OTTAWA—The race for climate credibility in Canadian politics rumbled along Friday as politicians and advocacy groups judged the NDP’s new, $15-billion environment platform that promises to slash emissions beyond Canada’s current target and create at least 300,000 jobs.

Green Leader Elizabeth May welcomed the pre-election jockeying for who has the best plan to fight climate change, but said the NDP’s is too vague and unambitious. She questioned why it doesn’t name a specific emissions target — the NDP says it would pass legislation to enshrine a target consistent with global scientific demands to avoid climate catastrophe — and said the Green party’s plan would accomplish goals like the removal of fossil fuels from Canada’s electric grid and making energy-efficient retrofits to all buildings in the country faster than the NDP.

“Don’t tell me you’re going to be climate leaders until I see what you think you’re prepared to do,” May told the Star by phone on Friday.

“If it’s not in writing, and it’s not clear, then it becomes a campaign promise that you can walk away from.”

At a partisan rally in Montreal Friday morning, NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh said his party’s plan is the “most comprehensive” environmental platform it has ever proposed, a 22-page document that outlines measures New Democrats would take to tackle climate change and economic inequality at the same time. The NDP promises to spend billions on public transit, tax rebates to encourage people to buy zero-emissions vehicles that are made in Canada, and the creation of a new “Canadian Climate Bank” that would use federal money to support green technology and low-carbon initiatives.

The NDP would ban single-use plastics by 2022, and make energy-efficient retrofits on all houses in Canada by 2050.

The party claims its plan would create at least 300,000 jobs in the first mandate of an NDP government, and put Canada on track to reducing its greenhouse gas emissions to 38 per cent below 2005 levels by 2030, which is beyond Canada’s current target under the Paris Agreement — set by the former Conservative government and kept by the Liberals — to slash emissions to 30 per cent below 2005 levels by that year.

In a public statement Friday, Greenpeace activists lauded the NDP plan for recognizing Canada needs to ramp up efforts to slash emissions if it is to help the world meet the Paris Agreement goal of restricting global warming below 1.5 degrees C. Greenpeace said the NDP’s pledge to conserve 30 per cent of Canada’s lands and waters by 2030 “sets the standard” all parties should strive for, and applauded the promise to ban single-use plastics.

The United Steelworkers union also welcomed measures for workers in the NDP plan, including proposals to help people who work in fossil fuel industries receive training for jobs in new sectors as the world shifts away from energy sources that emit greenhouse gas.

Meanwhile, on Parliament Hill, federal Environment Minister Catherine McKenna was underwhelmed. She accused Singh of dropping his support for liquefied natural gas development in B.C. — Singh was criticized by some labour leaders in mid-May after he said he can’t support certain developments backed by the NDP government in B.C. — and said the NDP’s climate plan will actually hurt the economy, not grow it.

McKenna’s office later released a chart comparing NDP proposals with measures the Liberals have already taken in government, including the creation of $5,000 rebates for people who buy zero-emission vehicles and $185 million earmarked for workers transitioning out of fossil fuel industries.

But McKenna also zeroed in on how the NDP plans to change the federal government’s minimum price on carbon emissions, which was imposed in four provinces this year and is set to be imposed in Alberta — Canada’s heaviest emitter — now that Premier Jason Kenney scrapped the province’s own carbon tax. The NDP says it would change how the carbon price applies to heavy polluters so they pay more for their emissions.

This part of the carbon price sets thresholds for specific industries based on the average emissions per unit of production in their sector. Businesses that emit less than the average earn credits they can sell, and those that emit more either buy credits or pay the carbon price on their excess emissions.

The NDP wants to lower these thresholds so businesses pay more, and eliminate the more generous thresholds for businesses with intense international competition that can’t easily slash emissions, like cement and lime producers.

McKenna suggested these changes would be bad for the economy, because the performance standard thresholds are designed to protect Canadian businesses from losing ground to companies in other countries that don’t have to pay carbon prices.

“We need to be making sure that we have Canadian companies that are competing against companies around the world, that we create incentives for them to be best in class, but also to be competitive,” she said, adding that the federal Conservatives still haven’t said how they would tackle climate change without any carbon price.

“The NDP, what they are proposing is as bad for the economy as what the Conservatives are proposing is for the environment,” she said.

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In a statement, Chris Ragan, chair of the pro-carbon price Ecofiscal Commission, said the NDP’s proposal to increase the carbon price for heavy emitters could risk doing nothing for the environment, because instead of investing to lower emissions, companies could calculate it makes more sense just to shift production out of the country.

“This would hurt the Canadian economy and would not help global emissions,” he said.

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