The Toronto skyline obscured by smoke in the summer of 2023.
The Toronto skyline obscured by smoke in the summer of 2023. Credit: Toronto Public Health Credit: Toronto Public Health

The climate crisis is a global threat. Rising temperatures have already led to the devastation of ecosystems and drastic biodiversity loss.

Floods, tornadoes and forest fires destroy wildlife habitats and displace human populations.

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) estimates that between 17,000 to 100,000 marine species go extinct each year due to rising global temperatures.

Scientists have warned that if global temperatures rise on average above 1.5 degrees Celsius compared to levels before the Industrial Revolution (1850-1900) the effects will be devastating and irreversible.

According to the UN, the first 12-month period to exceed an average global temperature of 1.5 degrees was February 2023 to January 2024.

With how pressing and urgent the climate crisis is, it has received little attention in the 2025 federal election.

Between imposed tariffs from the US and the threats made by Donald Trump to Canada’s sovereignty, most of Canada’s major political parties have made few statements on the environment.

Here is what each party is promising in terms of their environmental platforms.

The Liberal Party

In a media statement released on April 7, the Liberals are promising the following if elected:

  • Conserve nature and biodiversity, including by creating at least 10 new national parks and marine conservation areas, and 15 new urban parks
  • Connect Canadians with nature by making access to National Parks and Historic Sites free for this summer
  • Bolster Indigenous stewardship, including by establishing a new Arctic Indigenous Guardians program, and funding Indigenous-led conservation and protection projects
  • Protect our freshwater, including by investing $100 million in a strategic water security technology fund to advance Canadian R&D, AI, monitoring, and data tools
  • Enshrine First Nations’ right to water into law
  • Protect nature where it protects us, including by implementing nature-based climate solutions which deliver measurable carbon sequestration and biodiversity benefits, while supporting community resilience
  • Clean up, maintain, and protect wildlife in and around our coastal waters, including by investing an additional $15 million to modernize the location, retrieval, and responsible disposal of the ghost gear threatening marine mammals and birds and
  • Champion nature conservation internationally, including by stopping illegal wildlife trade across our borders with modern digital solutions

NDP

In a media release from March 31, the NDP made the following promises on climate change and the environment:

  • End the Consumer Carbon Tax—for good
  • Keep the industrial carbon price
  • Keep the emissions cap in place—and protect workers as we transition
  • Eliminate oil and gas subsidies—redirecting $18 billion from corporate handouts to real help for families
  • Introduce a Border Carbon Adjustment—so overseas polluters don’t undercut Canadian workers, and clean industries like Canadian steel and cement stay competitive

Furthermore, they also committed to ending public subsidies and tax breaks for oil and gas companies. 

Additionally, the NDP have committed to funding energy saving retrofits for Canadian homes including heat pumps and providing unspecified support for Canadian manufacturers of those products.

Green Party

The Green Party in their platform is the only party to commit to converting the Canadian economy to 100 per cent clean energy.

They also commit to making a Youth Climate Corps.

Other commitments include:

  • Stop giving public money to oil and gas companies and invest it in clean energy instead
  • Hold big polluters responsible for the climate damage they cause
  • Create strict, science-based limits on Canada’s total pollution
  • Make companies prove they have real plans to deal with climate risks

The Bloc Québécois

In their 2025 party policy platform, the Bloc Québécois lay out the following priorities for the environment:

  • Each federal decision will be assessed based on its alignment with the international Paris Agreement’s objective of limiting global temperature increase to 1.5°C
  • Eliminate subsidies for the oil and gas industry and impose emissions caps
  • Proposing a tax on excess oil and gas profits to be reinvested into a climate change mitigation fund

The Conservative Party

The Conservative Party has made few public statements on the issue of the climate crisis. They also did not respond to a request for comment as of time of publication.

The Conservative Party Policy Declaration of September of 2023 states the following:

“We believe that there should be no federally imposed carbon taxes or cap and trade systems on either the provinces and territories or on the citizens of Canada. The provinces and territories should be free to develop their own climate change policies, without federal interference or federal penalties or incentives.”

A media release earlier this month from the Conservative Party outlining their “Economic Action Plan” sees goals for heaving investment in the oil and gas sector, while also reducing environmental protections to increase the rate of development.

Those policies include:

Repealing C-69 along with Bill C-48, lift the cap on Canadian energy and scrap the industrial carbon tax, to get major projects built, unlock our resources, and start selling Canadian energy to the world again, bringing home good jobs and billions of dollars in lost investment, and putting Canada First–For a Change. 

Creating a National Energy Corridor, a pre-approved transport corridor for pipelines, transmission lines, railways and other critical infrastructure to rapidly build the projects our country needs and move Canadian resources from coast to coast, bypassing the US and making us less reliant on the American market.

Creating a One-Stop-Shop to safely and rapidly approve resource projects, with one simple application and one environmental review within one year. This will make sure we can rapidly approve the projects Canadians need more of now: mines, roads, LNG terminals, hydro projects, and nuclear power stations.

Rapidly approving Phase 2 of LNG Canada to double gas production and accelerate at least nine other projects currently snarled in red tape.

Pre-permitting Shovel-Ready Zones for development, to eliminate delays and red tape so we can start building again.

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Nick Seebruch

Nick Seebruch has been the editor of rabble.ca since April 2022. He believes that fearless independent journalism is key for the survival of a healthy democracy. An OCNA award-winning journalist, for...