Where
CanadaStandsVol. II — 2018
A Sustainable Development
Goals Shadow Report

The British Columbia Council for International Cooperation (BCIC) is a network ofcivil society organizations and individuals moving toward a better world based in British
Columbia, Canada. Through coordinating this report, BCCIC hopes to contribute informed
and reputable voices from civil society into the critical debate on Canada’s role indeveloping and achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
For more information on BCCIC or this report, go to: bccic.ca/HLPF2018 Or contact us:#550 - 425 Carrall Street, Vancouver, BC, V6B 6E3
Phone 604-899-4475
Produced with the support of Global Affairs Canada. All intellectual content including
omissions and errors remains the responsibility and property of the BC Council forInternational Cooperation.

TABLE OF
CONTENTSFOREWORD................................................................................................................................................................ 6
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY........................................................................................................................................... 7
REPORT LIMITATIONS............................................................................................................................................. 9
SDG PROGRESS REQUIRES RECONCILIATION........................................................................................ 10

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS........................................................................................................................................ 11
SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS............................................................................................................. 12
CROSS-CUTTING THEMES.................................................................................................................................. 13
PROTECT THE PEEL: A CANADIAN CASE STUDY OF CROSS CUTTING-THEMES................................ 14
Expert Contributor................................................................................................................................................14
Background...........................................................................................................................................................14
Agenda 2030.........................................................................................................................................................17
Youth.....................................................................................................................................................................18
Implications...........................................................................................................................................................19

REFERENCES.............................................................................................................................................. 20

CLEAN WATER AND SANITATION...................................................................................................................... 22
TARGETS..................................................................................................................................................... 23
EXPERT CONTRIBUTORS........................................................................................................................... 24
CROSS-CUTTING THEMES........................................................................................................................ 24
NATIONAL DATA ....................................................................................................................................... 25
Introduction...........................................................................................................................................................25
Boil Advisories.......................................................................................................................................................26
Aging Infrastructure for Drinking Water and Sewage Treatment .........................................................................26
Threats to Aquatic Ecosystem Health and Implications for Human Water Use.....................................................26

WATER AND AGENDA 2030...................................................................................................................... 28
RECOMMENDATIONS .............................................................................................................................. 29
CASE STUDY: PARTNERSHIPS FOR ADDRESSING CHALLENGES IN THE GREAT LAKES BASIN.......... 30

WHERE CANADA STANDS: A SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS SHADOW REPORT

3

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Background...........................................................................................................................................................30
Challenges and Solutions......................................................................................................................................31

REFERENCES.............................................................................................................................................. 33

AFFORDABLE AND CLEAN ENERGY................................................................................................................. 34
TARGETS..................................................................................................................................................... 35
EXPERT CONTRIBUTORS........................................................................................................................... 36
CROSS-CUTTING THEMES........................................................................................................................ 36
NATIONAL DATA........................................................................................................................................ 37
Introduction...........................................................................................................................................................37
Getting to 100% Clean Energy.............................................................................................................................37
Indigenous Participation........................................................................................................................................38
Just Transition........................................................................................................................................................39
Gaps in Public Policy.............................................................................................................................................40
Rural & Northern Support.....................................................................................................................................42
Decentralization.....................................................................................................................................................44

RECOMMENDATIONS............................................................................................................................... 45
CASE STUDY: DOKIS FIRST NATION OKIKENDAWT HYDRO PROJECT................................................. 46
REFERENCES.............................................................................................................................................. 48

SUSTAINABLE CITIES AND COMMUNITIES..................................................................................................... 50
TARGETS..................................................................................................................................................... 51
EXPERT CONTRIBUTORS........................................................................................................................... 52
CROSS-CUTTING THEMES........................................................................................................................ 53
Introduction...........................................................................................................................................................54
Affordable Housing...............................................................................................................................................54
Climate Change Impacts.......................................................................................................................................59
Policies for a Greener City.....................................................................................................................................60

SUSTAINABLE CITIES & COMMUNITIES AND AGENDA 2030................................................................ 61
RECOMMENDATIONS............................................................................................................................... 61
CASE STUDY: SDG SCORECARDS FOR CITIES......................................................................................... 62
REFERENCES.............................................................................................................................................. 64

RESPONSIBLE CONSUMPTION AND PRODUCTION.................................................................................... 66
TARGETS..................................................................................................................................................... 67
EXPERT CONTRIBUTORS........................................................................................................................... 68
CROSS-CUTTING THEMES........................................................................................................................ 68
Introduction...........................................................................................................................................................70
Producer / Consumer Dichotomy..........................................................................................................................70
Waste & Disposal..................................................................................................................................................70

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WHERE CANADA STANDS: A SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS SHADOW REPORTTABLE OF CONTENTS
Mining...................................................................................................................................................................73
Fossil Fuel Subsidies..............................................................................................................................................74
Just Transition........................................................................................................................................................76RESPONSIBLE CONSUMPTION & PRODUCTION AND AGENDA 2030................................................. 77
CASE STUDY: DIESEL SUBSIDIES IN CANADA’S NORTH........................................................................ 78
REFERENCES.............................................................................................................................................. 80

LIFE ON LAND......................................................................................................................................................... 82
TARGETS..................................................................................................................................................... 83
EXPERT CONTRIBUTORS........................................................................................................................... 84
CROSS-CUTTING THEMES........................................................................................................................ 85
Introduction...........................................................................................................................................................86
Systems of Protected Areas...................................................................................................................................86
Wetlands................................................................................................................................................................87
Forests...................................................................................................................................................................88
Preventing Habitat Degradation and Biodiversity Loss, and Protecting Species At Risk......................................89
Financial Resources for the Conservation of Life on Land.....................................................................................90

