Former Liberal Environment Minister Resigns From Commons, Leaving No One Inside Canada's Gov Pushing On Climate Issues

[hatrack]

Steven Guilbeault has had enough. Yesterday, the former Liberal environment minister announced his plan to resign his seat this summer after seven years in government. It wasn’t a surprise. Rumours of Guilbeault’s resignation began almost as soon as Mark Carney won the Liberal leadership — and immediately killed the consumer carbon price.

It’s seemed inevitable since November, when Carney and Alberta Premier Danielle Smith formally announced they were trying for a new pipeline and Guilbeault left cabinet. Now, some seven months later, Guilbeault is resigning altogether, with a letter including a long list of killed or threatened climate policies. His exit marks the end of an era for Canadian environmental aspirations. It’s a sign that big government promises to protect the planet are no longer being made, let alone fulfilled — but not that the battle is over.

Turning Guilbeault from a grassroots activist into a politician was a Liberal score back in 2019. The Justin Trudeau government was taking heat for buying the Trans Mountain pipeline, and Guilbeault was a Quebecois environmental hero who had spent years at Greenpeace before co-founding Équiterre. As Guilbeault recalled during his House of Commons farewell, it was hard to believe such a fierce fossil fuel foe would be happy in the most mainstream of parties.

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Investors for Paris Compliance called Carney out, too. Its sunsetting report invoked his dramatic 2015 speech as Bank of England head, the one where he labelled markets’ short-term focus a “tragedy of the horizon” that failed to properly consider the long-term financial risks posed by climate-fuelled disasters. For over a decade, this was hailed as a succinct and clear-eyed take, palatable to both people that love coldwater salmon and people that love cold, hard cash. It became a tent pole for the motley coalition that awarded Carney with Canada’s highest elected office after his very first political race. Now, many who put their faith in the money guy promising both climate action and profit are accusing him of dumping his Values the first time he hit a resource extraction road block.

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https://thenarwhal.ca/steven-guilbeault-resigns-canadian-politics/

[Fiendish Thingy]

1. Carney has abandoned all pretense of even attempting to mitigate the effects of climate change

He’s gone full bore Abundance Agenda (with just a very minor, likely inconsequential, backtrack on accepting constituent input on loosening regulations, including environmental, for new development projects).

Canadians are the Guinea pigs for the Abundance Agenda Trojan Horse- coming soon to supposedly progressive US communities, brought to you by Third Way Centrist Dems.

https://kayuma.substack.com/p/the-abundance-delusion-how-silicon

[hatrack]

2. Yeah, it's like the Fort McMurray fires never even happened . . . .

Party on, I guess, with a New Abundant Agenda.