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Jan 15, 2025 | 
nationalobserver.com | Laurie Adkin |Max Fawcett |Ross Belot |David Merner
In “How Justin Trudeau lost Canada,” Max Fawcett argues that the Liberals wasted many opportunities to implement consistent policies, and one can hardly disagree. I and others on the left have not held back our criticism of the Liberals’ failings. Crucially, the Liberals failed to implement democratizing political reforms and allocate resources to communicate the need for such reforms and their benefits, as well as citizen engagement in policymaking.
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Jan 2, 2025 | 
nationalobserver.com | Barry Saxifrage |Ross Belot
British Columbia’s New Democratic Party (BC NDP) was just re-elected in a campaign where they touted their climate leadership. Despite these reassuring words, Canadians concerned about climate change should pay close attention to what's happening. The province has turned into a climate laggard, with emissions stuck far above 1990 levels. And, perhaps shockingly, all the increase in climate pollution has happened while the BC NDP has been running the government.
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Dec 19, 2024 | 
nationalobserver.com | Ross Belot
Donald Trump has rattled all Canadians with his threat of large tariffs on Canadian exports to the U.S. So much so, that on Dec. 16, Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland resigned in part out of concern around the Trudeau government’s response to that threat. On that same day of the Freeland news tsunami, Canada’s premiers met to discuss the looming tariff threat.
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Oct 9, 2024 | 
nationalobserver.com | Marc Fawcett-Atkinson |Ross Belot |Darius Snieckus
When it comes to food in Canada, it is nearly impossible to miss Sylvain Charlebois. The "Food Professor," as he calls himself on X, is a business professor at Dalhousie University researching food distribution, security and safety. A self-described public person, Charlebois' voice is everywhere: radio shows, news articles and X threads. A regular in Ottawa, his public prominence routinely earns him speaking engagements across the country.
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Oct 8, 2024 | 
nationalobserver.com | Ross Belot |Abdul Matin Sarfraz |Max Fawcett
Have you noticed that whenever you start talking with someone who opposes climate change action in Canada, they ask, "What about China?" They argue that since China is responsible for such a high percentage of global emissions, (35 per cent), then why should Canada bother trying to curtail its small 1.4 per cent contribution? The answer is simple: we should be decreasing our emissions because we've committed to significant reductions, and the rest of the world is decarbonizing.
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Jun 26, 2024 | 
nationalobserver.com | Ross Belot
You can be forgiven if you thought the federal government and the Pathways Alliance, the oilsands industry consortium promoting carbon sequestering, were submarined last week by a report produced by the consulting firm Deloitte for the Alberta government. The headlines that appeared in multiple media sources said, “Emissions cap means cut in oil & gas production, says report.” But before fully accepting that headline we should take a close look at the actual report.
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May 10, 2024 | 
nationalobserver.com | Ross Belot
It was surprising to see Lululemon being investigated for greenwashing by the federal Competition Bureau. The athletic clothing superpower is accused of making unfounded climate change claims. After announcing its “Be Planet” marketing campaign, which plays up the company’s sustainability initiatives, Lululemon doubled its greenhouse gas emissions. Hence, Canada’s National Observer’s headline, “What’s the difference between greenwashing and lying?”That’s a really good question.
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Feb 2, 2024 | 
nationalobserver.com | Ross Belot
Arguments about the environmental impact of oilsands growth are moot because the market has looked after the problem already. It ain’t coming back, pipelines or no pipelines. Fracking in the U.S. started growing dramatically in the early 2010s and smart capital shifted from our oilsands to a lower-cost, less capital-intensive, closer to market, less risky, better quality source of crude. And there has been little development of new projects in the oilsands ever since.
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Jan 3, 2024 | 
nationalobserver.com | Ross Belot
As usual, the recent UN climate talks produced wonderful words from Canada’s Environment and Climate Change Minister, Steven Guilbeault. “COP28 calls for groundbreaking goals to triple renewable energy, double energy efficiency, and, for the first time ever, we reached a historic consensus to move away from fossil fuels in energy systems,” he said, as the talks wound down in early December. Guilbeault played a key role in producing that successful final communique.
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Oct 20, 2023 | 
nationalobserver.com | Ross Belot
Ah, 2012: A time when the world seemed to belong to Canada. Foreign money flooded in, with capital spending in the oil and gas sector at $60 billion and the Canadian dollar — now a petrodollar — on par with the U.S. Pipeline projects were proposed willy-nilly: Keystone XL, 830,000 barrels per day(KBD); Energy East, 1.1 million barrels per day (MBD); and Northern Gateway, 525 KBD. We believed they were all needed because we imagined the oilsands would just get bigger and bigger.
