00:01):
Well I'm in over my head. No one told me trying to keep my footprint small was harder than I thought it could be. I'm in over my head. What do I really need? Trying to save the planet over someone, please save me trying to save the planet over someone. Please save me.

Michael (00:25):
Welcome in over my head. I'm Michael Bartz. My guest today is Dr. Kathryn Harrison. Dr. Harrison is a professor of political science at the University of British Columbia. Her areas of expertise include environmental climate and energy policy federalism and comparative public policy. She advised local provincial and national governments and is the author of passing the buck federalism and Canadian environmental policy and co-author of risk science and politics. Katherine is a regular commentator in print and broadcast media and has written numerous. Op-Eds published in the Vancouver sun globe mail and McLeans. Welcome to in over my head, professor Harrison.

Kathryn (01:03):
Thank you.

Michael (01:04):
So, in talking about the decarbonization of the electricity grid, one factor we're discussing is the relations between federal and provincial governments and how that affects policy and regulation implementation. I, I suspect a completely united Canada could tackle all aspects of climate change more effectively, but it seems as though we're far from united. So to begin with, I think we should start with the big picture within the Canadian Federation. There's the national government and the various provincial governments. How effective is our current system at implementing climate change policy and regulation?

Kathryn (01:33):
That's a big question. It's one I've certainly worked on for a long time, but before I answer it, one thing I would say is there is a temptation to attribute all of the success, or all of the failure to the thing we're talking about and an important factor that is in the background that makes everything difficult is that Canada has an extremely carbon-intensive economy. We have among the highest per capita greenhouse gas emissions in the world. And that has two parts to it. The first that we have carbon-intensive industries, oil and gas, but also, you know, carbon-intensive manufacturing sectors and they resist change, but we've also Canadian households. Canadian individuals tend to have very fossil fuel-intensive lifestyles. We drive the least fuel-efficient vehicles in the world. We live in very large homes and global terms that are typically heated by fossil fuels.

(02:31):
So there are political challenges, independent of Canadian federalism, but the federal system is layered on top of that. And I mean, the way I think about political institutions is they're like the rules of the game. And, you know, haw all know that the, of the game, depending on how they're enforced can favour some interest and decentralized has posed a real challenge for the transition to a low carbon economy in a few ways. One of them is that provincial governments own fossil fuels. So provincial governments control natural resources. And although I would note in many cases, ownership is contested by first nations who, who never signed treaties, certainly in British Columbia, but generally provincial governments control the fossil fuels. They rely on them for royalties. They rely on them for economic development to create jobs and build political support. And what results from that is very big differences in the climate ambitions of different provinces, a province like Quebec with abundant hydroelectricity has stronger support for actions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions than provinces like Alberta and Saskatchewan, which have very high per capita emissions.

(04:01):
And so when we look at policies that are made at the provincial level, there are big differences. But also when we look to Canada-wide policies adopted by the federal government, there has been a tradition of provincial premieres and the prime minister or provincial environment ministers and the federal environment minister sitting around a table and talking through things and trying to achieve consensus. And I think that the informal goal of consensus has really held us back in moving forward on climate policy for a very long time because essentially the carbon I of provinces had a veto for 25 years.

Michael (04:44):
So you talked about consensus as far as the provincial and federal government. Does there need to be a consensus for us to make progress when it comes to the climate crisis?

Kathryn (04:53):
I think Canadians love the idea of our politicians getting along and, you know, all else being equal. That's a good thing, but I think there are trade-offs between progress and decarbonizing our economy and federal-provincial harmony. And I think we have to decide what's more important to us, everyone getting along or transitioning our economy and historically throughout the 1990s, different provinces and really until 2015 different provinces blocked different initiatives. So there was a big federal-provincial effort to try to come up with a joint plan to implement Canada's keto protocol, target the provinces withdrew and all objected to the unilateral federal. The federal government never implemented that plan. Alberta and Saskatchewan objected to the idea of a national cap and trade program. Ontario objected to the regulation of motor vehicle emissions because auto manufacturing is still very important for Ontario, but used to be even more important. So on different issues, different provinces have blocked national progress. And I think a lot changed in 2015, 2016 in very positive ways when climate action became the goal with intergovernmental harmony a secondary goal rather than getting along, being the goal in and of itself.

Michael (06:28):
And that was the pan Canada climate plan that you're referring to?

