End fossil fuel handouts in the 2016 budget

The 2016 federal budget - the Trudeau government's first - is the perfect opportunity for the government to show that they're living up to a campaign promise to end massive subsidies for polluting oil, gas and coal companies.

Canada's federal government hands out over $1.6 billion every year to fossil fuel producers. On top of this, Export Development Canada - wholly owned by the government - provides as much as $6 billion per year for dirty energy producers to continue fueling the climate crisis at home and abroad.

Canada first promised to put an end to these wasteful and polluting subsidies in 2009 along with the rest of the G20. And yet, little meaningful action has followed.

Even under the new Trudeau government, Export Development Canada just offered a $750 million bailout to fossil fuel companies. This is bad climate policy and bad economic policy. The last thing the country needs right now is to lock itself further into the volatile oil market that is wreaking havoc on livelihoods across the country.

Bailing out oil producers is not the solution - the real answer is breaking our dependency on this boom and bust sector that is taking the climate down with it. It is high time for Canada to instead get serious about building the prosperous clean energy economy that must power this century.

Now is the Trudeau government's chance to lead. China and the US are already moving, promising to establish a deadline for a fossil fuel subsidy phase-out, and Canada could show its true climate colours by leading by example with an ambitious 2020 deadline to end these reckless handouts.

2016 is set to be a promising year for Canadian climate action, but we can’t let it be undermined by continuing to use taxpayer dollars to fund the very problem we are trying to tackle. Let’s start the clock by signaling an ambitious phase out of polluter handouts by 2020 in your upcoming budget.