OUR HEALTH, OUR ECONOMY AND OUR ENVIRONMENT

The Green Budget Coalition's Environmental Reinvestment

Strategy
Federal and provincial budgets are the single most important environmental policy statements made by governments on an annual basis. A budget is a public statement of priorities, reflecting what the government views as our most important and pressing issues. Yet despite polls that consistently show high levels of public support for improving environmental protection, government cuts to environmental programs and a failure to make meaningful progress in key policy areas have severely dented Canada's ability to capitalize on opportunities to benefit the environment, public health and the economy.

Canadians identify strongly with their natural environment. Environment Canada noted that for 1996, 85 percent of Canadians participated in nature-related activities, resulting in overall expenditures of $11.7 billion. This activity generated $5.4 billion in tax revenue to federal, provincial and municipal levels of government combined.

Canadians have also shown increased concern for the state of their environment, and as the federal government heads toward the 2003 budget, support for environmental protection measures is stronger than it has been for a decade.

At the same time, we are becoming more aware of the benefits that flow from environmental protection. Environmental industries in sectors such as pollution prevention, remediation and renewable energy that enhance economic productivity have tremendous job creation potential, while protecting the health of Canadians and ensuring that we meet our international obligations. A shift toward these cleaner emerging sectors, and away from activities that compromise environmental integrity, requires clear budgetary signals from government that it is committed to ensuring that Canada sets an example in 21st century with regard to environmental protection.

The Green Budget Coalition submission therefore calls for:

1. a staged, multi-year strategic reinvestment in protecting Canada's environment, to restore capacity in critical areas; and
2. a systemic, multi-year strategy for budget reform to remove environmentally harmful subsidies, and make selective use of economic instruments and revenue-neutral eco-taxes.

Some of the measures outlined by the Green Budget Coalition are designed to address Canada's immediate restoration and protection needs. The 2003 Federal Budget will determine:

• whether Canada will make the investments required to facilitate the changes in energy use and production that are required to protect human health, fulfill our international obligations on climate change, and become a leader in the emerging industries that help address these needs in Canada and abroad;
• whether the government will fulfill its promises to protect our national parks and work toward completing the parks system; and
• whether contaminated sites will continue to compromise the health of nearby communities.

Other elements of our campaign are designed to start the longer-term process of establishing the public-private capacity and structures required to improve Canada's ability to prevent environmental problems and to capitalize on the opportunities from integrating environmental, economic and social considerations more systematically in our activities. Some of these measures represent an initial reformulation of Canada's environmental policy to focus on the causes of unsustainable behaviour, rather than on simply remedying the symptoms. Some are designed to illustrate the possibilities of more closely aligning employment and skills development objectives with environmental protection concerns, building on the repeated findings that environmental protection policies enhance — rather than diminish — employment, as demonstrated by recent studies by the U.S. Department of Labour, the OECD, and many independent think tanks.

Fundamentally, the Green Budget campaign responds to the need to reform the fiscal regime. While we have entered the era of the budget surplus, Canada, like most industrialized countries, continues to struggle with the multiple imperatives of maintaining economic growth and productivity, reducing public sector debt, reducing persistent high regional unemployment, and protecting human and environmental health. Increasingly, academics, tax-reform advocates, environmental groups and politicians are recognizing that "green budget reform" can help address these issues. As the Federal Task Force on Barriers and Disincentives to Sustainable Environmental Practice has noted, some federal fiscal policies create significant barriers to sustainable practices.

A Green Budget will help Canada develop policies that not only produce a cleaner environment but also reduce economic disincentives and perverse taxes. Our submission proposes ten measures that could be introduced in the forthcoming budget, representing a mix of "strategic reinvestment" requirements and the initial elements of a longer-term budget reform package. These measures have been selected to represent feasible, affordable, and representative examples of the types of measures needed.