LIFE ON LAND AND AGENDA 2030 ........................................................................................................ 91
RECOMMENDATIONS............................................................................................................................... 91
CASE STUDY: THE GREAT BEAR RAINFOREST AGREEMENTS............................................................... 92
REFERENCES.............................................................................................................................................. 94

PARTNERSHIPS FOR THE GOALS....................................................................................................................... 96
TARGETS..................................................................................................................................................... 97
EXPERT CONTRIBUTORS........................................................................................................................... 99
CROSS-CUTTING THEMES...................................................................................................................... 100
Introduction.........................................................................................................................................................101
Data, Monitoring, and Accountability.................................................................................................................101
Capacity Building................................................................................................................................................102
Multi-Stakeholder Partnerships ..........................................................................................................................102
Canadian International Development Initiatives.................................................................................................105

PARTNERSHIPS AND AGENDA 2030...................................................................................................... 107
RECOMMENDATIONS............................................................................................................................. 107
CASE STUDY: ALLIANCE 2030................................................................................................................. 108
REFERENCES............................................................................................................................................ 110

WHERE CANADA STANDS: A SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS SHADOW REPORT

5

FOREWORD
We are pleased to offer this fourth report in a series on
Canada and the SDGs. September will mark one fifthof our way on the journey toward 2030 and the hoped
for transformation of our world. The UN has concluded
we are dangerously behind in that journey and here at
BCCIC we believe Canada has not pulled its weight.
The purpose of a Voluntary National Review, which
Canada will undertake this year, has always been to
give a genuine progress report such that we can increase our collective chances of surviving this perilous
journey. We offer this report in that spirit. Canada is aunique country, with a globally significant role to play,
and this report asks us to up our game.

More than 25 people will attend the HLPF this year
from BC, of whom at least two thirds are young people. Youth, in particular, are an important voice tohelp tackle the SDGs intergenerationally. Our community roundtables and BC 2030 campaigns haveengaged 32 communities and almost 1,000 leadersacross British Columbia to drive home the point thatthe goals will never be achieved without effort at multiple scales. In short, more effort, more perspectives,
more people and more energy are required to meetthe greatest challenge of our time. The creation of Alliance 2030 bodes well in this regard. BCCIC is proud
to be a founding member.

This past year, BCCIC undertook a formal inquiry
through the auditor general’s office regarding Canada’s contributions toward the SDGs. It coincidedwith the Environmental Commissioner’s April 2018
report that concluded Canada was woefully unprepared. Our country lacks coordination and the will todemonstrate leadership despite being uniquely positioned. Individual departments, through outstanding
initiatives such as Global Affairs Canada’s Feminist
International Assistance Policy or Statistics Canada’s
SDG portal, prove that we can be innovative and forward thinking. However, our country lacks a whole ofgovernment approach. This is compounded by thefederal nature of our political system in which provinces and cities have jurisdiction over key components, if not entire goals and sub targets of the SDGs.

We appreciate the time and energy of all of the contributors to this report. Our Movement Map has proven that there are thousands of people like them equally motivated in British Columbia to turn our country’s
performance around. We look forward to the next 12
years of meeting this challenge and hope this reportserves us all in that direction.

We are encouraged that Canada has committed $100
million dollars this year toward SDG implementationand coordination. Clearly, this commitment would
benefit from a multi-stakeholder approach and creative governance structure. We believe it would benefit enormously from direct civil society engagement.
Civil society has much to offer as demonstrated by ourreports. We are proud to encourage youth to be meaningfully engaged. We are disappointed that neither
CSOs nor youth in Canada have been meaningfully
engaged in the lead-up and involvement at the HLPF.

6

Michael Simpson
Executive Director, BCCIC

WHERE CANADA STANDS: A SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS SHADOW REPORTEXECUTIVE
SUMMARY
Canada is presenting its Voluntary National Review
on progress toward the 2030 Agenda and its attendant 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) thisyear at the UN High-Level Political Forum (HLPF). Assessing performance on 65 targets across Canada
is a large task, with targets falling under the jurisdiction of various municipal, provincial, and federal
departments. A diverse population spanning nearly
10 million square kilometers further poses a risk thatsubnational nuances will be overlooked in an official
national review. With the aim of providing a fuller picture of sustainable development in Canada, BCCIC
presents this shadow report to the official Voluntary
National Review (VNR). The British Columbia Council for International Cooperation (BCCIC) analyzed
national quantitative data, interviewed experts, andgathered regional case studies to provide a balanced
view of how well SDG targets are being met throughthe subnational and civil society lens.
Within civil society there is overall consensus that
Canada is not on track to implement the 2030 Agenda. First, Canada is lagging behind in meeting manyof the indicators, as was the finding of a 2017 reportby the Brookings Institution. Of the 169 quantitative
SDG indicators assessed, they found that Canada ison track for 17 indicators; needs acceleration for 12;
needs a breakthrough on 26; and requires a reversalof negative trends on 18.1 Faster progress is required
on at least one target under each of the goals, highlighting the need for a stricter commitment to meetingthe targets in all areas of Canadian society.
These findings are synonymous with the findings ofthis report. At the end of 2017, 67 rural and Indig-

enous communities across the country do not haveaccess to clean drinking water, and 40 of them had
been under boil advisories that were standing forover a decade. Canada must adjust its recycling
and waste management programs to ensure thatthe sector can continue to ensure long-term environmental and economic sustainability, and to adapt
to the emerging trend of developing countries refusing to import our waste. Transportation planning inurban centres punishes residents who opt for moresustainable modes of transportation, as cyclists andpedestrians see higher mortality rates in traffic accidents due to automobile-biased urban planning. Halfof Canada’s monitored species have been under decline in the past several decades, and several populations of iconic Canadian wildlife such as mountaincaribou are on the brink of extinction.
A primary reason Canada is not on track to achieving the SDGs is because the government has not established the necessary governance, monitoring, andreporting structures for the successful implementation of the 2030 Agenda . In 2017, BCCIC submitted
a petition to the Commissioner of the Environment
and Sustainable Development asking for clarity on
the roles and responsibilities of federal agencies inachieving the SDGs, as well as how civil society, subnational governments, and youth will be engaged in
the process. The findings from the petition process
showed a lack of coordinated federal leadership, anabsence of a robust and transparent data collection
and monitoring framework, and no government-led
opportunity for civil society consultation and input
into the process. Similarly, a report from the Officeof the Auditor General identified a lack of leadershipat the federal level and concrete plan to implement

1
McArthur, John, and Rasmussen, Krista. Who and whatgets left behind? Assessing Canada’s domestic status on the
Sustainable Development Goals. Brookings Institution, 2017.

