Why Steven Guilbeault Left Mark Carney’s Cabinet

By Akshat Rathi and Danielle Bochove

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney is nearly nine months into his tenure. He spent years building his climate bona fides on the global stage. But since taking over the role, he’s become more open to fossil fuels.

Last week, a minister from his cabinet resigned. Steven Guilbeault — a climate champion in his own right — quit his position, citing a split with Carney over a deal made with the government of oil-rich Alberta. Today’s newsletter brings you some of Guilbeault’s first comments since tendering his resignation.

Pipeline politics

Canada is unlikely to reach its net-zero goal due to recent policy changes, said Liberal Party politician Steven Guilbeault, who resigned last week from Prime Minister Mark Carney’s cabinet on account of the shift.

The country was already struggling to bend its emissions curve enough to meet targets over the next decade, Guilbeault told Akshat Rathi in an interview for Bloomberg’s podcast Zero. But a deal between the federal government and the oil-rich province of Alberta jeopardizes the country’s legally binding 2050 net-zero commitment, he said.

“With what has been announced, there’s no way Canada can meet its 2030, even its 2035, climate-change objectives,” he said. “And frankly, I doubt that we could even be carbon neutral by 2050.”

Last month’s memorandum of understanding states that Canada and Alberta remain committed to achieving net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. But it also promises federal support for one or more new oil pipelines from the province’s tar sands, and opens the door to ending a moratorium on oil tankers off British Columbia’s north coast.

The deal includes a promise to offer tax credits for enhanced oil recovery, a method by which carbon dioxide is injected into the ground to extract oil that would otherwise be inaccessible. Industry proponents tout such production as more sustainable because of the CO2 it stores.

“Some of my colleagues, including some ex-cabinet colleagues, see this as a silver bullet. Like we’ll start producing decarbonized oil,” Guilbeault said. “Hold on a second.” Oil production is responsible for only a fraction of the emissions arising from the fossil fuel. Most is added to the atmosphere when the oil is burned, which this technology isn’t able to capture.

Even so, he doubts a new oil pipeline will materialize. “I don’t believe that a pipeline is going to be built, largely for economical reasons,” he said.

Source: Environment and Climate Change Canada

An ex-Greenpeace activist who was once arrested for scaling Toronto’s CN Tower during a protest, Guilbeault was the Liberal government’s culture minister and before that, the environment minister under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. After Carney was elected in April, he became increasingly concerned about the direction of climate policy and the MOU proved the final straw.

Guilbeault said the attempt to placate Alberta is also fueling a “more robust” separatist movement in his home province of Quebec.

The former minister was responsible for convincing Green Party leader Elizabeth May to support Carney’s recent budget, on the understanding that it did not include fossil fuel subsidies. In a Canadian TV interview after Guilbeault’s resignation, May said she was heartbroken but not surprised given Carney’s decision to add the tax credits to the MOU shortly after the budget came out.

“Your word has to mean something,” she said. “When the budget specifically said there will be no subsidies for enhanced oil recovery and 10 days later a deal with the Alberta premier breaks that, there are some larger questions at play here.”

Guilbeault said he was “puzzled” by Carney’s about-face. “I wouldn’t say that the prime minister lied to me, but what the leader of the Green Party said is true,” he said. “I don’t care that the Alberta government wanted it. It should not have been there in the first place.”

Read the full story on Bloomberg.com.

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