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In Canada, greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions continue to remain high despite the federal government's commitment to reduce GHG emissions. Environmental policy across Canadian provinces has largely lacked consistency with some provinces implementing targeted policy such as carbon taxes while others have strongly resisted the federal government's attempts to encourage such policy. This study examines the impact of environmental policy on GHG gas emissions across Canadian provinces with policy uniquely measured by public and business sector spending on environmental protection as well as notable province-specific policies. An extended STIRPAT model is specified with the inclusion of proxies for environmental policy using panel data from Canada's ten provinces from 1995 to 2019. The cointegration and the error correction modelling approaches are employed to estimate the non-stationary panel data. A pooled mean group estimation is applied to provide short run and long run coefficients. The findings indicate that although per capita GDP is the main driver of GHG emissions in Canada, environmental policy has a significant mitigating effect, as shown by the negative association between emissions and private and public sector spending on environmental protection in the long run. Furthermore, provinces with targeted policies, such as Ontario's coal phase-out and British Columbia's carbon tax, experienced significant emissions reductions. The theoretical implication is the successful addition of policy variables to the STIRPAT model, providing the model a new application for future research. [Display omitted] • Assess the impact of environmental protection policies on per capita greenhouse gas emissions in Canada. • Utilize public and private expenditures on environmental protection, along with provincial policies. • Extend the STIRPAT model to incorporate environmental protection policies in an empirical model. • Demonstrate a significant negative relationship between environmental protection policies and GHG emissions. • Offer insights with implications for global environmental sustainability efforts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is considerable ambiguity around the importance of demographic and socio-economic characteristics that catalyze pro-environmental behaviours. These factors are typically deemed responsible for environmental skepticism, such as the degree of trust in social institutions, fundamental views of the individuals (e.g., religiosity and political ideology), and competing priorities. In this context, the present study analyzed a comprehensive dataset of survey responses to discern the most reliable predictors of environmental attitudes of Canadians related to activism, lifestyle, household practices on air quality, waste disposal, energy and water conservation. To achieve this objective, we capitalize upon the wealth of publicly available data from surveys conducted by Statistics Canada's Households and the Environment Survey. Our analysis suggests that individuals with university-level education and higher income or families with children generally display pro-environmental behaviours. Political conservatism, as expressed by the percentage vote for the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada in a given area, appears to covary with some facets of the documented reluctance to embrace environmentally aligned behaviours (i.e., climate change issues), although we did not find a major "conservative-versus-liberal" divide about the broader spectrum of environmental issues. Our assessment of environmental attitudes in different Canadian provinces suggests an aptitude for more sustainable living in Ontario and British Columbia. Our analysis also provides evidence that the intent to support efforts that reduce emissions from burning fossil fuels or promote clean energy and technology – which has been overwhelmingly communicated in recent national polls – is not necessarily actualized. This established trend of Canadians failing to "walk the talk" and materialize their stated commitment with tangible participation into environmentally supportive behaviours could stem from barriers imposed at the household and societal levels. Notwithstanding the uncertainty regarding the importance of different socio-demographic factors in shaping our predisposition and behaviour towards environmental issues, the findings of our study offer a working model that could allow addressing the roots of environmental skepticism, promote societal trust, and revisit the role of ecopolitics in the social agenda. • We examine critical socioeconomic covariates of environmental attitudes in Canada. • Education, household income, family size covary with pro-environmental behaviours. • Ontario and British Columbia display a greater aptitude for sustainable living. • No major conservative-vs-liberal divide exists in Canada about the environment. • We offer a framework that could augment the role of ecopolitics in the social agenda. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]