WHERE CANADA STANDS: A SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS SHADOW REPORT7

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

the 2030 agenda.2 As per the Auditor General’s recommendations, the Government of Canada would needto coordinate among five main government bodiesEmployment and Social Development Canada, Environment and Climate Change Canada, Global Affairs
Canada, Status of Women Canada, and Indigenous
and Northern Affairs Canada- to develop a clear national implementation strategy with clearly definedroles for government bodies, a framework for stakeholder engagement, a monitoring and reporting system, and a set of national targets that are sensitive to
the Canadian context. Statistics Canada’s SDG PortalCanada’s intended single source for indicator data- is
still quite nascent and its contribution to the needed
whole-of-government approach is yet to be seen.

“Canada has notestablished the necessary
governance, monitoring,and reporting structures
for the successful
implementation of the2030 Agenda.”

A key guiding principle of the 2030 Agenda is that noone should be left behind. As detailed in this report,
many groups are currently “left behind” in Canada
under the goals under review this year, including Indigenous communities, youth, and women and girls.
Natural ecosystems are also being left behind as
progress is made toward economic targets. In orderto reverse this trend, these key groups must be involved in Canada’s overall SDG implementation strategy, from planning to monitoring and reporting. Most
importantly, these groups, along with subnational
governments should receive support from the federal
government to carry out on-the-ground initiatives tomeet SDG indicators, as these groups best understand the idiosyncratic needs of individual regions
and communities.

Building on Where Canada Stands3 - last year’s civilsociety assessment of Canada’s progress on the
SDGS - this report assesses SDG implementation in
Canada through the guiding question: “who is getting left behind?” For each SDG under review thisyear, both the national and sub-national contexts
were considered through regional analysis and thepresentation of case studies. Experts interviewed inthese areas represent Indigenous communities, universities, think tanks, NGOs, CSOs, youth, industry,and various levels of government. The case studies
were selected to represent a diversity of regions, andto highlight success stories where targets were met
and no one was left behind.

2		
Report 2—Canada’s Preparedness to Implement the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals. Officeof the Auditor General of Canada. 2018 Spring Reports of theCommissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development, 2018. http://www.oag-bvg.gc.ca/internet/English/parl_
cesd_201804_02_e_42993.html#

83
https://www.bccic.ca/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/
HLPF-Report-Online-Version-v3-24072017.pdf

WHERE CANADA STANDS: A SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS SHADOW REPORTREPORT
LIMITATIONSAt BCCIC we acknowledge the limitations of this report, such as thelack of standardized data. Much of
the data we do have is aggregatedand does not reflect Canada’s regional and demographic diversity.
We have supplemented the viewsof our experts with data that is more
specific to the Canadian context;
however, we recognize that there
may be omissions and inconsistencies in the measurements used.

We acknowledge that the scope of this report iscurtailed by the limitations and global nature of theSDGs themselves. Notably, the SDGs presume a binary notion of gender. However, gender equality must
be inclusively defined across all genders, including
members who identify as transgender, in recognizing
progress towards attaining equality.
Other areas where the SDGs are lacking include, but
are not limited to, emphasizing the importance of providing services for good mental health, ensuring therights of internally and externally displaced persons,and evaluating supports for youth in care. As Canada
develops their own indicators, these limitations of theSDGs must be address and incorporated in the national reporting strategy.
Since Canada is a heterogeneous country in race andethnicity, we recognize that there is always room tocapture as much of Canada as possible, though there
are limitations in doing so, such as the lack of disaggregated data. Despite our best efforts to reach out
to diverse experts on the goals, we were unable toincorporate the perspectives of the LGBTQ+, immigrant, and refugee communities into this report.
Furthermore, we approached Indigenous experts to
speak on each of the SDGs under review, keeping in
mind the principle of “no one left behind”. However,while we were able to interview Indigenous experts
for goals 7, 11 and 17, we were not able to arrange
interviews with Indigenous experts for goals 6, 12 and15 within our timeline.
In February 2018, the British Columbia Council forInternational Cooperation (BCCIC) held a civil society led workshop with various government departments - including Global Affairs Canada, Indigenous
and Northern Affairs Canada, Environment Climate
Change Canada, and Statistics Canada - to provide

WHERE CANADA STANDS: A SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS SHADOW REPORT

9national input and recommendations to Canada’s
Voluntary National Review (VNR) in the hopes thatcivil society and the Government of Canada would be
able to collaboratively develop a VNR that reflected
inclusivity and showed global leadership. Unfortunately, the federal government declined the opportunity to co-create a VNR that incorporated civil society
input in a meaningful way and instead chose to solicit“vignettes” from organizations across Canada to use
as highlighted case studies in the official VNR. As aresult, BCCIC produced this shadow report to supplement Canada’s VNR in an effort to represent an“on-the-ground” civil society perspective that is moregeographically and demographically diverse. We also
made efforts to outreach to various ministries at afederal and provincial level for their input and partnership on this report but they all declined to contribute.
Most Cited that as public servants, it was not appropriate for them to comment on Canada’s actions andprogress in implementing the 2030 Agenda.
As a final note, many of the views expressed in thereport are the opinions of the experts we interviewed.
Such diverse representation brings with it diverse
recommendations for solutions and you may therefore find expert advice that appears to contradict one
another. However, at BCCIC we acknowledge thatvalue of a plurality of approach to sustainable development. Whether it is changing individual values
and behaviours, or focusing on systemic change andevolving cultural norms, we at BCCIC believe that all
the recommended solutions presented in this reporthold value and that together they can provide a multifaceted approach to sustainable development.

