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Canadian environmental governance formally began in the 1970s with an ambitious vision critical of the status quo. Until the Justin Trudeau government from 2015, this vision had been largely eroded when compared to the transformative environmental ideas, ambition, and efforts initially put forth. Drawing on elite interviews in Canadian environmental politics and an articulation of the dominant system, we develop and demonstrate a novel explanation for Canada's systematic failure to act more ambitiously on the environment. We argue that this failure is the result of progressive selection of Canadian environmental governance in relation to the dominant system at key selection moments. It is at those moments when the environment is least prioritized and the economy most urgently needs attention that environmental governance suffers the most. The paper concludes by emphasizing how features of the dominant political-economic system not typically thought of as environmental can have systematic environmental impacts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although North American settler governments face scrutiny over the ecological, social, and ethical shortcomings of environmental policy, many Indigenous Nations are pursuing a resurgence of environmental self-governance according to ancestral principles and practices. On the west coast of Vancouver Island, the reintroduction and prioritized conservation of sea otters by Canada's Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) actively impedes the harvest of culturally and nutritionally significant shellfish species by Nuu-chah-nulth Nations. Integrating a range of qualitative methods, we argue that structural inequities, divergent normative and material priorities, and ontological differences animate a divide between Nuu-chah-nulth and Canadian state governing bodies in sea otter management. The DFO's unwillingness to accommodate Indigenous knowledge, principles, and priorities in its sea otter management scheme reproduces the unequal power relations of settler colonialism to the detriment of Indigenous food sovereignty and security. We propose to reframe sea otter governance around the Nuu-chah-nulth principles of hišukʔiš c̓awaak (everything is one), ʔiisaak (respect with caring), and ʔuʔaałuk (taking care of). This reorientation is in alignment with the efforts of Indigenous peoples throughout Canada and globally to enact multi-species caretaking through the resurgence of self-governance rooted in ancestral knowledge and wisdom. Ultimately, we argue that a sea otter governance structure centering Nuu-chah-nulth principles, ecological knowledge, and leadership would be well-positioned to lead collaborations and respectful engagement between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Nations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Canadian climate change law and policy has suffered from an implementation gap for decades. Since the 1980s, Canada has been setting and then failing to achieve greenhouse gas emissions reduction targets. In this context, the federal government recently enacted the Net Zero Emissions Accountability Act (NZEAA), a step that holds the potential to reverse a trend of unimplemented commitments. The purpose of the NZEAA is to bridge the gap through a transparency and accountability framework that guides and drives implementation of existing and forthcoming federal climate change law and policy. However, the specific features, weaknesses, and implications of the NZEAA remain not well understood. Overall, it remains an open question whether the NZEAA will actually provide a bridge across the gap. This article explores that question, presenting the basics of the new law, analyzing what it means in practical terms for Canadian climate change law and policy now and into the future, and then examining weaknesses, some of which may inhibit NZEAA from having its intended impacts. The article concludes by putting forward several overarching reflections and commenting on early signs that the plan is at least beginning to bridge the implementation gap, including through the first federal Emissions Reduction Plan under the NZEAA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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]

The present study empirically investigates whether targeted government spending and environmental policies promote green growth, as measured by greenhouse gas productivity. Government spending for pollution abatement (GEPA) represents non-market environmental policies encompassing both enforcement regulations and stakeholder incentives, while policy dummy represents province specific targeted environmental policies. Using panel data from 1995 to 2020 across ten provinces of Canada, an empirical model based on STIRPAT has been developed and estimated, addressing various econometric issues to ensure the robustness and consistency of the results. The findings confirm that both GEPA and targeted environmental policies are crucial determinants in achieving green growth. Additionally, variables such as business sector expenditures for R&D, the share of renewable energy, per capita GDP, and population also contribute to green growth. These results highlight the importance of the stick-and-carrot approach as a key strategy and policy tool for sustainable development. The implications of these findings extend beyond Canada and hold valuable lessons for emerging and developing countries that predominantly rely on command-and-control regulations without adequate support. To effectively address the challenge of achieving green growth, a coordinated approach that combines targeted government spending and environmental policies, supported by innovation and renewable energy exploration, is essential. Overall, this study's findings have significant implications for environmental sustainability on a global scale. [Display omitted] • Examines the effect of targeted government spending and environmental policies on green growth in Canada. • Uses greenhouse gas productivity as an index of green growth. • Estimates the empirical model developed addressing advanced econometric issues related to panel data for 1995–2020. • Controls renewable energy, innovation, per capita income, population. • Have significant implications for environmental sustainability on a global scale. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Adaptation of the Ecosystem-Based Quality Index for areas without well-defined ecosystems. • Modelling of the shallow heterogeneous subtidal ecosystem in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. • shGSL-EBQI considers ecosystem heterogeneity, epibenthic invertebrates and seaweeds. • shGSL-EBQI is flexible, robust and correctly assessed a harbor bay ecosystem status. • EBQI responds to drivers and can be used in Canada. R package developed for EBQI. The assessment of natural ecosystem status is a fundamental premise to enable environmental management at local scales to maintain ecosystem functioning, services and resilience. Ecologists have developed many biological and environmental indices to inform and support environmental management and policies. To promote efficient use of resources, existing indices would ideally be informative for the widest geographic extent to avoid the development of new but redundant indices. The Ecosystem-Based Quality Index (EBQI), developed for the Mediterranean Sea, may be adaptable to other ecosystems due to its functional approach being closer to a methodological framework than a specialized index. We investigated the adaptability of EBQI beyond its original geographical setting and its applicability to a predefined location rather than a predefined ecosystem. We propose a workflow to apply EBQI to areas without a priori well-defined ecosystems: the shallow subtidal coastal areas of Baie des Sept Îles (Gulf of St. Lawrence, Canada), a major industrial port where the seafloor ranges from soft to mixed substrata (i.e., boulders and gravel in a soft-bottom matrix), creating ecosystem heterogeneity where species typical of different habitats often co-occur. We then tested the index for the assessment of this ecosystem with an explicit consideration of the ecosystem heterogeneity in shallow areas, typically unaccounted for by other indices. Using field sampling and a literature review, we showed that the EBQI can be implemented in areas where little prior information about a given ecosystem is available. Our EBQI implementation, shGSL-EBQI (shallow heterogeneous Gulf of St. Lawrence-EBQI), provided ecosystem status classifications that were robust and consistent with available environmental assessments in the area. We then showed that shGSL-EBQI relates to multiple environmental and anthropogenic drivers and suggest approaches to limit the effect of confounding environmental gradients. Finally, we discuss the potential applicability of shGSL-EBQI to other regions of the Gulf of St. Lawrence and provide advice on how a coastal monitoring initiative could facilitate widespread adoption of EBQI in Canada. As efforts to base future development on sustainability through ecosystem-based management increase both in Canada and internationally, we demonstrate that EBQI is well suited to the Canadian context and thus likely more generally in other jurisdictions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]