Four Ottawa Centre MP candidates met on Zoom Wednesday night for a debate focusing on climate change and environmentalism, held as a part of the 100 Debates on the Environment initiative by GreenPac and the Sustainability Network.
Angella MacEwen of the NDP, Angela Keller-Herzog of the Green Party, Yasir Naqvi of the Liberal Party and Alex McDonald of the Communist Party of Canada attended the debate. Evidence for Democracy director Rachael Maxwell, Indigenous Clean Energy advocate Terri Lynn Morrison and columnist and writer David Moscrop moderated the event.
Noticeably absent from the debate were Conservative Party candidate Carol Clemenhagen and People’s Party of Canada candidate Regina Watteel.
Before the event began, Maxwell said that Clemenhagen was invited but was unable to attend. Watteel, and the PPC in general, were not mentioned by the moderators or the candidates once throughout the evening.
The PPC has denied the existence of human-driven climate change, stating on its official website in part that there is “no scientific consensus on the theory that CO2 produced by human activity is causing dangerous global warming today or will in the future.”
The debate consisted of five questions from moderators that were provided to the candidates prior to the debate, interspersed with two periods of rebuttal and followed by one question from the audience.
Candidates shared several broad commitments over the night but differed in how they said their party would achieve their goals.
Every candidate said they would commit to preserving at least 30 per cent of Canada’s land and freshwater and propose legislation to recognize the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
Every candidate also promised to reintroduce Bill C-28, an update to the Canadian Environmental Protection Act. Bill C-28 would acknowledge that Canadians have the right to a healthy environment, though the government could infringe on that right for social and economic reasons. The update would also require the government to study and minimize the risk pollution poses to vulnerable communities.
The update was first attempted back in April but did not get past the first reading.
All of the candidates also made a commitment to end fossil fuel subsidies over the coming years, though the topic raised criticism towards the Liberals.
“The Liberal promise was to get rid of ‘inefficient fossil fuel subsidies,’ which is not clear what that means, and it’s very limiting,” MacEwen said. “Buying a pipeline is a fossil fuel subsidy.”
The structure of the debate did not allow Naqvi to respond.
More ambitious solutions came from McDonald, whose promises included nationalizing Canada’s energy sector and corporations such as Bombardier, making public transit free and creating land banks on the federal, provincial and municipal levels.
“In the long run, we have to move over to a different kind of society to solidify these gains, which I hope would come about in a rather immediate future,” McDonald said.
Naqvi, along with Keller-Herzog and MacEwen, did not respond to or acknowledge McDonald’s or the Communist Party of Canada’s proposals despite having the opportunity in the rebuttal portions of the debate.
Of the parties present at the debate, the Liberals came under the most fire from other candidates. One of the main points of criticism was the construction of the Trans Mountain oil pipeline.
“Most people are aware of the cognitive dissonance between declaring a climate emergency and buying a pipeline the next day,” Keller-Herzog said. “The Liberals have a huge history of breaking promises and on top of that, their policy stances are totally contradictory. Their track record is one of increasing emissions since 2015.”
Naqvi called into question the feasibility of the Green Party and NDP plans, although he did not point to any specific proposal.
“What we are continuing to hear, and I’m sorry to say, from my friends at the NDP and the Green Party, is a lot of platitude and just a lot of pie in the sky ideas. What we really need to talk about is the transition [from fossil fuels to renewable energy],” Naqvi said.
The Ottawa Centre candidates will face off again at an all-candidates debate hosted by local community associations on Sept. 13 at 7 p.m. over Zoom. According to Hampton Iona Community Group, the debate’s lead organizer, eight candidates are expected to attend.
Featured image from Screengrab.