10

SDG PROGRESSREQUIRESRECONCILIATION
We would be remiss if we did not outline that the lagging outcomes for Indigenous Peoples are largely aproduct of Canada’s colonialism. The Canadian government created a systematic plan to assimilate Indigenous Peoples, including taking Indigenous land
without permission, banning traditional culture andlanguages, and placing children in residential schools
where they were abused physically, emotionally, andsexually. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission(TRC) declared that Canada’s treatment of Indigenous peoples amounted to a cultural genocide.
The federal government has expressed a commitment
to moving toward reconciliation with Indigenous Peoples, which is an improvement over previous governments. There are a few clear steps to making progress;
namely, the government must expediently implement
the TRC’s Calls to Action and the UN Declaration on
the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP).

WHERE CANADA STANDS: A SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS SHADOW REPORTREPORT LIMITATIONSACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
We would like to extend our deepest gratitude to all those who contributed to the creation of this report, without whom its production
would not have been possible.

Specifically, thanks must go to our expert interviewees, listed in alphabetical order of their last name:
Dr. Zafar Adeel, Christopher Bell, JP Bervoets, Oliver
Brandes, Gavin Charles, Naiara Costa, Neil Fletcher,
Dr. Penelope Gurstein, Chris Henderson, Dr. Meg
Holden, Stefan Jungcurt, Jamie Kaminski, Christine
Korol, Ugo Lapointe, Tony Maas, Satnam Manhas,
Rosanna McGregor, Dr. Jatin Nathwani, Andrea Reimer, Chris Rider, Rikia Saddy, Helen Scott, Kim Scott,Dr. Wynet Smith, Dr. Eric Taylor, Yannick Touchette,
Julie Wright.
We would like to recognize the incredible hard workand dedication of Colton Kasteel, Keila Stark, Gen
Nacionales, Grayson Barke, and Iqra Manzoor, who
all played a leading role in the development and writing of this report. Special thanks to Deborah Glaser
as well, who coordinated and edited the report.
We would like to recognize the incredible hard work anddedication of the many volunteers, interns, and staff
who contributed to outreach, research, writing, design,and editing of this report. The original artwork featured
for each SDG in this report was created through a cooperative process, sharing the themes between 3 artists: Emily Thiessen, Kristin Agnello, and Adrian McKerracher, who also created the cover image. Thank you
to Courtenay McKay for the design work and to Diane
Connors for coordinating the design.

WHERE CANADA STANDS: A SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS SHADOW REPORT11

SUSTAINABLE
DEVELOPMENTGOALSThe United Nations Sustainable Development Goals(SDGs), also known as the “Global Goals”, are a framework of 17 goals that aim to address the world’s environmental, social, economic, and security challenges.
Unprecedented in nature, these new goals are:12•

universal: the goals apply in every country,
including Canada•

integrated: achievement of any goal is linked
to the achievement of all the others•

aspirational: acknowledging the need tomove past business as usual and seek
transformative solutions

Some say the goals are unrealistic, there are too manyand the expectations are too high. Can we really eradicate poverty everywhere in all of its forms including
extreme poverty in only fifteen years? They point totoo many specifics and claim the agenda, estimatedto cost trillions, will be too expensive. The entire process, they claim, is unrealistic. These critics fail to see
the point. The SDGs were developed from the bottom
up, across the entire planet over a period of years,
based not on what is realistic in our time but on what
our species aspires to. When we first proposed walking on the moon it must have seemed unrealistic andexpensive. The SDGs are a dream statement, not ofwhat we can currently accomplish but what we must
accomplish. Like a stretch goal it is a statement about
imagination and hope and what our vision should be inits purest form. Anything less is a disservice to future
generations. Worrying about cost is to miss the point.
The original motivation for international cooperationand the UN itself is wrapped in the history of conflict.
War is more expensive than peace and without thefoundations of sustainable development we risk thismore expensive option. We easily find the motivation
today to spend trillions in regional conflicts. Finding
trillions to solve our greatest challenges to life on thisplanet is a matter of perspective and motivation. The
SDGs provide the visionary framework for us to movetoward this better world.

WHERE CANADA STANDS: A SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS SHADOW REPORTCROSSCUTTING
THEMES
Across the goals, the report addresses four cross-cutting themes: Indigenous communities, gender, youth voices, and climate change. These
themes highlight the intersectional nature of the SDGs and emphasize
four key aspects of Canadian society that deserve attention and focus.

Indigenous
Communities
Canada must build true nationto-nation relationships between
the federal government and Indigenous communities, affirming self-governance structures
for community-led change.

Climate Change
All levels of government must
consider the climate impacts ofeach policy to ensure long-term
resiliency and sustainability.

GenderYouthGender equality means supporting human rights andadvancing full participation
across all genders. Specifically, women and girls must be
empowered to reach their fullpotential so they can earn andcontribute equally within theircommunities.

Youth must be recognized as avulnerable population and their
voices universally included indecision-making.

