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OTTAWA — Five days after Steven Guilbeault was appointed Canada's environment minister in October 2021, he headed to Scotland for the annual United Nations climate talks being held in Glasgow.
"I think that the prime minister wanted to have an activist in this position because he believes that is what is needed to do what we told Canadians we would do during the last election on climate, on nature, on environmental issues, which is to do more and to do it faster," he said in an interview with The Canadian Press."He kind of understands what the scale of the challenge is," said Timothy Gray, executive director at Environmental Defence Canada.
He is quick to agree the heavy lifting isn't done. Most of his files are works in progress, with final regulations still to be developed or implemented. "The most difficult decision I had to make, by far, was Bay du Nord. There's no doubt about that," Guilbeault said."That particular day was extremely difficult."
In May, an alliance of environment groups launched a lawsuit to overturn the approval. Among the groups involved is Équiterre, the very same organization Guilbeault helped found in 1993. In April, the Liberals introduced a major tax credit to help oil and gas companies install carbon capture, storage and utilization systems on their operations, which are supposed to trap greenhouse gas emissions produced as oil and gas are pulled out of the ground and return those gases back into the ground.
She said Guilbeault's experience has played a"significant" role at global climate and nature talks. He is well known and has probably been to more such meetings than anyone else in the country, she said.Growing up in the town of La Tuque, around 250 kilometres northwest of Quebec City, he was just five years old when he staged his first protest, climbing a tree behind his house that a local developer wanted to chop down.
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