News

The opposition declared vindication Thursday for its attacks on the Conservatives' climate-change plan after Canada's Environment Commissioner criticized two key measures as weak, negligible and disappointing.

Commissioner Scott Vaughan's report concludes that the government's plan to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions is not delivering on the promise of “real, measurable and verifiable results.”

“The report is scathing. It's right there in black and white. It basically backs up what a lot of people have been saying all along,” said NDP MP Linda Duncan. Liberal MP David McGuinty said the government's projections amount to “eco-fraud.”

A division of the Auditor-General's office, the commissioner examined two of the marquee programs aimed at reducing greenhouse-gas emissions in the Harper government's plan, called Turning the Corner.

“Environment Canada has made a claim of expected results even though it is very unlikely that it will be able to claim real, measurable and verifiable results,” Mr. Vaughan writes in his report.

The Environment Commissioner's audit report, released simultaneously Thursday with an Auditor-General's report, found no evidence to support the emission-reduction claims associated with the government's $1.5-billion clean-air and climate-change trust fund and the $365-million public-transit tax credit.

Auditors found the original estimates of success for these programs were flawed. For instance, the government claims its $1.5-billion trust-fund transfer to the provinces will eliminate 80 megatonnes of greenhouse-gas emissions.

“The department conducted almost no analysis to support that figure, and did not perform key types of analysis,” the commissioner's report says.

As for the claim that handing out tax credits to bus users would cut Canada's annual emissions by 220,000 tonnes, the government reduced that estimate to 35,000 tonnes, a mere 16 per cent of what Ottawa originally claimed would be accomplished.

“Given the lowered figure, the tax credit will have a negligible impact on Canada's greenhouse-gas emissions,” the report says.

Critics warned when the programs were launched that the transfer to the provinces would simply help finance projects that would go ahead anyway, while the money for the transit tax credit could be spent more effectively on other emission-reducing programs.

Environment Minister Jim Prentice said the government will respond to the findings, but did not offer specifics.

“We'll evaluate what's been said and take the necessary action,” he said.

Canada's greenhouse-gas emissions stood at 721 megatonnes in 2006, which is 22 per cent above 1990 levels and 29 per cent above Canada's target under the Kyoto Protocol, which was ratified in 2002.

Turning the Corner pledges an emission target of three per cent below 1990 levels by 2020.