Community by Shashank Singh from the Noun Project.
Gender Equality by Nakul Dhaka from the Noun Project

WHERE CANADA STANDS: A SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS SHADOW REPORT

13

CROSS-CUTTING THEMESPROTECT THE PEEL:A CANADIAN CASE STUDY
OF CROSS CUTTING-THEMES
Expert Contributor
Chris Rider, Executive Director, Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society (CPAWS) Yukon

Background
The Peel watershed, located in the Northeast of the Yukon Territory, is one of the last remaining
large-scale watersheds left largely intact in North America. It is critical to the territory, maintaining
clean water and land, hosting abundant wildlife and a rich biosphere on which local communities
depend. The Watershed is the traditional territory of three Yukon First Nations, the Na-Cho Nyak
Dun, Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in and Vuntut Gwitchin, as well as the Tetlit Gwich’in First Nation of the Northwest Territories.

“When it comes to SDG 15, there areso many people from First Nations who
expressed the fact that they have arelationship with that landscape which
has lasted millenia, and preserving that
relationship is key.”—Chris Rider, Executive Directorof CPAWS Yukon.

Source: Peter Mather, Protect the Peel Photo Gallery.

14

WHERE CANADA STANDS: A SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS SHADOW REPORTCROSS-CUTTING THEMESIn 1998, in response to the territorial government’s call to open
a significant portion of the watershed up to natural resource
extraction projects, the Protect the Peel campaign beganwith Juri Peepre, the founderof Canada’s Parks and Wilderness Society (CPAWS) Yukon,
with the intention of protecting
large-scale wilderness. It was aparticularly unique campaign
in that it brought First Nations,conservationists, youth, andother groups together to makea powerful statement on local
land-use planning.
Above all else, the campaign was / is tied
most closely to the health and rights of local
Indigenous peoples. There are a multitude of
threats posed to the health of Indigenous communities across Canada. Additionally, communities such as Old Crow (whose residents
belong primarily to the Vuntut Gwitchin First
Nation, located near the Peel watershed) areat the forefront of climate change. Across theNorthern landscape of Canada, for predominantly Indigenous and remote communities like
Old Crow and Inuvik, the impacts of climatechange are starkly visible even today. Changes
to the landscape, including melting and shiftingpermafrost and collapsing ice shelves, are not
hypothetical impacts for the local residents.
“They’re happening right now. It is really easy
to forget that, when you don’t spend time inthose communities. They seem so remote andso far away from day-to-day life [for an average

person] in a large city like Vancouver”, remarks
Chris Rider, Executive Director of CPAWS Yukon. Climate change, on the ground, does
not impact large urban centres in the southof Canada like it does in remote communities. For people living in the remote Northern
communities of Canada, it is a reality they areface every day. In addition, these small communities also face extraneous threats, such as
the United States government trying to open
the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska
to oil and gas development. Rider notes, “[thishas] potentially huge impacts on the Porcupine Caribou herd; a herd which, for people innearby communities, particularly those in Old
Crow and the Alaskan Gwich’in communities,
have depended on and built their lives aroundfor millenia.” Impacts on the Caribou herd andother local wildlife in this region will have immeasurable impacts on the nearby Indigenous
communities, particularly given the cost offood in the north. For local residents, it is notas simple as commuting to a local grocer andbuying meat and vegetables for a small price.
Almost all the remote Indigenous communities
in question are fly-in communities, which rely
heavily on their traditional practices of collecting and hunting from the land in a sustainable
manner. Without conservation and protection,
their livelihoods are at risk. The Peel watershed
is an excellent example of the multitude of services local lands offer Indigenous peoples in
Canada, when cared for and conserved. “Localrivers have been described as a breadbasket
for the First Nations who rely on that land”, Rider remarks. They provide and feed a plethora ofresources to the communities, from medicine
to food, water, caribou, fish, and more, there
are simply countless services provided by thelandscape. This is a stark contrast to the southof Canada: “When your entire experience offood gathering is going to the supermarket, it
doesn’t really compare”, Rider adds. With thisin mind, broad protection of the watershed is of
critical importance.

WHERE CANADA STANDS: A SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS SHADOW REPORT

15

CROSS-CUTTING THEMES

Overview of Differences between the Peel Planning Commission’s Final Recommended Planand Yukon Government’s Peel Watershed Regional Land use Plan
Peel Commission’s Plan

Yukon Government’s Plan4

55% Special Management Area: Permanent protection from mining and oil and gas exploration and development. Existing mining claims continue but nosurface access to them.

29% Protected Area: No new mineral staking or oil
and gas exploration. Existing mining claims continue
and “temporary” surface access to them is allowed
for advanced exploration and mine development. Allof the “Protected Areas” have mining claims in them
except Landscape Management Units 11 and 12, theBlackstone and Hart Major River Corridors, and partsof the Peel main stem and Snake River Wild River
Parks. Therefore the amount of “Protected Areas”
where roads and mines could not occur adds up to
only approximately 14% of the Peel region.

25% Wilderness Area: Interim protection from mining
and oil and gas exploration and development – to bereviewed at the next Plan review in approximately 10
years. Existing mining claims continue to exist but nosurface access to them is allowed.
20% Integrated Management Area: Roads and industry are allowed.

44% Restricted Use Wilderness Areas (RUWA): Newclaim staking, roads and mines allowed within a .2%
surface disturbance limit. No oil and gas development allowed AT THIS TIME.
27% Integrated management Areas: Roads and industry are allowed.

80% of Peel region protected from roads and indus- Approximately 14% of the Peel region protectedtry.
from roads and industry.
New mineral staking allowed in 20% of Peel region.

New mineral staking allowed in 71% of Peel region.

Oil and gas development allowed in Integrated Man- Oil and gas development allowed in Integrated Management Areas: 20% of Peel region.
agement Areas: 27% of Peel region.
Although oil and gas development is not allowed
in RUWA’s at this time, the plan allows for this tochange in the future.
Uranium exploration and development: Not allowed No specific mention of uranium exploration and deanywhere in the Peel until Yukon government devel- velopment, so they are allowed in Integrated Manops policies and guidelines for uranium exploration agement Areas and RUWA’s.
and mining.
Air access in Special Management Areas and Wilder- In Protected Areas: New air strips allowed for “reaness Areas: no new air strips.
sonable access” for mining of existing claims.
Dempster Highway subregional plan is required.

