{"id":71728,"date":"2016-03-01T22:43:06","date_gmt":"2016-03-02T03:43:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=71728"},"modified":"2016-03-01T22:43:06","modified_gmt":"2016-03-02T03:43:06","slug":"trudeau-gives-boost-to-market-oriented-group-on-clean-economy-initiative","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2016\/03\/01\/trudeau-gives-boost-to-market-oriented-group-on-clean-economy-initiative\/","title":{"rendered":"Trudeau gives boost to market oriented group on clean economy initiative"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Prime<\/a>
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau at the 2016 Word Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland
(Photo from PM Trudeau’s official Facebook\u00a0account<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

VANCOUVER \u2013 Prime Minister Justin Trudeau gave a boost Tuesday to a new cross-sectoral group of business leaders, labour, non-governmental organizations, government and academics who want to accelerate Canada\u2019s transition to a high-efficiency, low carbon economy.<\/p>\n

Smart Prosperity officially launched in Vancouver with encouragement from Trudeau, whose Liberal government’s climate agenda appears to dovetail with the economic transformation envisioned by the new market-oriented group.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is really exemplifying for me the kind of co-operation and collaboration that\u2019s going to be so essential in terms of addressing not just the challenges that we\u2019re facing in the coming years, but the tremendous opportunities that are there for us,\u201d Trudeau said at the launch.<\/p>\n

Twenty-six individuals have signed on to the initiative, including an eclectic mix of top representatives from banks and insurance companies, aluminium smelters, the United Steel Workers union, a grocery chain, investment firms and the World Wildlife Federation.<\/p>\n

They\u2019re looking to identify and promote policies that spur innovation, generate jobs and boost the economy while improving the environment and conserving Canada\u2019s natural heritage.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m a big believer in government not playing the leadership role,\u201d Annette Verschuren, one of three Smart Prosperity co-chairs and the former president of Home Depot Canada, said in an interview before Tuesday\u2019s announcement.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut government is critical to developing the right policy, the right triggers, the right environment. What\u2019s really more important is that private capital gets attracted to this industry \u2013 spurred on by policies that make sense for our country.\u201d<\/p>\n

Smart Prosperity\u2019s launch coincides with four days of climate-focused networking, marketing, trade shows, policy discussion and federal-provincial arm-twisting, with Trudeau on hand to meet indigenous leaders and his provincial and territorial counterparts cheek-by-jowl with Vancouver\u2019s massive, biennial Globe conference on clean tech.<\/p>\n

The key pillars of Smart Prosperity\u2019s opening research paper point to innovation, incentives, infrastructure and investment.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe number one action point is to accelerate clean innovation \u2013 to create the conditions for celebrating clean innovation across all sectors of our economy,\u201d said co-chair Lorraine Mitchelmore, the Calgary-based former president of Shell Canada. \u201cThis is truly about market economy, not market distortion.\u201d<\/p>\n

Energy efficiency and resource efficiency is another top priority. So if you\u2019re not keen on carbon pricing \u2013 the dreaded \u201cjob-killing tax on everything,\u201d in the parlance of politics \u2013 this market-oriented group won\u2019t be for you.<\/p>\n

As Mitchelmore says, there\u2019s already an incentive for industry to become more efficient. \u201cLet\u2019s incent it even more: You need a price signal to actually give that incentive.\u201d<\/p>\n

And this is not a group that is disinterested in the overall health of the Canadian economy.<\/p>\n

Galen Weston of Loblaws will be rubbing shoulders with former Dragon\u2019s Den investor Arlene Dickinson, Shell Canada president Michael Crothers, Telus CEO Darren Entwistle, Royal Bank special adviser Phil Fontaine and Dominic Barton, the global managing director of consulting giant McKinsey and Company.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou don\u2019t see this kind of powerful, diverse group of Canadian leaders come together around issues very often,\u201d said co-chair Stewart Elgie, an environmental law professor at the University of Ottawa and a founding member.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn many ways this is sort of a once-in-a-generation opportunity.\u201d<\/p>\n

Elgie, Mitchelmore and Verschuren have been developing Smart Prosperity for two years and Tuesday\u2019s launch was seen as the start of a much wider conversation with all Canadians about where the country wants to be in 10 years. That future needs to start with government policy-making now, building on what Mitchelmore calls \u201cpockets of success all over the place.\u201d<\/p>\n

There\u2019s actually much agreement among business, labour, environmental groups and global organizations such as the World Bank about how the economy and environment can and should be linked for the good of both. But the various sectoral \u201csilos\u201d haven\u2019t been talking to each other, or pushing governments with one voice, says Smart Prosperity.<\/p>\n

Elgie likens the global energy and environmental transformation that\u2019s just emerging to Canada\u2019s free trade transformation of the 1980s, which tossed off a century of trade protectionism.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re at that same kind of moment now, there\u2019s a fundamental structural shift happening in the global economy,\u201d said Elgie, who questions whether political leaders will be far-sighted enough to recognize it.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat is the nature of the moment and it’s why this group of people have come together. This is the issue of our time.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

VANCOUVER \u2013 Prime Minister Justin Trudeau gave a boost Tuesday to a new cross-sectoral group of business leaders, labour, non-governmental …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":69547,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1482,18,16],"tags":[9636],"class_list":["post-71728","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-breaking","category-news-ca","category-news","tag-cp","mauthors-geordon-omand","mauthors-bruce-cheadle","mauthors-the-canadian-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71728","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=71728"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71728\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/69547"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=71728"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=71728"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=71728"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}