The latest news to rattle critics came during an interview with CTV this weekend, in which environment minister Catherine McKenna confirmed rumours that the Trudeau government was going to stick to the previous government’s carbon targets as their own.

“What I said is that we will at least meet the target, and that is what I am committed to,” she told Evan Solomon in reference to the Harper government’s plan of reducing carbon emissions 17 percent below 2005 levels by 2020, and 30 percent below 2005 levels by 2030.

“The Harper target was a fake target because they did nothing. It’s not a real target,” she said.

In response to VICE’s request to interview McKenna on Monday morning, press secretary Caitlin Workman declined, citing a tight schedule on the minister’s end, but provided a written statement from McKenna addressing the concern that the Liberals had fallen back on their promise to do better than the Harper government.

“Our government has been clear from the outset that we are taking a different path from that of the Harper government, who set targets with no plan in place to meet them, and no action on climate change,” the statement reads.

“A decade of inaction on climate change has meant that Canada’s emissions are actually increasing. This reality is making it all the more challenging for us to meet Canada’s target, but we are firmly committed to doing so.”

The Trudeau government’s policy of being vague on climate change isn’t new. Video via YouTube

The government’s plan on how to meet those targets is heavily reliant on the province’s doing the heavy lifting, but also involves the much-anticipated discussion of nationwide carbon pricing—a point which both McKenna and Trudeau have championed as one of the pillars of their climate approach.

It is also one that has fallen short when it comes to concrete strategy. The initial report, which was being worked on by four separate policy think tanks, missed its submission date of September 2. It is expected to arrive shortly.

The interview capped off a rough week for the Canadian government’s happy-go-lucky image on environmental policy, one that saw an anti-pipeline protest shut down a portion of Toronto’s downtown transit system, followed by reports that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was planning to approve at least one major pipeline project.

At the Paris Climate Conference in April, the prime minister had told attendees and reporters that the goals previously set out by the Harper government were more of a “floor” than a “ceiling” for what could be accomplished. Alongside McKenna’s comments, senior government officials also confirmed that the current government plans on ratifying the Paris climate accord without consulting individual provinces (as was originally planned)—which could potentially spell trouble for getting Canada’s premiers to back a nationwide effort. (Looking at you, Brad Wall.)

According to Warren Mabee, professor at Queen’s University and director of the school’s Institute for Energy and Environmental Policy, these events are not anomalies. Rather, they’re indicative of a shift in the Trudeau government’s approach to “realistically” devising a plan that can both address a floundering, resource-based economy and a dismal environmental track record.

“On one side, we can look at it like they’re being less ambitious,” he said. “On the other hand, the Liberals have been toying with targets. They might have realized making [the original] changes, considering how big they were, [would] be a Herculean task.”

Mabee said previous failures by the Chrétien and the Harper government with the Kyoto Protocol (Chrétien missed the targets by a longshot, and Harper eventually abandoned the protocol altogether) is something the Liberals are likely trying to avoid by managing people’s expectations.

Instead of adhering to the vision of a more ambitious policy, Mabee says that Trudeau needs to find a solution that will help shift the oil-based economies of prairie provinces like Alberta into non-carbon dependent marketplaces—especially now, at a time when oil production has taken a massive hit due to the wildfires that ravaged Fort McMurray and gridlock on pipeline construction has tied up fossil fuel manufacturers.

“The discussion around pipelines is related to a much deeper issue than simply the environment,” Mabee said, noting the tense relations between many First Nations and the oil sector. “We, as Canadians, need to keep the pressure on the government so that they make the best decision going forward, without skimping on the optimism they’ve promoted so much.”

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