Kathryn (06:31):
Yeah, the pan Canadian climate framework. The conditions for that were laid by two elections in the 2015 election of an NDP government in Alberta. The first change in government in many, many decades in that province. And Alberta was keen to get out ahead of the federal government and establish its own climate plan, including its own carbon pricing plan before the federal government did. And they did establish a carbon tax phase-out of coal-fired electricity. Not with a level of ambition consistent with Canada's Paris agreement target, but a really important step. Then we had a change in government at the federal level at the end of 2015, before off to Paris for the international negotiations, there was this moment of harmony where the first ministers of the provinces and the federal government were all sorts of given to work together. A year later, they had negotiated the Pan-Canadian framework and eventually, all provinces and territories of accept Saskatchewan signed onto that.

(07:41):
So that was this moment of almost consensus, but by 2018, that all blew apart and provinces were withdrawing from their commitments. Under the Pan-Canadian framework, there were changes in government, the Ford government withdrew Ontario from emissions trading with California and Quebec. And that was a critical moment in the fall of 2018 when the federal government had said, if the provinces don't do it, we will. That sort of threat of unilateralism was critical to getting an agreement in 2018. And following through on that in 2018, 20 19 was a really pivotal moment, I think, in Canadian climate policy, because there was an election coming up, they were imposing a carbon tax in four sued to be five provinces over the objection of provincial governments and in a large fraction of cases, the citizen living in those provinces. And they did it anyway. And that was really the moment where the federal government jettisoned the real tyranny of federal-provincial consensus.

Michael (08:54):
Okay. And, and it's 2022. Now, where are things at, in that regard?

Kathryn (08:59):
Well,, it didn't go over well in 2019. And the provinces that had a federal carbon tax imposed with the exception of Manitoba challenged that in court they challenged the constitutionality of the federal government's authority to establish carbon pricing in provinces that went all the way to the Supreme court and the federal government won on the grounds that no province can solve this on their own. And if you have one province that is acting one or a few provinces that are acting to reduce their own emissions, the gains, the hard one gains in those provinces can be undone by emissions increases in other provinces. And that's in fact, what had happened for a long period of time in the Canadian Federation. So they upheld the idea of a federal backstop, which wasn't, you know, a, a blank check for the federal government to do whatever they want.

(10:04):
But I think the combination of the federal government's willingness to act unilaterally, is something we hadn't seen before. And them being authorized is to continue doing that within, you know, bound, reasonable bounds by the Supreme court has really led to a whole series of subsequent steps. The federal government subsequently announced that the carbon price would continue to be increased from 2020, where it'll be like $50 per ton to $170 per ton. In 2030 in the 2021 federal election, the liberals proposed a whole series of federal regulations, a cap on oil and gas emissions, a clean electricity standard, a regulation that would require a gradual transition to a hundred percent sale of zero-emission vehicles by 2035. So a whole series of federal Canada-wide policies, there will be consultations, but the assumption is the federal government is gonna adopt these regulations. The other big change is the adoption of the net-zero emissions accountability act that was adopted in the summer of 2021.

(11:30):
And it establishes a process that basically requires the government of the day set interim targets on the way to net-zero in 2050, put forward plans to meet those targets and defend those plans and track their progress and be accountable for their progress. That's something we've never seen before this time, there is accountability built-in, but that accountability is the federal government's accountability to the federal parliament. They can choose to work through provinces and get an agreement with provinces in the absence of that agreement, it will be up to the federal cabinet to make that happen. And so that is a more, a potentially at least more top-down approach than we've ever seen.

Michael (12:23):
And do you think that's gonna be a more successful approach than what's happened previously?

Kathryn (12:28):
Well, we, we can't really do worse.

Michael (12:31):
Okay.

Kathryn (12:33):
Canada had a track record for 25 years of announcing bold targets. The first one was the Mulrooney government's commitment to return emissions to 1990 levels by 2000. And then the Chretien government said that they would reduce emissions by 25% below 1990 levels. Then we had the Keto commitment, which was weaker, move the goalpost 6% below by 2010. Like we, we just keep moving the goal post back, governments have announced plans, but plants are not self-implementing targets. Don't implement themselves plan. Don't implement themselves, go need to adopt the regulations, price carbon, spend money on appropriate infrastructure. And that follow-through has never happened before. There's no guarantee that the net-zero emissions accountability act will ensure that will happen, but I think it increases accountability for failure. It reduces the likelihood that governments can put forward a plan. That's just pretending. And we've had a lot of pretend plans that exaggerate how effective different measures will be. And it requires that governments be accountable for meeting targets. So that means voters who really do care about climate change will have mechanisms to hold governments to account that they haven't had previously.

Michael (14:06):
Okay. You once compared to addressing the climate crisis to Medicare, can you tell me more about that?

