Canada: Stop Subsidizing the Climate Crisis
Despite their commitment to ending inefficient fossil fuel subsidies over a decade ago, the so-called Canadian government continues to dish out billions of dollars to oil and gas companies every year.
With the Assessment Framework for Fossil Fuel Subsidies currently underway, the federal government is in a position to correct their journey forward for the health of our lands and communities by ending their subsidy of the climate crisis and their ongoing violations on the rights of Indigenous Peoples in so-called Canada.
Eriel Deranger speaking at the Standing Senate Committee on Energy, the Environment and Natural Resources
“The oil and gas industry is the single most significant barrier to real climate action and climate justice in this country. To overcome this massive barrier and achieve climate action and reconciliation with Indigenous peoples, we need to get to the facts...”
On May 29, 2023, ICA joined over 100 environmental, health, human rights and civil society organizations across so-called Canada and around the world to call on the federal government to include the following key items in the framework:
A robust definition of fossil fuel subsidies
Subsidies to be included in the review: tax measures analyzed by the Parliamentary Budget Office, and measures identified in the inventory of supports for fossil fuels compiled by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)
Aligning ‘efficiency’ assessment with Canada’s climate commitments
The letter also calls for the inclusion of criteria outlined in the international financing policy from earlier this year and demands the new framework upholds the Polluter Pays Principle to ensure industry cannot pass clean-up costs back onto us.
As we look forward to a just transition, these demands are the bare minimum. We ask, at the very least, that in a time of climate chaos that our government stop subsidizing the very industry that led us to this disaster in the first place.
Divest from Fossil Fuels; Invest in Land Defence
Between 2018-2020, in a time of growing climate chaos, so-called Canada provided 14 times more fossil fuel finance than support for renewables. Bloomberg New Energy Finance also reported that from 2015–2019 the federal government provided $100 billion to the fossil fuel sector and raised its level of support of fossil fuels by 40%.
During this same time, so-called Canada spent an egregious amount of public money policing, surveilling and criminalizing Indigenous people who have been defending their lands by resisting unwanted oil and gas. Policing on Wet'suwet'en territory, to violently force through the construction of the Coastal Gas Link pipeline, alone has cost over 21 million.
“Globally, Indigenous peoples bear the brunt of climate change, and we are also bearing the brunt of the drivers of climate change — the oil and gas industry. I hope I made myself clear. Carbon emissions are just the tip of the iceberg of what needs to change about the oil and gas industry. We need to look at this through a climate justice lens. It is not just about economic risks and greenhouse gases. If we treat the situation as such, we will create the same problems again and again… If there is any hope for climate action and reconciliation, the strong hold this industry has over our country must end. A just transition must be led by Indigenous communities and not forced upon us by the oil and gas industry.”
Indigenous communities hold a profound wealth of knowledge about living in respectful, reciprocal relations with land and waters, stewarding the ecosystems we all depend on and adapting to big changes over time.