The Feds, the Budget, and Green Hope

                                        Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland delivers budget 

 Over the past year or so I've done my best not to gasp at the amount of COVID-related spending by the Ontario and Canadian governments. Yesterday we received the first federal budget in two years and discovered that our grandchildren will be hock forever. While the spending will continue to be staggering through this year are for a few to come, there are important initiatives, including a $17 billion commitment to addressing the climate emergency. According to Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland, "We are at a pivotal moment in the green transformation. "We can lead, or we can be left behind. Our government knows that the only choice for Canada is to be in the vanguard."

A CBC article about the "green" budget spending offers:

Freeland said the budget measures will help the government meet its greenhouse gas reductions targets under the Paris climate agreement, achieve net-zero emissions by 2050 and preserve 25 per cent of land and marine conservation targets by 2025.But environmentalists said they fall short of the transformative change needed for Canada to become a climate leader.

Minister Freeland is correct in saying that we are at a pivotal moment when it comes to reducing greenhouse gases, but we have been been laggards throughout the two Liberal terms, not at the vanguard. And just last Thursday a report by the Environmental Defence organization said that Canada subsidized the fossil fuel sector to the tune of $18 billion in 2020. It's not hard to do the math here and conclude that we aren't exactly leading the way. We aren't even treading water.  

Hey, I want to be a decent Christian and an earnest Canadian, giving the feds the benefit of the doubt on wanting to do the right things concerning the environment, particularly in this Earth Week. Unfortunately I'm dubious about any sort of conversion here, but my faith invites me to live in hope, so I'll endeavour to do so. Whatever choices I make as an individual, it will be governments, globally, which bring about the changes necessary to avert this crisis. In the case of Ontario, this will need to happen through the ballot box.