It's time to shift from relief to gratitude as Carney helps steer the climate transition

National Observer

05-05-2025

There were a long few moments of icy fear as the early vote results trickled in from Atlantic Canada on Monday evening. Befuddled pundits began wondering aloud whether the pollsters had indeed been wrong and Maple MAGA would vastly outperform expectations. The next morning it became clear that a similar foreboding must have shuddered through Danielle Smith's watch party.
The Trump-courting premier appeared not just relieved but almost exuberant that she could stick to her script and kick the federal Liberals around for the foreseeable future. It's an old dynamic, but an effective one: Doug Ford's advisers urged him to rush to the polls while Trudeau was still in office. Danielle Smith is presiding over record oil production but gets to play the outraged victim.
'Albertans are deeply frustrated that the same government that overtly attacked our provincial economy almost unabated for the past 10 years has been returned to government… As Premier, I will not permit the status quo to continue,' Smith said in a statement teasing 'processes' and 'options' for the path forward. 'We will no longer tolerate having our industries threatened and our resources landlocked by Ottawa.'
Viewed from beyond the Prairies, the argument is breathtakingly audacious. Oil and gas production is at an all-time high. The federal Liberals bought and rammed through an oil pipeline to the West Coast to the tune of some tens of billions in opaque cost overruns, and yet it isn't being used to capacity. Meanwhile, another new pipeline has blasted its way past Indigenous opponents and begun delivering gas to LNG Canada, billed as the largest private sector investment in Canadian history. More LNG projects are approved already.
The fossil fuel industry is insatiable. Oil prices low? Oil prices high? Trump in office? Biden in office? War in Europe? Peace on Earth? The answer is suspiciously similar: unleash us. But the industry is also yoked to the vagaries of the global market. And right now, oil prices are collapsing, the Saudis are girding for battle, and who knows what the orange menace might do next. If the oil patch sours, Danielle Smith will be especially relieved to have a time-tested scapegoat in Ottawa.
On the other side of the ideological gulf, progressives and climate advocates had dodged an outcome that seemed inevitable just weeks before: four, maybe eight, maybe 10 years of a Poilievre government, openly hostile to climate action, environmentalism and other woke globalisms.
Instead, we got Prime Minister Mark Carney. A woke globalist from central casting. A long-time climate advocate, married to even more of a climate advocate. An international envoy on the topic appointed by the UN. A double central banker famous for prodding the titans of finance on their duties to future generations. A global player who'd been arguing the vast majority of fossil fuels need to stay in the ground. And who literally wrote the book on Value(s).
Even if we're clear-eyed about the domestic and global challenges facing Carney's government, we've got to recognize that this has been an extraordinary reversal of political fortunes, writes Chris Hatch
I'm not nearly as sanguine as the great Bill McKibben about the prospects for Mark Carney to deliver. But considering McKibben's long and relentless (not to mention insightful and prolific) commitment to the fight against climate change, it's well worth hearing his take:
'In Carney we now have the world leader who knows more than any of his peers about climate change. And who knows roughly twenty times as much about climate and energy economics as anyone else in power. He may turn out to be a truly crucial figure in the fight to turn the climate tide.'
McKibben goes on to describe Carney's past work as a 'great boost' to the climate movement and concludes: 'I'd say the rest of the world is going to recognize Carney as the most likely person to midwife us through this transition. I think he's not done playing a world-historical role.'
Wow. Now, it's possible that McKibben is envying us our new PM from the distorted perspective of a Trumpian shithole. But even if we're clear-eyed about the domestic and global challenges facing Carney's government, we've got to recognize that this has been an extraordinary reversal of political fortunes. We might even permit ourselves a moment to move beyond relief to gratitude.
We should be grateful the vote was not dominated by dudes, for example. If you're relieved not to face a Poilievre government, Canadian women (notably in Quebec) are the voters to thank.
And another worthy object of gratitude is the group of fellow citizens willing to launch themselves into the misery of modern politics. Without climate-minded politicians, we don't get climate policy. Some climate champions lost their seats, reports Natasha Bulowski. But we can also be grateful to welcome several newcomers.
Shannon Miedema
