HALIFAX—Green Party Leader Elizabeth May says she would force Nova Scotia to accelerate its transition away from coal-fired electricity as a necessary step toward meeting the Green party’s climate targets.

Although the Liberal government is committed to weaning the country off coal by 2030, Nova Scotia is exempt from the deadline and could continue to use coal power, emitting millions of tonnes of associated greenhouse gases, up to and beyond 2040. There are also operational mines, in the towns of Stellarton and Donkin, where coal is mined for domestic use and export.

May said a Green government would change that so all of Canada’s electricity would come from renewable sources in the next 11 years — one of the tenets of the party’s climate action plan, released this spring. To reduce greenhouse gas emissions to 60 per cent below 2005 levels by 2030 and achieve a zero-carbon economy, coal would be “one of the first things to go,” May said.

Without such a change, May said, “we fail our children.”

“That’s why our targets are derived from science and I’m sorry that the Nova Scotia government’s targets aren’t.”

The Green leader made the comments during a campaign stop in Halifax Wednesday. At a morning news conference at the campaign office of local Green candidate Jo-Ann Roberts, May released the financial details of her party’s most expensive promises, costed by the Parliamentary Budget Office (PBO).

The party’s biggest ticket item is universal pharmacare, with a $26.7-billion price tag in the first year. The costed platform also includes $400 million in the first year for transitioning workers away from fossil fuel-dependent industries, including coal mining in Nova Scotia.

Nova Scotia Power (NSP) — the province’s electric utility — burns a mix of domestic and imported coal for about 50 per cent of its electricity needs. NSP spokesperson Patti Lewis said in an email about 25 per cent of that comes from Nova Scotia mines.

According to the NSP website, about 30 per cent of electricity in 2019 has come from renewable sources and the utility expects it to jump to 40 per cent in 2020 if the Muskrat Falls hydroelectric facility starts generating power and sending it from Labrador to Nova Scotia through the Maritime Link, as planned.

Nova Scotia is exempt from the federal Liberals’ plans for weaning off coal under an equivalency agreement imposed partly under the Canadian Environmental Protection Act. May said she would use the legislative power of that same act to enforce her party’s plans for eliminating coal.

“The federal tool kit includes the ability to say, ‘You can’t produce this much CO2 from this particular facility.’ And then that’s that.

“Our plan is not optional,” May said.

The new Liberal climate plan, released Tuesday, aims for “net zero emissions” by 2050, but neither Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau nor Catherine McKenna, the Liberal environment minister running for re-election, gave a detailed plan of how they would achieve the target.

May also used her Halifax visit to tout the party’s new national transportation strategy — a campaign promise that would put $600 million in 2020-21 to develop regional rail networks, with the aim of achieving zero-carbon public transportation by 2040. May said the strategy was also inspired by recent cancellations to Greyhound bus services, mostly to rural communities.

The transportation plan would rely on boosting Via Rail — a federal Crown corporation that May described as “an antique system designed for tourists.”

Earlier this year, Halifax regional council abandoned a hope to partner with Via Rail for a commuter rail system between Windsor Junction and downtown Halifax. Councillors voted unanimously in June to direct staff not to pursue the idea “due to the infrastructure requirements and associated financial implications, as well as operational considerations and restraints.”

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Asked why she thought a national Via Rail partnership would work when it was believed not to be feasible at a municipal level, May said “status quo Via Rail does not work,” but with a new mandate, it should.

“We need to modernize Via Rail, we need to invest in Via Rail, we need Canadian steel for tracks for Via Rail,” May said.

Following the news conference, May held a rally in front of the Via Rail station in south-end Halifax before boarding a train bound for Montreal — a service that she said she would ramp up under the Green transportation strategy — where she planned to attend Friday’s climate strike.

She told about 100 supporters that improved rail would be a necessary part of tackling the climate emergency.

“A low carbon future is one that brings back more convenient travel. A low carbon future is one that pays attention to the fact that if you live in a rural community, you should be able to depend on public transport just as much as if you live in a big city.”

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