Why Was Climate Change Underreported in Canadian Elections?

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Canada may be known for its cold weather, but parts of the country have been hellish this summer.

Western provinces suffered record-breaking heat wavesIt was a confirmed cause of death for 569 people in British Columbia. Forest fires burned more than two million hectares of forest in that province and destroyed a small town, duration droughts Devastated cattle ranchers in Manitoba.

Extreme weather conditions intensified Canadians’ already high interest and concern about climate change. But the climate was barely recorded during the campaign.

Analysts say this is due to the ingenious maneuvers of the Conservative Party.

Erin O’Toole, the party’s leader has turned its back on a promise to never impose a carbon tax on a plan he announced this spring. Duration The Conservative version prices carbon lower than Mr Trudeau’s plan and has a very different system for tax relief for individuals, the prime minister can no longer say Conservatives will not tax carbon and lack a climate plan.

“I think the Conservative Party has put forward a more ambitious platform than in 2019, partly to get this off the agenda,” said Kathryn Harrison, professor of political science at the University of British Columbia.

The Conservative plan, implemented long before the election, It proposes to reduce emissions by 30 percent below 2005 levels within nine years, which was Canada’s original Paris Agreement goal.

But Mr Trudeau has since increased the country’s target for the same time frame. between 40 and 45 percent. He appealed to the unpopular policies of his predecessor, Stephen Harper, under his administration, saying the Conservatives’ plan would return the country to the progress it has made in tackling climate change. puzzled environmental scientists.

The Green Party, which has made climate change its most important problem, called for a 60% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 compared to 2005 levels.

Nicholas Rivers, Canadian Research Chair in Climate and Energy Policy and associate professor at the University of Ottawa, said this is an ambitious goal but lacks detail.

The Green Party’s attention is on its leader, Annamie Paul. consider quitting. Party Released its platform on September 7, late in the short campaign.

“It makes it hard to believe they have a credible plan to get there,” said Professor Rivers. “I feel like the Greens have partially given up on their leadership on the climate.”

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