Absent a Captain Canuck, Quebec’s Jean Charest Takes the Stage

On a day when the head of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Chage was quoted dismissing Canada as “not at the table” in climate negotiatons, Quebec Premier Jean Charest took to the stage at Climate Week in New York.

Flanking actor Hugh Jackman (with former British Prime Minister Tony Blair standing on the other side), Charest looked both oddly out of place – and right in his element.

The latter part is understandable. He has been on this file from the beginning. He attended the Rio summit in 1992 as Canada’s Environment Minister. As the Quebec Premier since 2003, he has been a national leader in setting reasonably progressive climate policy.

On Monday, he stressed the importance of that action, in Canada and around the world, calling for leadership and engagement from what he characterized as “sub-national states.”

It’s an interesting point. In loose federations like Canada, but also in other jurisdictions as well (think of California’s leadership in U.S. policy), states and provinces are often the leading forces.

Cynics in Canada might deride Charest’s leadership as being circumstantial: Quebec has no oil and ample hydroelectricity. It’s well positioned to take a liberal view on tackling climate change. But the premier argued that “provinces are the operational governments in our country” – doing 80 per cent of the work necessary to address the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions.

Asked if Canada’s “very loose federation” was to blame for the country’s embarrassing performance to date, Charest said that Canadians should celebrate the fact that the country is at least speaking with one voice, acknowledging climate change and accepting the need to take action. Since the election of U.S. President Barack Obama, the federal government even begun to accept the inevitability of a continental cap and trade regime.

Charest said Canada “should be ambitious. We should be leading by example. But I want to be frank. I don’t see where the objectives of Alberta and Quebec will ever be the same.”

Alberta, of course, is home to the tar sands, which IPCC head Rajendra Pachauri said could reasonably be shut down if Canada was to make a real effort to match European greenhouse gas reduction goals.

Not likely. The Calgary Chamber of Commerce would rather bring in scientific amateurs to argue that climate change is really nothing to worry about. If Canada is to look good on this issue on the world stage, it will have to be thanks to Premiers such as Jean Charest or British Columbia’s Gordon Campbell (and lately, even he’s been spending more time pandering to oil and gas interests than showing climate leadership).

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A side note for Canadian constitutional junkies: isn’t the language interesting? Quebecers have fought for years to assert “nation” status. And Canada’s Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper, in a doomed effort to cuddle up to the Quebecois, gave Western chauvinists heart palpatations when he became the first federal politician to begin referring to Quebec in that way. Yet now Charest starts touting the strength and potential of “sub-national states.” Wish my French was better. I’d love to know how that translates.