The Liberals' Climate Cul-de-sac

From scaling the CN Tower to accepting Bill C-5: the case of Steven Guilbeault

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Steven Guilbeault’s time as an MP is a warning to all environmentalists: do not get involved in the Liberal Party. The Liberals will get all of the shine that comes with your credibility and you will be forced to eat a truckload of shit.

We should thank him for this warning. It may save someone a lot of time and stomach pain. It is not possible to get elected with the Liberals and turn them into a progressive, green party. And no, you cannot change environmental policy as a one-man show.

Guilbeault was first elected in 2019, defeating the NDP’s Hélène Laverdière Nima Machouf in the riding of Laurier-Sainte Marie in Montreal. Hélène Laverdière held onto the riding in 2015, but decided not to run in 2019. Machouf would have been an outstanding voice in the House of Commons. By eliminating one of few the toe-holds that the NDP had in Quebec, he managed to help sink some of the opposition in the House of Commons to the Liberals’ anti-climate policies. Ironically, while voters probably thought they voting for someone who could advance climate policy, they actually just eliminated a little bit of the accountability necessary to force the Liberals to do anything.

Trudeau quickly appointed him to key Cabinet roles, including Minister of the Environment and Heritage Minister. Conservatives seized on the fact that this climate terrorist was now in the prime minister’s inner circle.

That was quite the change from his past. Guilbeault was an environmental activist, having founded important environmental organizations and engaging in radical actions. In 2001, Guilbeault became famous for climbing the CN Tower to drop a banner that said, “Canada and Bush Climate Killers.”

When Guilbeault jumped into the ring for the Liberals in 2019, there was little question that they were weak on climate action. They had already promised to purchase the TransMountain pipeline (pretending it would only cost $4.5 billion, though it would eventually cost us more than $36 billion). Guilbeault was a symbol of the Liberals’ big tent and in exchange, he got a plum post.

He held on through the turmoil of losing Trudeau and gaining Carney. He held on even though Carney basically ripped up the party’s environmental promises within months of being elected. At no point did he muse publicly about moving to one of the three other parties that are better on the environment, and where he could have more influence over their parties. He wanted to be close to power.

And ultimately, that was his failure. In his resignation letter, he says that Carney’s most recent promise to consider a new pipeline proposal from Alberta was the last straw — as if Bill C-5 and it’s allowance to bypass environmental regulations for large projects wasn’t the last straw, or defunding the state to pay for the polluting military wasn’t a last straw. Did TransMountain even take any of his straws?

I get it. In this resignation, he’s trying to save face. But let’s learn the right lesson from Guilbeault’s experiment.

The Liberals are not friends of the environment. They are friends of capital. They need to be forced to do the right thing if the environment is going to have any hope. That takes strong opposition and critically, strong social movements.

The amount of power concentrated in the Prime Minister’s Office makes Canada one of the least democratic liberal democracies in the world. With this power, MPs are kept in line with the promise of appointments and favours, higher salaries and prestige. Given the circumstances, it is impossible for a Cabinet minister to hold our Prime Minister to account. It’s even harder for backbench MPs to do so.

Just look at the fact that 14 MPs published a letter to the Prime Minister, too afraid to sign their names to it. (God folks, please try to grow a fifth of a spine.)

I wonder if Guilbeault thought of sitting around the Prime Minister’s table, wearing a suit and supporting the unsupportable, while he was climbing the CN Tower. Was his hope to someday get the office and the salary and the dinners that come along with the job? Did he think he’d ever be the green that the face of power could wash itself with?

The Liberal Party is a dead-end for progressive change as they are literally the party that has overseen so many of Canada’s current crises. From signing NAFTA to the 1995 federal budget all the way to Carney’s unprecedented attacks on environmental protection via Bill C-5 (to say nothing of the surveillance of Bill C-22 or the attacks on immigrants and refugees), this should be clear as day to all Canadians. Accept it, and be free of the illusions that we will someday be saved by the Liberals.