Dempster Highway subregional plan is required.

Wind River Trail no longer recorded as an existing
route under the Yukon Highways Act. Wind River Trailcannot be developed into a winter or all season roadbecause it is in a Special Management Area.

Wind River Trail no longer recorded as an existing
route under the Yukon Highways Act. But it could be
developed into a winter or all season road since it isin a RUWA. An environmental assessment would be
required to develop it into a road.

Source: Protect the Peel Public Dropbox
4
Since the 2016 territorial election, a new Liberal government has been in power. The plan outlined here wasproposed by the previous Yukon government and made void by the Supreme Court of Canada’s decision.

16

WHERE CANADA STANDS: A SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS SHADOW REPORTCROSS-CUTTING THEMESAgenda 2030
In response to how the SDGs intersect with
the Protect the Peel movement, Rider notes:“The SDGs are a framework for a more equitable world... [and] the Protect the Peel case
was an example of how we can work together
to achieve that. While it doesn’t touch on every
SDG, it meshes nicely.” As noted, the watershed is vitally important to local communities
and wildlife, which depend on the health of land
and water to sustain themselves. As a result,its purpose and protection are closely alignedwith SDG 14 and 15 (Life Below Water and Lifeon Land). “When it comes to SDG 15, there
are so many people from First Nations, threeof which we worked with in the Peel legal case(and another as an intervenor), who expressed
the fact that they have a relationship with thatlandscape which has lasted millenia, and preserving that relationship is key”, Rider adds.
This intergenerational preservation of land is
not just a matter of wildlife protection and cli-mate action, but also an example of decolonization, in that it connects Indigenous youth with
their ancestral roots to the land and their elders.
The watershed also has implications for Canada’s broader climate change goals, in alignment
with SDG 13 (Climate Action). The Peel is thedefinition of large scale wilderness, totalling approximately 68,000 km2 (equivalent to the size ofthe entire province of Nova Scotia). Keeping its
functions intact is vital to climate change mitigation in Canada, especially from a migration
perspective for the animals who depend on theland. As climate change alters the landscape,keeping large-scale wilderness that allows wildlife to adapt will be, and is, incredibly importantin maintaining biodiversity. Lastly, SDG 17 isundoubtedly tightly intertwined with Protect thePeel, as partnerships were of the utmost importance in the movement’s success. Its partnership intersections are a key example of how thecase came together so well.

Source: Peter Mather, Protect the Peel Photo Gallery

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CROSS-CUTTING THEMESYouthIn addition to including youth as a stakeholder, the Protect the Peel movement spurred new local initiatives furthering youth environmental engagement in the region. For example, “Youth of
the Peel” was originally a project CPAWS helped establish with youth from the Peel First Nations, which comprises the Na-Cho Nyak Dun, Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in and Vuntut Gwitchin and Tetlit
Gwich’in First Nations. This program brought together youth from the aforementioned communities into the Peel watershed on a canoe trip, to learn about tourism training and to connect withthe land. Rider notes, “After completion, three youth involved in the project decided there wassuch value in that trip, bringing youth onto the land and training them with those tourism wilderness guide skills, that they formed their own organization, Youth of the Peel.” The organization has
since completed two trips through the new organization and brought several youth out to experience the beauty of the Peel watershed. It is a testament to both the success of the movement andto the unique importance of the Peel, that First Nations youth were inspired to take on ownership,and reclaim their lands both spiritually and environmentally.

OutcomeThe legal case, which had the Supreme Court of Canada hearing in March 2017, was the first timethat First Nations and conservation groups appeared in front of the Supreme court on the same
docket as co-litigants, noted Chris Rider. Environmental organizations such as CPAWS were notthere as conservation groups providing moral support, and First Nations were not there providing
their voice to elevate a conservation campaign, rather, the two groups were united in the legal
battle. “[It was] pretty special to see the way the environmental community and First Nations
came together”, reflects Rider. The court case’s outcome recognized that when it came to thequestion of climate change, having protection for such a large landmass is critical to preserving
biodiversity in the local communities. In the coming years, wildlife will require space to adapt tothe changing environment. Moreover, it noted that First Nations communities will need adequate
landscapes available to them to continue to access the meat and plants that they’ve relied on
for generations. Finally, it also acknowledges the importance of land acting as a carbon sink. Not
only does land help to adapt to climate change, but large-scale protection like that with the Peelacts as a climate change mitigator by keping that carbon in the ground and providing plants andtrees to absorb CO2.
“The legal challenge is now complete, and I could not be happier with the outcome” Rider says.
The basis of the case was to uphold the text and intent of the final agreements signed by First Nations and the Yukon government on behalf of all Yukon residents. By preserving the agreements,
the court ensured that the government of Yukon is forced to act in a way that upholds the honor
and integrity of the crown. Moreover, the language of the ruling limited the amount of change able
to be made in the future, which helps to ensure that future governments preserve the agreement
in an honorable and forthright way, and are held to account. Now concluded as of June 2018,
negotiations are back “to where they should have been in 2011, where consultations will needto happen on the final stage of the final recommended plan”, Rider adds. Government and First
Nations are putting out minor modifications, with community members and environmental groups
waiting to see how those consultations will be shaped. Once complete, the plan will be finalized.

