Plan” was simple: create short-term jobs and immediate cash flow by funding “shovel-ready” infrastructure projects in as many Canadian communities as possible. Critics said the plan reflected a lack of vision from the director’s chair, and the final tallies show it ran over-budget.
In terms of investing in renewable energy, last year’s budget had very little to offer (although nuclear and ‘clean’ coal got over $1 billion combined). This year, it took a surprise turn for the worse.
Nuclear energy once again was handed $300 million taxpayer dollars to cover cost overruns, while $25 million was allocated for the next four years to renewable energy exclusively for one specific interest group — forestry. Such a token effort seems to indicate this government continues to treat renewable energy technologies as “boutique” experiments, not the mainstream solutions that they are in other parts of the world — and, more importantly, what they need to be in Canada.
If this government is going to live up its election promise that Canada would generate 90 per cent of its electricity from sources that don’t produce greenhouse gas pollution by 2020, we will need a ten-fold increase in renewable power in the next 10 years. Currently, 77 per cent of our electricity comes from “non-emitting sources” (defined by the government as large hydro, nuclear, carbon capture and storage and renewable) — but to close that gap on a national scale, a serious ramp-up of investment in renewable power is our only realistic option.
Nuclear plants can take up to a decade to build, and there are no new nuclear plants even in the permitting process in Canada (in fact Ontario has already committed to shutting down one of its mid-sized plants by 2020). Carbon capture and storage is still experimental with major cost uncertainties and there are very few large hydro plants even potentially available in the next 10 years.
While this week’s speech from the throne suggested Canada could become a “leader in green job creation,” the budget does not walk the talk. With the federal renewable energy investment program officially out of money, this budget’s void effectively means the federal government is walking away from meaningful investments in new renewable power. Despite studies that have shown investments in renewable power actually generate a net financial gain for the government through increased tax revenues, it appears clean energy is not a perceived as a priority for job creation.
Without strong federal leadership, Canada will continue to lag behind as other countries take the lead in the emerging clean-energy market. The U.S., for instance, set aside $98 billion for sustainable energy projects in last year’s economic stimulus package, outspending Canadians per capita by a ratio of 14:1 on renewable energy. In China, 1.12 million people work in the renewable energy industry, and more than 100,000 new jobs are added to this sector every year, according to the government-backed Chinese Renewable Energy Industries Association.
While there was a notable $80 million re-investment to top up Canada’s home energy efficiency program to ensure it doesn’t run out of money this year, the overall suite of ecoEnergy programs, which help Canadian homeowners, businesses and industries invest in energy efficiency and renewable energy solutions, will come to an abrupt end by the end of the next fiscal year. This budget suggests the government will review some efficiency programs, but there is an inevitable (and perhaps indefinite) gap between when these programs will run out and when some, if any, will be renewed or revamped.
One opportunity that presents itself to not only promote clean energy development, but also reduce our deficit, is to finally put a price on carbon pollution. But the government has clearly signaled it is waiting for the Americans to write that policy for us.
The government’s throne speech praised its own 2009 stimulus spending for insulating Canadians from the pain of the global economic crisis “without unduly burdening future generations” — yet Prime Minister Harper’s refusal to take strong and decisive action to create clean-energy jobs and a sustainable economy will hurt Canadians for years to come.
Instead of rocking the box office, the 2010 federal budget is going straight to DVD.
Tim Weis is director of the Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Program at The Pembina Institute, a national sustainable energy think tank. Read his blog posts at http://re.pembina.org and visit the Pembina Institute at www.pembina.org.
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