Making Saskatchewan a Green Economy Leader - Lingenfelter Policy Statement

Making Saskatchewan a Green Economy Leader
April 3rd, 2009
A Policy Statement by Dwain Lingenfelter

For too long, politicians and political parties have talked about balancing environmental sustainability and economic progress as if one could only be advanced at the expense of the other. This is a false trade-off. I am convinced now more than ever that environmental leadership equals economic leadership.

Due to the vision of successive CCF-NDP governments, Saskatchewan has long been acknowledged as a Canadian public policy leader in areas such as Medicare and Crown Corporations. Unfortunately, with per capita greenhouse gas emissions that are three times higher than the Canadian average and the highest of any Canadian province, we are not fulfilling our responsibility to protect our environment and show public policy leadership in embracing the green economy. I believe it doesn’t have to be this way. I believe there are public policy solutions that can make Saskatchewan a green economy leader.

In 2007, the NDP government moved to remedy this situation by introducing a comprehensive plan to secure our long-term economic prosperity through the setting of aggressive targets for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. While the Sask Party committed to adhere to these targets during the last provincial election campaign, the Wall government scrapped the NDP’s climate change plan, and then refused to release a plan of its own. In a recent report, the David Suzuki Foundation congratulated the NDP for having put in place a “reasonably ambitious target for greenhouse gas emissions” but slammed the Sask Party for adopting the NDP’s target with “no plan or strategy to get there.”

Elsewhere too, the Wall government is moving our province backward on the environment. Brad Wall:
- Abolished the NDP’s $320 million Green Future Fund that provided funding for projects to fight climate change
- Eliminated the Saskatchewan Office of Energy Conservation
- Scrapped the Climate Change Secretariat
- Gutted renewable energy programs
- Bought his Cabinet Ministers brand new, gas-guzzling SUVs

Brad Wall’s Minister of the Environment has mused about not only backing away from the NDP government’s targets, but adopting targets for the reduction of greenhouse gases that are even “less stringent” than the extremely minimal targets set by the Harper government.

Due to Brad Wall’s lack of leadership, Saskatchewan will fail to meet the NDP government’s target of stabilizing its greenhouse gas emissions by 2010, and we will waste valuable time as other jurisdictions work to build their green economies and create green jobs.
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