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WHERE CANADA STANDS: A SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS SHADOW REPORTCROSS-CUTTING THEMES

Implications
Reconciliation
In terms of livelihoods, particularly for the Porcupine caribou herd and the work done to-date with
the Vuntut Gwitchin to elevate their voices and support them in their fight to protect the herd, thePeel’s protection is critical to ensuring that their traditional way of life can be sustained for millenia
more. Rider remarks: “There’s been a history of colonialism in the conservation sector. Conservation groups like Parks Canada have had a long history of determining what’s best for the land,
and forcing that upon First Nations whether that’s something they want to see or not.” The Peelwatershed case is an example for how conservation should be pursued in the future. Listening toFirst Nations and supporting them where they want to conserve land and livelihoods in the spiritof partnership is critical to moving towards a new era of reconciliation in Canada.

Canada’s Land-Use Planning Future
The Peel Watershed case is an important example for the conservation sector, demonstrating the importance of listening, engaging andworking with First Nations in partnership, rather
than determining personal interest in advanceand pursuing them over the rights and preferences of Indigenous peoples. The final agreements signed by First Nations in the Yukon has
the potential to be a model for Canada, as itprovides an outline for how Yukoners and First
Nations, working together, hold immense power and leverage over the direction of land-use
planning. “It’s exciting work and something that
Canada could benefit from”, Rider adds. This
example advances the importance of partnerships in building a sustainable future. Canada
possesses almost an incomparable wealth ofresources and land, which is host to countless species and provides countless for public services, unaccounted for in our economy.
Indigenous peoples, keepers of generations of
traditional ecological knowledge for land-management, are best situated to take the task of
stewardship. Canada must not undervalue theknowledge of First Nations, and the value ofthe land that their livelihoods rely on.
In sum, Canada has a lot to do when it comesto listening to, and working with, First Nations.
“As a country, there has been a lot of lip service
paid to consultation, but consultation doesn’t

just mean asking the questions, it means actually listening and learning”, says Rider. That’s
where Canada needs to improve, and where
the Yukon and Protect the Peel movement is alesson for the rest of Canada, as it has ensured
that that conservation has to happen, and happen in a meaningful way. Canada’s has a long
way to go to reach its 2030 and 2050 targets(as well as those beyond), particularly in lightof recent decisions to proceed with large-scalefossil fuel infrastructure that passes through theterritories of objecting First Nations. Nonetheless, Protect the Peel serves as an excellent
example of how Canada could achieve sustainable development through intersectional initiatives that center upon the rights, health andprosperity of First Nations.

“The legal case was the firsttime that First Nations andconservation groups appearedin front of the Supreme court on
the same docket as co-litigants.“—Chris Rider,
Executive Directorof CPAWS Yukon

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CROSS-CUTTING THEMESREFERENCES“Youth to Experience the Peel Firsthand.” CPAWS Yukon, 6 July 2015, cpawsyukon.org/youth-to-experiencethe-peel-firsthand/.
“FAQs.” Protect the Peel, protectpeel.ca/our-story/faqs/.
Judd, Amy. “New Campaign Aims to Shed Light on the High Cost of Food in Canada’s North.” Global News,
Global News, 28 June 2016, globalnews.ca/news/2447177/new-campaign-aims-to-shed-light-on-thehigh-cost-of-food-in-canadas-north/.
Bourne, Jr., Joel K. “This Refuge May Be the Most Contested Land in the U.S.” National Geographic, 29 May
2018, www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/2018/06/arctic-national-wildlife-refuge-america-oil-risk/.
Overview of Differences between the Peel Planning Commission’s Final Recommended Plan and Yukon
Government’s Peel Watershed Regional Land Use Plan. Protect the Peel, www.dropbox.com/sh/
mg4n4rfm6santg7/AADfzgvtGkxu3uJl80sDIImia/Peel Land Use Plans?dl=0&preview=Differences between
PWPC and YG Plans.pdf.
Mather, Peter. “Aerial Peel Watershed.” Protect the Peel, http://protectpeel.ca/in-pictures/protect-the-peelone-of-north-americas-last-wildernesses-under-threat-the-guardian
Mather, Peter. “Porcupine Caribou.” Protect the Peel, http://protectpeel.ca/in-pictures/protect-the-peel-oneof-north-americas-last-wildernesses-under-threat-the-guardian.

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WHERE CANADA STANDS: A SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS SHADOW REPORTCROSS-CUTTING THEMESWHERE CANADA STANDS: A SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS SHADOW REPORT21

CLEANWATER ANDSANITATION

22

WHERE CANADA STANDS: A SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS SHADOW REPORTCLEAN WATER AND SANITATIONTARGETS
Ensure availability and sustainable
management of water and sanitation for all.

By 2030, achieve universal and equitable access to safe and affordable
drinking water for all.

By 2030, implement integrated water
resources management at all levels,
including through transboundary
cooperation as appropriate.

By 2030, achieve access to adequate
and equitable sanitation and hygiene
for all and end open defecation, paying special attention to the needs ofwomen and girls and those in vulnerable situations.

By 2020, protect and restore waterrelated ecosystems, including
mountains, forests, wetlands, rivers,
aquifers and lakes.

By 2030, improve water quality by reducing pollution, eliminating dumping
and minimizing release of hazardous
chemicals and materials, halving the
proportion of untreated wastewaterand substantially increasing recycling
and safe reuse globally.

By 2030, expand international cooperation and capacity-building support
to developing countries in water- andsanitation-related activities and programmes, including water harvesting,desalination, water efficiency, wastewater treatment, recycling and reusetechnologies.

By 2030, substantially increase wateruse efficiency across all sectors andensure sustainable withdrawals andsupply of freshwater to address water
scarcity and substantially reduce
the number of people suffering fromwater scarcity.

Support and strengthen the participation of local communities in improving
water and sanitation management.

