Creative group highlights Guilbeault’s impact on culture
By Ahmad Hathout
Heritage Minister Steven Guilbeault announced Thursday night that he resigned from cabinet over his government’s deal with Alberta to build a pipeline project that he says will fall short of climate change goals and that disturb initiatives he put forward as environment and climate change minister.
The memorandum of understanding (MOU) between the federal government and Alberta, announced earlier that day, stipulates that the province will build one or more private sector-constructed and financed pipelines “with at least one million barrels a day of low emission Alberta bitumen with a route that increases export access to Asian markets as a priority.”
The project, which will consult British Columbia, would include certain environmental protections, including the construction of the “world’s largest” carbon capture, utilization and storage project, called Pathways. Prime Minister Mark Carney said the government is still committed to achieving net-zero emissions by 2050, while creating “hundreds of thousands of well-paying careers.”
Ottawa, however, said it will freeze some climate plan initiatives that Guilbeault worked on as minister of environment and climate change before being shuffled out of the position after four years in March. The MOU says the federal government will not implement the oil and gas emissions cap, provided Alberta fulfills its end of the bargain; and immediately suspend the clean electricity regulations for the province “pending a new carbon pricing agreement.”
“The proposal to exempt Alberta from the Clean Electricity Regulations in exchange for stricter industrial carbon pricing rules and the Pathways project is, in my view, a serious mistake,” Guilbeault said in his resignation statement on X.
The former minister of Official Languages and Nature and Parks Canada said these elements, which also include the zero-emission vehicle standard and a framework to eliminate fossil fuel subsidies, “remain essential” to the climate action plan he worked on.
“Furthermore, a pipeline to the West Coast would have major environmental impacts, particularly as it could cross the Great Bear Rainforest, contribute to a significant increase in climate pollution, and move Canada further away from its greenhouse gas reduction targets,” he said, noting the lifting of a decades-old tanker ban would “hinder the creation of a marine conservation area in the Great Bear Sea,” which was intended to protect 100,000 square kilometres of the region. He also took issue with the alleged lack of consultation with the indigenous nations that are affected by the agreement.
In a statement on X, Carney, who said he and Guilbeault have “differing views at times on how exactly we make progress,” noted that Guilbeault’s “leadership to advance sustainability has consistently shaped a more hopeful horizon for future generations” and is “deeply grateful for his counsel and contributions to our new government, which shares his fundamental commitment to climate ambition and climate competitiveness for Canada.
“Canada’s new government is committed to a building a sustainable economy through ambitious investments undertaken in a process of cooperative federalism and in full partnership with Indigenous peoples,” Carney added.
“A climate strategy based solely on regulations and prohibitions will not achieve our climate objectives not least because it will fail to generate the alignment of interests required for this historic undertaking.”
In the aftermath of the resignation, one creative trade group lauded Guilbeault as integral to the sustainability of Canadian content – perhaps no more notable role than being the man behind Bill C-11, the Online Streaming Act, which forces foreign players to contribute to the Canadian broadcasting system.
“Steven Guilbeault was known as a man deeply committed to the causes he believed in, and culture was one of them,” Helene Messier, president and CEO of the Association québécoise de la production médiatique (AQPM), said in a statement.
“The independent production industry benefited greatly from this commitment, and I thank Mr. Guilbeault for his attentiveness, his rigor, and his passion for defending our interests,” she added. “We also maintained an ongoing dialogue on issues of artificial intelligence, copyright, and safeguarding the cultural exemption within the framework of the review of the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement, for which he demonstrated a deep understanding of the challenges facing the cultural sector.”
The trade group also noted Guilbeault’s success in the last federal budget of stabilizing and increasing the budgets of Telefilm Canada and the Canada Media Fund (CMF), respectively, for the next three years. That budget also saw increased earmarked amounts to CBC/Radio-Canada, the National Film Board, and TV5MONDEplus.
A Telefilm representative said the crown corporation does not have a comment at this time. The CMF did not respond to a request for comment.
Guilbeault, who previously held the position of Heritage minister from November 2019 to October 2021, said he will remain as the Liberal member of Parliament in his riding of Laurier—Sainte-Marie in Montreal.
Photo via Wikicommons
