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Addressing Climate Change in Canada: "(Un)cooperative federalism"?

Ympäristöjuridiikka 1/2012 s. 82–114
15.4.2012
Asiantuntija-artikkeli

This article examines the reasons for Canada’s failure to address climate change effectively. It suggests that a main reason is the difficulty of finding a workable approach to climate policy within the constraints of a federalist governmental structure. In Canada, as in other federal jurisdictions throughout the world, the constituent elements sometimes work independently of each other and

sometimes work together. But increasingly the geographic reach and complexity of problems are such that their resolution requires the constituent parts to work together, cooperatively, rather than independently. Climate change is such a problem. This article's overall conclusion is that Canadian efforts to come up with a coherent and effective climate policy have been unsuccessful largely because the federal government seems to be practicing what might be called “uncooperative” rather than “cooperative” federalism. On the other hand, many provincial governments are practicing some measure of cooperative federalism between themselves, as members of several sub-national associations composed of various provinces and, interestingly, some American states. This paper explains the reasons for reaching this overall conclusion by looking first at general economic, constitutional and politico-institutional contexts in Canada before examining specific actions taken by the federal and provincial governments to mitigate climate change.

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