Conservative MP Leslyn Lewis is criticizing the Liberal government for providing nearly half a million dollars to the World Economic Forum (WEF) to produce an environmental report promoting the carbon tax.
Ms. Lewis has been the foremost critic of the WEF within the Conservative ranks. She has routinely unearthed information about cooperation between Ottawa and the WEF through access-to-information requests available to MPs.
Ms. Lewis obtained information about the report through an order paper she submitted in June 2023. She asked for details about all federal government engagements with the WEF, including contracts, transfer payments, and memoranda of understanding.
The WEF is a global think tank that hosts events with the world’s most powerful figures from politics and industry. It says its mission is to “improve the state of the world” and to “shape global, regional and industry agendas.”
Critics like Ms. Lewis say the organization exerts undue influence on democratically-elected governments.
Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland is an alumnus of the YGL and she sits on the board of trustees of the WEF. Her office and department have not responded to multiple inquiries about her involvement with the group.
Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC) is the department that provided the WEF $493,937 to produce the report, which was released in 2020.
The department says the purpose of the project was to enable the WEF to produce and disseminate a report which establishes the “business and economic case for safeguarding nature.”
“This report will be directed at senior decision makers in governments and businesses who have the influence and ability to shift business-as-usual” approaches, ECCC says in the inquiry of ministry.
“The climate crisis, nature loss, water scarcity are all interconnected and we must address them simultaneously to achieve a decarbonized, nature-positive world,” Alan Jope, then CEO of British multinational Unilever, says in the preface.
Another part of the report says business action alone is not sufficient to develop a “nature-positive, low-carbon” economy. It says government measures are a necessity.
“To make nature-positive models investable, explicitly pricing in and articulating environmental cost factors to penalize unsustainable practices — such as through carbon taxes, for example — will be a game changer,” it says.
The Liberal government says having a price on pollution with the carbon tax is a key measure to reduce emissions. It maintains eight out of 10 households get more money back through a carbon rebate (previously the Climate Action Incentive Payment). The Parliamentary Budget Officer has disputed that claim.
The tax is also designed to be a wealth redistribution scheme, according to Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault.
