Leaders of Canada’s Largest Environmental and Conservation Organizations Unite on Parliament Hill
Government and Policy
Groups held a press conference declaring Prime Minister Carney and his government have gone too far
Ottawa | Traditional, unceded territory of the Algonquin Anishinaabeg People — Leaders of Canada’s largest environmental and conservation organizations united on Parliament Hill today to draw a line in the sand, declaring that Prime Minister Carney and his government have gone too far with their rollbacks of environmental protections and climate policies.
The leaders will be meeting with Members of Parliament and representatives from the Prime Minister’s office to discuss their urgent concerns about the government’s moves to eviscerate environmental laws and procedures and to undermine Canada’s nature, climate and clean energy goals.
In advance of those meetings, members of the group convened in the press gallery to make public statements about the threats posed by the government’s actions.
Those gathered and represented today included leadership from Birds Canada, Canadian Environmental Law Association (CELA), Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society (CPAWS), David Suzuki Foundation, Ecojustice, Ecology Action Centre, Environmental Defence Canada, Équiterre, Greenpeace Canada, Nature Canada, Pembina Institute, Sierra Club Canada, Stand.earth, Wildlife Conservation Society Canada (WCS), West Coast Environmental Law, and WWF-Canada.
The leaders are available to speak with journalists to provide further details about their meetings with MPs and PMO and to expand on the remarks made below and in the press gallery.
Quotes:
“You can’t rush development and protect nature like this—if we do both poorly, both fail. I’ve worked on the laws that protect Canadians’ right to a healthy environment, and seeing them weakened while species like caribou are pushed toward extinction is deeply frustrating. Once nature is gone, we don’t get it back.”
“By gutting the laws that guarantee fundamental environmental protections, this government will only be fast-tracking preventable — and in some cases irreversible — harms to communities and ecosystems. Ecojustice urges Prime Minister Carney to abandon any legislation that would sacrifice the environment and climate at the altar of political convenience.”
“Canada needs to build — we agree. But this isn’t building. It’s the worst destruction of environmental law in Canadian history, dressed up as progress. This government’s mistakes will ensure Canada is left behind in the energy transition. Canadians will pay the price, and the damages will last for generations”
“Prime Minister Carney seems to be using every excuse under the sun as justification for his attack on the environment. The Prime Minister must stop using the trade war, the U.S. war in Iran or the Alberta separatist movement as excuses to dismantle environmental protections. In Davos, Carney declared that nostalgia is not a strategy. Then why are we missing the boat on the energy transition, rolling back regulation and building a pipeline that won’t be ready until 2036? This is not visionary; it is reactionary.”
“Nature unites all of us. Protecting our shared home is what motivates volunteers and community groups that are already stepping into the breach being created by the abdication of the federal government. I am confident that as we work together, we and our allies will prevail as we have in the past in pushing back against moves to force bad projects on communities — projects like gas plants, fracking, nuclear waste dumps, and offshore drilling. I fear, however, that in its unpopular concessions to the oil and gas industry the federal government is jeopardizing not only the health and safety of Canadians, it is shattering their trust. In doing so, the government will make it harder to build projects we so desperately need right now: things like Atlantic offshore wind, done right.”
“Wildlife like the southern resident killer whale doesn’t disappear by accident. Extinction is a choice — a choice about what we protect and what we sacrifice. This proposal is not a simple technical adjustment, it’s a decision about what Canada values.”
Key among the threats posed by recent announcements are:
- Proposed Federal Economic Zones where entire regions will be declared areas where federal laws will be suspended are inconsistent with informed planning and decision making.
- Approving big industrial projects before their impacts can be studied assumes, without evidence, that any and all social, economic and environmental impacts will be minor.
- Moving the implementation of impact assessments for nuclear projects from the agency that has been designed to execute them to one that is an advocate for their adoption risks undermining informed decision making concerning project approval for projects with extremely high inherent costs and risks.
- Proposing to allow exemption of federal endangered species law to allow for unacceptable risk to recovery or survival of species at risk is a fundamental departure from commitments made to Canadians and to the world to protect our country’s biodiversity.
- Weakening the federal government’s ability to secure industrial carbon emission reductions by reducing the price and application timeline for price increases. These changes put meeting Canada’s net-zero emissions reduction goals out of reach.
- Weakening the Clean Electricity Regulations will result in more expensive and polluting gas plants being built to supply Canada’s growing electricity needs at the expense of cheaper, cleaner renewable energy and battery systems.
- Weakening the required level of abatement and the timelines for adoption of carbon capture for the oil sands ensures that the emissions produced by any planned expansion of oil production to fill new pipelines will greatly exceed those removed.
- Continued signalling of intent to approve a new oil pipeline to the west coast of B.C. even as any emission reducing provisions of the Alberta-Canada MOU have been severely compromised, and little or no consultation with First Nations has occurred.
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Venetia Jones
Associate Director of Strategic Communications, Ecojustice
[email protected], 613 903-5898 ext. 714
Lauren Thomas
Senior Communications Manager, Environmental Defence
[email protected], 647-687-2687
Emily Vandermeer
Senior Specialist, Media relations, WWF-Canada
[email protected], (519) 616-1556
Jenn Brown
Head of Communications, Greenpeace Canada
[email protected], 647-362-3997
Anissa Stambouli
Associate Director Communications, CPAWS
[email protected], 613 569 7226 ex 230
Alexis Stoymenoff
Director of Communications, West Coast Environmental Law
[email protected], 604-684-7378 ext. 228
Stefanie Carmichael
Communications Manager, David Suzuki Foundation
[email protected], 437-221-4692
Nicolas Zorn
Media Relations, Équiterre
[email protected] | 514-605-2000