Charles Caccia, former federal minister of the environment, spoke at U of T last Wednesday as part of the Environmental Studies Seminar Series, sponsored by the U of T Institute for Environmental Studies. Caccia addressed problems in achieving sustainable development and the current environmental condition of Canada. He served as a member of parliament for 36 years and was the founder of the Parliamentary Centre for Environmentally Sustainable Development. During his talk, entitled “Politics and the Elusive Goal of Sustainable Development,” Caccia said that the fishing industry was particularly significant to Canada’s environment. He explained that during the 1970s on the coast of Nova Scotia an average of 400,000 tonnes of cod were caught annually by Canadian and foreign fishing companies. While a decrease in foreign fleets brought this number down to 200,000 tonnes by the end of that decade, such numbers still threatened the species. As a result, in 1992, the Canadian government imposed a moratorium on fishing cod which led to 30,000 lost jobs in Nova Scotia and Newfoundland. But with unemployment insurance, Caccia argues, the government was able to save the communities who had depended on the cod industry. Caccia said that the Canadian government’s policies often go against environmental protection and even against the government’s own environmental commitments. Caccia said that taxes can be use used to “guide and influence behaviour…and remove obstacles” to sustainable growth, but because of subsidies, taxes have actually become part of the problem: for instance, he said, while the Kyoto Protocol requires Canada to reduce its use of fossil fuels, the tax system is actually benefiting gas and oil companies. Between 1996 and 2002, tax support for these companies totalled $8 billion. Such “perverse” policies, Caccia said, undermine our commitment to Kyoto. Caccia said that Canada must combine environmental goals with social goals to move toward sustainable development. Health is an especially significant issue linked to the environment. After the discovery of the harmful effects of lead, the Canadian government removed it from almost all gas sold. Caccia stated that if the price of gas reflected the health costs it leads to, “the price at the pump would be much larger than what we have now.” Caccia went on to say that too often, efforts to protect the health of Canadians get overridden by political and economic interests. After corporations threatened to sue Canada because legislation that banned manganese in gas violated NAFTA, the Canadian government issued an apology and paid the companies $18 million. Caccia called this “one of the darkest days in our history.” “The emerging picture is far from reassuring,” Caccia concluded. But there is some hope for change if people are willing to make the effort, he said.
“Governments do reflect the interests of the people who communicate with them,” he said, and are “penalized or rewarded by people at the ballot box.”
