Liberal MP hopes green jobs legislation gains traction

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This article was published 09/02/2022 (1051 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

OTTAWA — After being overlooked for a cabinet post, Manitoba MP Jim Carr is challenging his federal Liberal team to commit to a green jobs plan for the Prairies.

“If we can align our interests in the Prairie (region), then we’re going to be able to accomplish much more through that kind of collaboration, than if we’re in our own little corners,” said the Liberal MP for Winnipeg South Centre.

On Monday, he tabled Bill C-235, which calls for the federal industry minister to table a co-ordinated plan within 18 months to do everything from implement public transit in rural areas to putting nuclear plants in Alberta or Saskatchewan.

The idea is to put more meat on the Trudeau government’s bare-bones pledge for some sort of energy transition away from fossil fuels.

The bill calls for a strategy that addresses six major themes, such as “fostering job creation and retraining in regions that rely on traditional energy industries, to enable them to build a zero-emissions green economy.”

Other themes include: “Addressing the limited or non-existent transportation options in small cities and communities;” building climate-change adaptation infrastructure, such as floodways; and “integrating clean energy into fields such as agriculture.”

Carr said the bill is based off the Winnipeg Core Area Initiative, a decade-long effort launched in 1981, in which all three levels of government co-operated on a $196-million plan to rejuvenate the inner city.

That project gave the three governments a requirement to meet regularly, set priorities, put up cash, and assess results. Carr calls it a guidebook for “adjusting to inevitable changes in the energy world” for the oil and gas sectors, but one that would include Indigenous governments and the private sector.

“This bill offers a template and the kind of encouragement and accountability that I think these issues need,” said Carr, who served as energy and trade minister before Prime Minister Justin Trudeau appointed him as a special adviser for Prairies issues.

In October, Trudeau removed Carr from cabinet during a post-election shuffle many Liberals took as a snub to Manitoba.

NDP MP Daniel Blaikie said he expected more detail from Carr, given how connected he is in the region.

“It’s hard to fathom, and somewhat disappointing at this point, that somebody who’s been around the cabinet table would believe it’s going to take at least another 18 months and some legislated deadline, just to get a framework from his own government,” said the Elmwood–Transcona MP.

Blaikie said he’d expect something like legislation proposing a Western Canadian power grid, or another concrete proposal that would boost employment.

“We need things that are more specific and concrete than what’s in the bill, and I would have thought Mr. Carr would be in a position to provide some thoughts on what those things are,” the Winnipeg MP said.

“This says to me the government’s nowhere close to taking action in any meaningful way on climate in the Prairie provinces, for at least 18 months.”

Conservative MP Dan Mazier, who leads the party’s Manitoba caucus, said he hadn’t reviewed the legislation but it seemed to have potential.

“I looking forward to talking with Jim about it and see if we can make it a decent bill for rural Canada,” said Mazier (Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa).

“They haven’t had a plan so far in the last six years, so I don’t know if anything would change, but we’ll have to see.”

As of October’s cabinet shuffle, just two of Trudeau’s 39 cabinet ministers come from the Prairies, where the Liberals’ support has cratered since they took office in 2015.

Saint Boniface—Saint Vital MP Dan Vandal kept his role as northern affairs minister, while also leading a regional economic development agency for the Prairies.

Trudeau has put Vandal and Edmonton MP Randy Boissonnault in charge of overseeing a $2-billion energy-transformation pledge, which the Liberals call the “Futures Fund for Alberta, Saskatchewan and Newfoundland and Labrador.”

Carr’s proposal came in a private member’s bill, legislation that usually doesn’t become law — but it’s also rare to have a recent minister table one.

“I have a lot of hope and the people with whom I have spoken have been very supportive of the spirit behind the bill,” Carr said.

Western MPs said Tuesday they were interested in the bill, but needed more time to study its contents. Carr had raised the gist of his proposal with MPs, but under parliamentary rules could not discuss specifics until it was tabled.

dylan.robertson@freepress.mb.ca