Kathryn (14:11):
You know, I think the Medicare comparison actually came from the liberals in advance of the 2015 election. And at that, at that point, they were proposing stronger action on climate change, but they used this analogy to Medicare, which was politically brilliant in, two respects of the first is Canadians love Medicare. So it's like, oh, we'll fix climate. And it'll be like Medicare. It also, I think it, got people thinking about one aspect of Medicare and that's that it's a big spending program. The federal government has gotten over time, provincial governments to buy into publicly funded, equal access transportable health insurance via conditional grants. They offered money to provinces, but there were strings attached to that. And I think that made a lot of people think we're gonna fix climate change by the federal government spending a lot of money. I think the more important analogy there was the conditions that are attached.

(15:26):
Medicare is a program where the federal government set conditions that provincial governments have had to meet in order to get that money. To the extent the Medicare analogy has worked since 2016, it has not been so much the federal government throwing money around, but the federal government establishing carbon pricing and regulatory expectations, and then saying to provincial governments, you can implement this instead of us, but you're gonna have to meet federal criteria as is the case with Medicare. So I think the Medicare analogy is useful, but it's, it's not the part of Medicare that most people think of, which is the federal government's opening the purse strings. It's more on the regulatory side. So governments can accomplish their goals by spending money, inducing individuals or firms to change their behaviour with the promise of money, or they can regulate. They can say, here's the rules.

(16:29):
You have to meet them. Or there will be consequences in the case of climate change for a long time, governments promised money and people respond to money. But the scale of the challenge that we face to completely transform our economy is not going to be accomplished by public spending. You know, there'll be important public spending around the edges. It's going to take carbon pricing and regulation. And it's the conditions their conditions that provincial governments have to make if they want to adopt their own regulations, rather than the federal government stepping in and doing it themselves. That's the analogy to Medicare.

Michael (17:11):
Okay. So to me, it sounds like it's, it's less about the province and the federal government getting along and agreeing it's more about this is what's gonna happen and this is how we're gonna do it.

Kathryn (17:21):
Yeah. I mean, they consult for sure. And there are requirements to consult in the net-zero emissions, accountability act. But I think one of the things that the Supreme court decision made clear is there is a legitimate federal government role here. And the federal government, since 2015 has been increasingly willing to assume that responsibility. They don't have to act through the provinces. They don't have to wait for provincial governments to agree. And in fact, many of the failures, not all, but many of the failures in Canadian climate policy before 2015, 2016 have been because provinces could say no. And that blocked action nationwide.

Michael (18:10):
Yeah. And actually, I mentioned to you previously that I was reading Seth Klein's book, a good war. And I really like his analogy of where he compared world war II and how many resources we put into that and how quickly we responded. And not that everyone was always on board all the time, but how we all came together to accomplish great things. And he compares that to the, climate crisis now. Yeah. I dunno if you can speak to that at all.

Kathryn (18:33):
I, I really like the book. I, you know, a good war is the name of Seth Klein's book. There are things I agree with and things I'm not quite as optimistic about as Klein is. I think the analogy between that coming together and fighting this X central crisis is really important when we've done it before. There are similar things at stake here, if anything, greater things at stake let's get on with it. Let's, you know, have that more effort where I disagree is I think that one of the things line points out is just the scale of government operations during the war that government's nationalized whole industries and took over the means of production. I don't see that happening in the 2020s. I don't think there is political support for that scale. And I think in terms of the sort of caring economy that he also talks about, one of the challenges will be the source of the revenues to pay for those public services. So I think we can't ignore the private sector wealth generation from the private sector where taxes will come to pay for things. So I, I think they're, they're not small Quis, but with the big picture analogy he draws, I'm totally on board. It's a crisis. Let's treat it as one.

Michael (20:04):
Yeah. I thought, I thought the analogy just in general was, was very, very good. And so do you feel like that we are doing enough to address the climate crisis or, or what more, or can we be doing?

Kathryn (20:13):
There has been a disconnect between Canada's international goals and our national actions. And that still remains, even though we're doing a lot more so internationally, we embrace the global goal of limiting warming to 1.5 C that would require more than a 45% reduction globally below 2005 levels. By 2030, a few years ago, it would've been done at 45%, but in the meantime, emissions kept going up rather than down. So we've gotten further in the hole, Canada, one of the wealthiest and most carbon-intensive economies in the world has committed to a 40 to 45% cut by 2030. So our own international obligation is less than what's needed to meet 1.5 C. But I do think the government of Canada is doing a whole lot more. And this spring is gonna be a really critical moment to see what's coming. The net-zero accountability act requires that the federal environment of climate change minister produce a plan to meet the 2030 target to say how we're gonna get there. What will follow from that is the development of a whole series of regulations of electricity, oil, and gas, motor vehicle emissions. And that needs to be done really fast. We have never developed regulations quickly in this country. So I think they're going in the right direction. They're proposing to do the right kinds of things, but they need to actually do them and they need to do them.