After 15 years fighting (inside) city hall, Miedema will represent Halifax for the Liberals. She shepherded Halifax's climate action plan from conception through implementation. 'For those who don't know me, my name is Shannon Miedema,' she announced when seeking the Liberal nomination. 'I'm a lifelong climate advocate and public servant.' She's a former president of the Young Naturalists Club of Canada and now has to give up the job as her city's director of environment and climate change because she rocked her riding with 63 per cent of the vote.
Gregor Robertson
The former Mayor of Vancouver, founder of Happy Planet and farmer once restored a wooden sailboat and sailed across the Pacific with no electronic gizmos. I should admit to some bias here — Robertson is a friend and sometimes soccer teammate ('elbows up' is no mere metaphor for him, as my own ribs can attest).
Before his election as mayor, he was a provincial NDP MLA, so with his victory in Vancouver Fraserview-South Burnaby, he's completed the trifecta and now been elected to all three levels of government under three different party flags.
Robertson was a driving force behind Vancouver's Greenest City Action Plan and personally scouted all the new bike lanes. He went on to work for global coalitions of mayors for climate action and then joined Carney's campaign to revive Canadian environmentalism. He and Miedema are being mooted by those in the know as likely cabinet members.
Eric St-Pierre
A fellow lover of electric school buses, St-Pierre was executive director of the Trottier Family Foundation for the last nine years. The foundation has supported loads of worthy climate projects across the country (as well as this newsletter). But St-Pierre also leveraged his role to co-create a number of other initiatives, including the Climate Champions Initiative, mobilizing $450 million in new climate philanthropy. He also co-founded Low Carbon Cities Canada and will be the new député for honoré-mercier on the Island of Montreal.
Patrick Bonin
The Carney Liberals are likely to feel the heat from Patrick Bonin, a Greenpeace climate and energy campaigner. Bonin left Greenpeace and ran for the Bloc Québécois. He was elected to represent the riding of Repentigny. 'Patrick led Quebec's climate and energy campaign and has over a decade of environmental campaigning experience,' enthused Caroline Brouilette, executive director of Climate Action Network Canada (CAN-Rac), noting that the Bloc endorsed CAN-Rac's policy proposals in full.
It's only a partial list but we can't move on without mentioning some returning MPs.
Elizabeth May
Elizabeth the Unbeatable delivered the Greens' only seat in the next Parliament.
Defying the bookies, May was reelected in her riding of Saanich-Gulf Islands by more than seven points over the Liberal candidate and 14 points over the Conservative. May started as an environmental lawyer in 1983 and got her first government gig in 1986 — policy advisor to the environment minister in the Mulroney government.
It was a different flavour of Conservative party in those days, and May was central to the team that landed the 1987 Montreal Protocol to protect the ozone layer. Still irrepressible at 70 years old, she may be a lone Green voice, but she won't be a quiet one.
Leah Gazan
Gazan calls herself 'ProudLakota' online and she'll be back representing Winnipeg Centre for the NDP. Gazan introduced the Climate Emergency Action Act, and it was her motion that forced Parliament to recognize the atrocities of the Indian Residential Schools as genocide. She's been a tireless advocate for Missing Indigenous Women and Girls and a key advocate for the Red Dress Alert system. She won't have many NDP colleagues in Ottawa but Alexandre Boulerice, a reliable climate advocate will return representing Rosemont-La Petite-Patrie.
...and several others
Olympic gold medallist Adam van Koeverden is back for the Liberals after winning the new Ontario riding of Burlington North-Milton West. Van Koeverden has been a persistent pest advocating for a Youth Climate Corps and by the end of the campaign, all parties except the Conservatives had promised to stand up a Climate Corps program.
Nathaniel Erskine-Smith was reelected in the Toronto riding of Beaches-East York. 'Nate' was one of the few to openly defend the carbon tax beyond its bitter end. 'The lies won,' he wrote in February. 'We failed to defend it successfully… We should all be embarrassed that we've let shameless politics kill a system that cost-effectively reduces pollution and ensures the poorest are overwhelmingly made better off.'
And to round out our partial list, let's offer some gratitude to one of the most vilified people in the country. It's hard to imagine living Steven Guilbeault's life with the relentless smears and threats. And yet he'll be back, reelected overwhelmingly by voters in the Montreal riding of Laurier-Sainte-Marie. Guilbeault beat his nearest opponent by over 33 percentage points. He'll be reunited with his former cabinet colleague, Johathan Wilkinson — such a stubborn advocate for cleantech that he's still driving a hydrogen fuel cell car around North Vancouver.
How he withstands the fossil-fuelled onslaught and the cesspit of social media is truly beyond me. It's hard to imagine being an elected representative these days. And that's the point of offering some gratitude this week. We'll get back to regular programming and crapping on the politicians soon enough. But for now, in this moment of relief, thank you to all you who stood up.