A majority of Canadians think that Canada is broken after years of stagnant incomes, affordability challenges, rising crime, government failures on basic functions like healthcare and immigration, and a deepening cultural malaise. But decline is a choice, and better public policies are needed to overcome Canada’s many challenges. Kickstart Canada brings together leading voices in academia, think tanks, and business to lay out an optimistic vision for Canada’s future, providing the policy ideas that governments need to ensure a bright future for all Canadians.

Canadian climate policy is struggling.

We are not on track to achieve our climate targets. The federal government is locked in a battle with provinces over its ever-proliferating suite of laws and regulations aimed at curbing emissions. Companies that want to decarbonize can’t tell which direction this tug-of-war is going to go from one day to the next. Meanwhile, the uncertainty is holding up billions in new low-carbon investments.

Canadians are divided on what we should be doing about the climate—and increasingly, on whether we should be doing anything at all. That’s bad news, because building a low-carbon Canadian economy is a generational opportunity we need to seize now to secure our future prosperity.

Ambivalence about climate policy is understandable, especially because Canadians are struggling against a rising cost of living. Many perceive the fight against climate change as unnecessarily burdensome. But, climate change itself is already contributing to rising costs, and low-carbon economic growth offers an antidote.

While Canadian action alone can’t stop climate change,  we have to be part of the solution or risk becoming globally isolated, both politically and economically.

We have the tools we need to make climate policy work for Canada. We need to start using those tools in a way that is more consistent with the blueprints of Canadian federalism.

Take carbon pricing. Since 2018, Ottawa has set minimum standards for provinces to design and run their own carbon pricing systems. The federal government only imposes its own system on provinces that don’t meet the standard.

Carbon pricing could have been the “cornerstone” of a low-rise federal climate policy that respected provincial jurisdiction. Instead, the federal government decided to build a skyscraper of other policies on top of it. Now the top floors are teetering, putting the whole structure at risk.

It doesn’t have to be this way. As Hub Editor-at-Large Sean Speer has argued, we need Ottawa to disentangle itself from the provincial responsibilities it has assumed in defiance of Canada’s clearly-defined constitutional separation of powers. That should include the nitty-gritty of how to achieve low-carbon growth and hit climate targets. Provinces are best positioned to figure that out for themselves. The federal government’s role should be to hold them to account.

There’s an opportunity here for the provinces and the feds to reach a new understanding on how to work together to grow Canada’s low-carbon economy and reduce emissions.

The federal government should commit to withdrawing contentious climate policy proposals that intrude on areas of provincial responsibility, like the oil and gas emissions cap. Not only would this demonstrate respect for the jurisdiction of provinces like Alberta and Saskatchewan, but it would make room for industrial carbon pricing to work its magic instead of hamstringing it. Layering policies on top of each other just creates more complexity and uncertainty and slows down low-carbon investment.

However, provinces shouldn’t expect to get something for nothing. While withdrawing from areas of provincial jurisdiction, the federal government should double down on its own—enforcing our internationally agreed emissions reduction targets. Provinces should be free to chart their own courses to emissions reduction and low-carbon growth, but they have to show that they’re making tangible progress. Otherwise, Ottawa needs to step in.

In order to hold provinces accountable, it would help if we could all agree on the implications of their climate plans—or at least be able to talk about what we disagree on. Right now we can’t, because we lack a transparent system for modelling climate plans. Each level of government does its own policy modelling. Nobody else can see the inputs and assumptions. That needs to change.

Holding provinces to account doesn’t mean stepping on their toes. Each region is unique, and Ottawa should not presume to understand provincial realities better than the provinces themselves. Whether it’s housing, child care, or carbon emissions, the federal government’s role is to ensure provinces achieve nationally equivalent outcomes.

As Heather Exner-Pirot argued earlier in this series, Alberta in particular has designed an effective program to foster low-carbon growth and reduce emissions that is not only fine-tuned to the needs of the province, but has also helped inspire the federal government’s own industrial carbon pricing system. The Technology Innovation and Emissions Reduction (TIER) system can continue to drive billions of dollars worth of low-carbon investment in Canada’s highest-emitting province and help the province compete internationally. In fact TIER and other provincial industrial carbon pricing systems are expected to make the largest contribution to reducing Canada’s emissions.

But TIER faces challenges. The TIER carbon market risks an oversupply of credits, which could hurt credit prices and undermine the business case for new low-carbon investment in the province. The federal government needs to work with Alberta to address this, among other issues.

If the federal government and the provinces can build up enough trust to work together constructively on climate policy, then we might be able to take industrial carbon pricing to the next level—such as creating a harmonized national carbon market to accelerate investment. That’s not something the federal government can impose on the provinces; they’ll need to be enthusiastic participants.

To get where we need to go—a low-carbon Canadian economy that can sustain prosperity for future generations and protect our way of life—the federal government needs to get back in its lane, and out of the provinces’ business.

B’Nai Brith, a human rights organization dedicated to advocacy for the Jewish people, recently hosted a tribute in Montreal for former prime minister Stephen Harper to recognize his stalwart leadership and work in combatting antisemitism, both during his time in office and afterwards. Linda Frum, a Conservative member of the Senate from 2009 until 2021, delivered the following remarks during the event. 

Good evening and thank you for inviting me here tonight to be part of this important fundraiser for B’nai Brith’s legal defence fund, and for allowing me the great honour of paying tribute to tonight’s honouree, Canada’s 22nd (and greatest living) prime minister: Stephen J. Harper.

