Essay by Eric Worrall
Arctic scientists could have acted to save their own jobs, but it’s too late now.
Budget cuts at Environment and Climate Change Canada threaten Arctic science
Published: March 9, 2026 12.08am AEDT
Roxana Suehring Assistant Professor in Environmental Analytical Chemistry, Toronto Metropolitan University
Patricia HaniaAssistant Professor, Law & Business Department, Toronto Metropolitan UniversityThe Arctic has been in the news a lot lately. Between the increased geopolitical interest in Greenland, claims over sovereignty, resource exploitation and the devastating impacts of climate change, the region has become a sentinel for global change.
But away from these headlines, a quieter crisis is unfolding that threatens Canada’s role in global environmental science, law and policy: the dismantling of research teams at the department responsible for Canada’s environmental policies and programs. The federal government’s plan to reduce the public service by 15 per cent over three years means that more than 800 positions at Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC) will be cut.
…
Many of the scientists who lead projects on the long-term trends of toxins in Arctic wildlife face cuts or might lose their jobs entirely. Scientists at ECCC are often the ones to identify and assess “chemicals of emerging Arctic concern” — newly discovered chemical threats to human and environmental health that scientists are only just beginning to understand.
…
Losing these samples and monitoring programs would set back Canadian and global contaminant research and reinforce criticisms that Canada is a laggard in environmental law and policy.
Read more: https://theconversation.com/budget-cuts-at-environment-and-climate-change-canada-threaten-arctic-science-276606
…
Why is Canada doing this? One possible explanation is Canada is struggling to fund government programmes, due to economic problems.
FEBRUARY 27, 2026
Understanding the magnitude of Canada’s economic decline
By: Jason Clemens and Milagros Palacios
The anxiety and growing animus towards the Trump administration by many Canadians is clouding the enormity of the home-grown problems facing our country. These economic challenges existed well before President Trump took office for the second time but the uncertainty over access to the U.S. market and Trump’s almost daily threats of more tariffs have heightened the problems. Unfortunately, there’s increasing evidence that like its predecessor, the Carney government is more about optics than action and results.
…
The Trudeau government ushered in a new era of dramatically different policies from previous Conservative and Liberal governments going back to the mid-1990s, including significantly higher levels of government spending financed by borrowing, along with higher taxes and more regulation of the economy.
The results have been a near-unprecedented decline in the comparative economic well-being of Canadians. As of 2024, our per-person GDP (a broad measure of living standards) stood at US$51,649, a mere 3.2 per cent higher than in 2014.
Contrast that with the U.S., which had per-person GDP of $72,350, which is 20.2 per cent higher than it was in 2014, and is now 40.1 per cent higher than in Canada. In other words, Americans enjoyed growth in their living standards at almost six times the rate we have over the last decade (or so), and now have living standards 40 per cent higher than us.
And the future is not encouraging. The OECD projects that the gap between us and our American neighbours will continue to grow, reaching almost 60 per cent by 2060 if nothing materially changes.
…
Read more: https://www.fraserinstitute.org/commentary/understanding-magnitude-canadas-economic-decline
How much of this economic underperformance is because of Canadian climate policy?
NOVEMBER 18, 2025 | APPEARED IN THE WESTERN STANDARD
Carney fails to undo Trudeau’s damaging energy policies
By: Tegan Hill and Elmira Aliakbari
On the campaign trail and after he became prime minister, Mark Carney has repeatedly promised to make Canada an “energy superpower.” But, as evidenced by its first budget, the Carney government has simply reaffirmed the failed plans of the past decade and embraced the damaging energy policies of the Trudeau government.
First, consider the Trudeau government’s policy legacy. There’s Bill C-69 (the “no pipelines act”), the new electricity regulations (which aim to phase out natural gas as a power source starting this year), Bill C-48 (which bans large oil tankers off British Columbia’s northern coast and limit Canadian exports to international markets), the cap on emissions only from the oil and gas sector (even though greenhouse gas emissions have the same effect on the environment regardless of the source), stricter regulations for methane emissions (again, impacting the oil and gas sector), and numerous “net-zero” policies.
According to a recent analysis, fully implementing these measures under Trudeau government’s emissions reduction plan would result in 164,000 job losses and shrink Canada’s economic output by 6.2 per cent by the end of the decade compared to a scenario where we don’t have these policies in effect. For Canadian workers, this will mean losing $6,700 (annually, on average) by 2030.
Unfortunately, the Carney government’s budget offers no retreat from these damaging policies. While Carney scrapped the consumer carbon tax, he plans to “strengthen” the carbon tax on industrial emitters and the cost will be passed along to everyday Canadians—so the carbon tax will still cost you, it just won’t be visible.
…
Read more: https://www.fraserinstitute.org/commentary/carney-fails-undo-trudeaus-damaging-energy-policies
It’s not just squandering cash on the fake climate crisis, though that has certainly contributed. Instead of exploiting resources, keeping government spending under control, and delivering the prosperity Canada’s rich mineral endowment should have made possible, Canadian governments have squandered opportunities, chased pseudoscientific hobgoblins, and picked fights with Canada’s major trading partner, when they should have been signing new trade agreements.
And Canadian politicians are still making the same mistakes, over and over. Canadian politicians are still picking fights, playing politics instead of facilitating economic growth – Canada jointly announced a new anti-US alliance with Australia just a few days ago.
It’s difficult to quantify how much of a difference it might have made if these Arctic environmental scientists who are losing their jobs called out the false alarmist claims of their global warming colleagues. Maybe they were quite reasonably afraid of losing their jobs. But now they’re going to lose their jobs anyway, so at best their silence won a few years delay, at the price of allowing the fake climate warnings of alarmist colleagues to contribute to the wrecking of the Canadian economy which funded their work.