Michael (21:49):
So this show is all about empowering citizens to take action on climate change. What can individual citizens do today to make sure that these changes are made?

Kathryn (21:59):
And I think the most important thing is these governments are elected by us and they're accountable to us. They have to get reelected in four or five years. So I think there tends to be too much emphasis on individual's actions as consumers buying different cars and whether stripping our doors and changing our diet. And, and I applaud when people do all of those things. I think they are important, but individual action isn't gonna get the job done. We need public policies to do that. And there, I think what citizens need to do is be willing to support the kinds of policies that are gonna be effective at ensuring that transition. I think to date, there has been a tendency for most people to say, this must be the result of big polluters. Somebody else should fix this problem and big polluters account for a little under half of Canada's emissions.

(23:02):
And they have been problematic and they do need to clean up, but everything's gonna need to change how we move around, how we heat our homes, what the prices of carbon-intensive and less carbon-intensive goods are. And I think we need to be willing to accept and support the policies that are gonna deliver that transition and not to fall prey, to populist appeals that, and that we don't have to do anything. It's all about someone else because it's not. And those appeals, the populist appeals and, and those that haven't been limited to one party have, I think been very effective in the past and have really undermined our progress as a country.

Michael (23:48):
And so it's, it's more about voting and voting in the right change and accepting those policies, I guess?

Kathryn (23:54):
Yeah. I think Canadians have misunderstood carbon pricing. Understandably. This is a very different policy that you know, carbon taxes are not like traditional taxes that exist to make money. They are a regulatory tool. And I think opportunistic politicians have played on that misunderstanding. They've said, you know, this is unfair to you and punitive because somebody else caused this problem and they've emphasized the cost. They've ignored the benefits in terms of emissions reduction, but also the benefits in terms of rebates in many provinces. And those appeals have been very effective, but they have undermined support for a very effective climate policy and also have resulted in many people, opposing a that's putting money in their own pockets.

Michael (24:48):
Do you have an example of one of those?

Kathryn (24:50):
Well, the carbon tax and dividend, which was implemented in five provinces, it's now four Ontario, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, and Alberta, 80 to 90% of households get more money back in rebates than they pay. But when my colleagues and I did a survey and asked people living in Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Ontario, we didn't have Manitoba included if they were paying more than they were getting back. Almost everyone thought they were paying more. They didn't believe the money that they were getting back. And conservatives underestimated their rebates by more than liberals and new Democrats because they've been told not to trust it, that it's not really focused on the costs. And so that's an example where there is still quite strong opposition to a policy that is actually putting money in people's pockets.

Michael (25:46):
Okay. And so if people have those doubts and they're unsure if maybe one politician says one thing, another politician says another thing, is there a source they can go to, to find a more objective explanation of some of these, these things that are being implemented?

Kathryn (26:01):
There has been on carbon pricing, the parliamentary budget offices, that reports that are independent. It's a non-partisan agency. Honestly, media reports were quite accurate. The mass media coverage was well informed. It's the statements that were made by inter groups and partisans that were misleading. So, ask tough questions, ask, show me the numbers on all sides. And I think people should be a little more willing to ask tough questions and draw their own conclusions because in many cases were being misled.

Michael (26:37):
Great. All right. Well, I think we will end it there. Thanks so much for your time, Kathryn.

Kathryn (26:40):
You're welcome.

Michael (26:42):
Well, that was my chat with professor Harrison. Going in, I thought provinces and the federal government, you know, they have to get along in order for us to make progress, but it, it seems like that's not the case because they probably won't ever see eye to eye a hundred percent, but we can still make progress regardless. And I love the phrase you used, show me the numbers, regardless of what political side you stand on. Let's look at the numbers. Let's look at the data and let's be rational. And in that way, we're gonna make progress. Well, that's all for me. I'm Michael Bartz. Here's the feeling a little less in over our head when it comes to saving the planet. We'll see you again soon. In Over My Head was produced and hosted by Michael Bartz original theme song by Gabriel Thaine. If you would like to get in touch with us, please e-mail info at, in over my head podcast.com. Special thanks to Telus STORYHIVE for making this show possible.

Speaker 1 (27:30):
I'm trying to save the planet or will someone please.