Prime Minister Harper, over your term in office, there were so many triumphs and successes. Yet there was one day which for me will be remembered as a day of tears: and that was the day, shortly after the election in October of 2015 when you telephoned me, as a member of your caucus, to say a personal goodbye. You were leaving politics after 19 years in elected office, and nine years as our prime minister.

That phone call took place almost exactly nine years ago. Nine years is a short time in the life of a nation, even a nation as young as Canada. It’s a very short time in the existence of a people as ancient as the Jewish people. Yet in those nine years, how much has changed.

Every day, in the Canada that we know now, comes some new act of intimidation or violence designed to send a message to Canada’s Jews that we are no longer welcome or safe here. Bomb threats against synagogues and community centres. Bullets fired at schools. Vandalism of storefronts. Mobs blockading coffee shops. Beatings of children on playing fields. [Antisemitic] encampments permitted to exist on campus. Deputy mayors of great cities speaking alongside the flags of prohibited terrorist organizations.

The further and wider antisemitism spreads in Canada, the more nervously our leaders retreat before it. Sometimes it seems we are losing even the language to describe what is happening. Jews are uniquely targeted—but we can never be specifically mentioned. There is always an asterisk after each outrage, an “and” or a “but.”

Our leaders cannot condemn antisemitism and only antisemitism. It has to be antisemitism plus something else. When a rock breaks a window, they ponder long and hard whether the rock is unacceptably antisemitic or acceptably anti-Zionist. Afraid to speak clearly, authorities are unable to act effectively.

And so we see:

• Senior leaders of the Iranian regime settle in Canada with their pillaged wealth;
• ISIS terrorists granted Canadian citizenship;
• A person with a lengthy published record of Jew-hatred is appointed to enforce our human rights code while another prolific Jew-hater is given lavish government sums to teach anti-racism to journalists.

Yes, mistakes will happen in any large organization, we all understand that. But the same mistake? Again and again and again? With seemingly no accountability, no consequences, and no plan to prevent yet another repeat?

During your tenure, Prime Minister Harper, Canada’s Jews knew there was a courageous and moral leader at the helm. We knew we had a friend. What we failed to appreciate, however, was how quickly—and how dangerously—things would change after your time in office.

I applaud the organizers of tonight’s fundraiser for their efforts in ensuring our community has the legal resources it needs to protect those targeted by discrimination, harassment, and violence. We still feel trust in the Canadian justice system to uphold the safety and dignity of our community.

But justice is not self-executing.

When an individual police officer decides it’s more prudent to stay out of the way of the mobs chanting threats against Jews; when a university president allows antisemites to seize public property and use it as their own; when our country’s representatives at the United Nations cannot distinguish between those who launch a war of terrorist atrocity and those who are defending against terrorist atrocity—the courts cannot intervene to correct them all. That’s not their job.

Canada needs more leaders who are unafraid to defend our country’s most fundamental values and our highest aspirations. Leaders who speak the same truth to all audiences.

Who can speak out against wrongs against any and all Canadians? And without a private reservation that Jews belong to some different and inferior category whose victimization can be explained by the actions of the victims themselves?

Thankfully such leaders do exist. Perhaps there are not as many as we would like, but there are fearless and outspoken individuals in our society who take their mission to guard our community very seriously. These men and women deserve our praise and recognition. Indeed, I see many of you in this room tonight. And to you I say: bravo and thank you.

But as grateful as we are to such stalwart leaders, there is one Canadian leader who stands out above all the rest. The most eloquent, robust and indefatigable of them all. And it is him whom we salute tonight.

In 2014, I was a member of the delegation that accompanied Stephen and Laureen Harper to Israel to receive the accolades that were their due.

The impetus for the visit was the ribbon cutting for the grand opening of the JNF project built in tribute to Prime Minister Harper. I am referring, as you may know, to the Stephen J. Harper Visitor’s Centre at the Hula Valley Bird Sanctuary.

As you may also know, the Hula Valley is located between the Golan Heights, the Naftali Mountains, and the Bekaa Valley, places very much in the news today. The Hula Nature Reserve is a wetland ecosystem that has been extensively restored and preserved by the JNF. It is a vital stopover point for millions of migrating birds during their seasonal journeys between Europe and Africa.

The sanctuary symbolizes the Middle East that could be: a peaceful crossroads of faiths, cultures, and peoples. It also, sadly, reminds us of the Middle East that is.

When you enter the Stephen J. Harper Visitor’s Centre in the Hula Valley Sanctuary, you are only 20 kilometres away from the Lebanon border. You are 40 kilometres away from Majdal Shams, where 12 Israeli Druze children were recently blown to bits by Hezbollah. You are 17 kilometres away from Kiryat Shmona, one of the many northern Israeli towns evacuated after October 7, which remains a ghost town up to this moment. Its inhabitants are among the 100,000 internally displaced people of Israel’s north.

During that visit to Israel in 2014, Prime Minister Harper addressed the Knesset. I quote from his memorable speech: “Canada supports Israel because it is right to do so. This is a very Canadian trait, to do something for no reason other than it is right, even when no immediate reward for, or threat to, ourselves is evident.”

Prime Minister Harper, there is your political philosophy in your own words. Do what is right, without regard to rewards or threats.

This philosophy is why you are so admired and respected. It is why you are missed by Canadians from coast to coast to coast. It is why Canadian Jewry venerates you. It is why we gather in your name tonight. It is why I cried when you left. And it is why you will always be recognized and cherished by us all as a noble, honourable, and eternal friend.