Welcome to The Environmentalist, your column for understanding the natural world. This article will try to address the new Canadian prime minister’s environmental policies and its contradictions.
A country’s ecological footprint is measured in global hectares, which is a unit of a land’s average global productivity that quantifies its demand for natural resources and waste absorption. Out of 130 countries, Canada’s ecological footprint is ranked as the seventh largest per capita, with it being at 8.28 global hectares per person. It has been evident for years that Canadians consume resources faster than the country can regenerate them, given this was measured 10 years ago. So what is being done to reduce the ecological footprint?
This is where the new administration comes in. Mark Carney was instated as Canada’s prime minister on Mar. 14, 2025. During his campaign with the liberal party, he ran with a compromise to protect the Canadian environment, including creating new national parks, promoting both institutional and economical Indigenous stewardship, and a very long etcetera. Unfortunately, one of the administrations’ major policies is the One Canadian Economy act, also known as the Bill C-5. It aims to “accelerate national interest projects and break down interprovincial trade barriers.” But is this true?
On paper, the Bill should speed up the approval process for projects deemed to be of national interest, making investment in Canada more attractive, and driving competitiveness in various business sectors, including the clean energy industry. On the contrary, many critics point out to the ambiguity of the bill and how it might be giving politicians extraordinary powers that firms can lobby in the “national interest,” providing many more opportunities for favouritism and even corruption. Furthermore, it gives the cabinet power to override laws like the Fisheries Act and the Species at Risk Act.
Decision making will shift from agencies, panels, and public hearings toward the cabinet, raising concerns about executive power overreach and weakening parliamentary independence. Projects can be approved with not so much public participation and limited environmental assessments. Lastly, some critics say that the bill could favour large infrastructure and resource extraction, since those are the large enough projects to be deemed as a “national interest.” This might lead to Canada being locked into an unsustainable path rather than actually promoting greener alternatives.
Canada’s greenhouse gas emissions goals are to reduce emissions by 45 per cent below 2005 levels by 2035, and to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050. We are all currently facing plenty of decisions and actions that will surely trickle down to our not-so-far future. This leads me to wonder, will Canada’s “national interest” finally mean climate leadership and Indigenous rights? Or another round of big promises with weak delivery? Remember the power that we have as voters and communities, even speaking up on a local level is plenty, so as the Lorax once said, “unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better.” So, let’s care.
