You’d have to forgive us as Manitobans for thinking that after waiting for seven months for our provincial government to present their climate plan, that we might have seen bold action from Premier Pallister.

Instead, rather than an action plan, we got a plan of inaction. Your can read it here.

Don’t get us wrong here, we got to read lots of nice words on things that "could" be done, but it’s all things we’ve heard from our governments before, with few results.

We got another round of public consultations, and another online questionnaire with more leading questions. We got more political games.

Manitoba still refuses to sign on to the Pan-Canadian Framework on Clean Growth and Climate Change, to still refuses to work with other provinces and the federal government towards solutions.  

And, Pallisters’ proposed “Made-in-Manitoba” plan all but ensure that the federal government will still step in to impose an additional carbon tax (to get to $50 per tonne by 2022), and we will likely get costly court battles as the province continues picks a fight with Ottawa.

Worse still, with their price set at $25 per tonne of carbon emissions, the Progressive Conservative government is abandoning any goal of reaching the Paris Agreement climate targets, with the Winnipeg Free Press indicating that, “the province says we’d have to pay $230 a tonne of emissions to meet the emission reduction standards set in Paris”.

Finally, nowhere in their plan did they make any mention of all of the millions of dollars taxpayers dollars that still go towards subsidizing the expansion of the oil and gas sector in this province, or put forward a proposal to reduce and eliminate public sector investments in fossil fuels.  

As our political leaders continue to fail us and future generations with true action on climate change, MEJC will continue to help give voice to these injustices and our ongoing fight for a just transition to a prosperous, post-carbon economy.

In solidarity,

Manitoba Energy Justice Coalition