WHERE CANADA STANDS: A SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS SHADOW REPORT23

CLEAN WATER AND SANITATIONEXPERT CONTRIBUTORS•••

Zafar Adeel, Executive Director, Pacific Water Research Centre, Simon Fraser University
Tony Maas, Director of the Forum for Leadership on Water (FLOW) and Manager of Strategy with
Freshwater Future
Oliver Brandes, Director, POLIS Water Sustainability Project

CROSS-CUTTING THEMES
Indigenous Communities
The negative consequences of contaminated water or water shortages on Canada’sFirst Nations communities cannot be overstated. The stress and difficulty of living without reliable access, or the anxiety of being forced to use contaminated water, affects
all aspects of individual and community life – from education, to economic activities, tohuman health, and traditional and spiritual practices.

GenderGender is not explicitly considered in the Federal Sustainable Development Strategy
and therefore gender issues when it comes to Water and any of the other SDGs are indanger of being overlooked. For example, pregnant and nursing women are particularly
vulnerable to health problems from a lack of clean water in communities under boil advisories.

Climate Change
An increase in reach, frequency, and severity of floods and droughts are likely to affect all Canadians to some degree under climate change. Some consequences may
include floods damaging homes and communities, droughts reducing agricultural andindustrial output, and greater disaster relief and insurance costs for taxpayers andprivate landowners.
The warming of lakes and other freshwater ecosystems can completely alter their functioning through changes in water levels, algal blooms, and overall shifts in food webs,
which can in turn threaten drinking water quality, as well as the recreational value ofthese bodies.

YouthChildren and young people are more vulnerable to the health consequences of contaminated water. There have been a few reports in the past two years of unsafe lead levels in
drinking water in Ontario and BC schools and daycares.

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WHERE CANADA STANDS: A SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS SHADOW REPORTCLEAN WATER AND SANITATIONNATIONAL DATA
•
•
•
•
•

Canada has approximately 20% of the world’s freshwater in the form of lakes, rivers streams, glaciers,and groundwater, however it has only 6.5% of the worlds annually renewable freshwater
In total – 2.6% of the world’s renewable fresh water is available to the 90% of Canadians living along
the Canada-US border
Canada ”has the third largest renewable freshwater supply worldwide and the second largest amountper capita among developed countries, at 103,899 m3 per person.”
There are over 2 million lakes in Canada, 14% of world’s total lakes exceeding 500 km2 in area
The majority of Canadians place a high value to water, and see fresh water as our most importantnatural resource. However, sustainable water management is not a top priority in the policy sphere andour water challenges persist, grow and multiply as a result – the myth of water abundance persistsin Canada and we don’t fully appreciate how important it is to our health, economy, agriculture, andenvironment

Introduction
Canada is a leader on clean water and sanitation relative
to other nations. There are three areas in particular where
Canada has performed well with respect to the targets under SDG 6: access to safe and affordable drinking water(Target 6.1), access to equitable sanitation (Target 6.2), andtransboundary cooperation on water management (Indicator 6.5.2). All targets under SDG 6 see room for improvement in certain subnational cases.

Canada hasapproximately 20% of
the world’s freshwaterin the form of lakes,
Overall, the expert interviewees expressed that Canada is an
example of a nation with an abundant supply of water thatrivers streams, glaciers,
does not manage it particularly well. Thus far, shortcomings
in our water management strategy have not caused wideand groundwater,
spread problems due to our abundance of available cleanwater and sprawling population. Moving forward, however,with increasing pressures from industry, population growth, however it has only
climate change, aging infrastructure, and lack of robust water laws and standards – these shortcomings may prevail, 6.5% of the worlds
leaving more communities behind in Canada.
annually renewable
Despite Canada’s relatively universal access to clean water,
there are still groups that are left behind: rural and Indigfreshwater.
enous communities, and natural ecosystems. In the future,

however, all Canadians may be at risk of restricted accessto clean drinking water because we are not identifying and responding to emerging challenges. Floods anddroughts due to climate change and contaminate water due to aging infrastructure and polluted watersheds
may threaten the health, safety, and sustainable growth of all Canadian communities.
Dr. Zafar Adeel, Executive Director of the Pacific Water Research Centre at Simon Fraser University, outlines
a series of accessibility challenges surrounding clean drinking water that are particularly serious in Canada.

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CLEAN WATER AND SANITATION

Boil Advisories
Chronic boil advisories in remote communities affectapproximately 1% of the population, but that 1% istruly being “left behind.” The government has committed to ending all long-term advisories by March
2021, however several observers are concerned that
this deadline may not be met. The Parliamentary Budget Office estimates that the minimum funds required
to meet the current and future needs of these communities affected by boil advisories is approximately$3.2 billion.
As of the end of 2017, there were 67 boil advisories
in Canada, 40 of which had been in place for overa decade. Neskantaga in Northern Ontario has been
in a boil advisory for over 20 years due to a longdefunct water treatment plant. Consequently, eachhousehold lives on rationed bottled water which must
be budgeted for cleaning, cooking and drinking. The
repercussions of water scarcity may compound withother social and health struggles in the community:
50% of band members are addicted to prescription
drugs and there is a suicide crisis in the community.
Many young people move away for health reasons.
The boil advisory crises in rural Indigenous communities are inexcusable, given that the technology andfunds to rectify these situations are easily available.
If the government is serious about beginning the path
to Reconciliation, it will achieve its 2021 goal as soon
as possible.

“As of the end of 2017,
there were 67 boil
advisories in Canada,
40 of which had been inplace for over a decade.”

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Aging Infrastructure for Drinking Waterand Sewage Treatment
Most urban water infrastructure in Canada is 50-100
years old and will require replacements or upgrades in
the near future in order to avoid serious public healthcrises. The Federation of Canadian Municipalities estimates at least $18 billion is required just to bring urban
wastewater systems up to standard. Already, there
have been accounts of lead in drinking water in publicschools in areas not so far from urban centres in British Columbia and Ontario. Carelessness surrounding
the destination of sewage has also polluted our waterways, affecting the health of living aquatic resources
and ultimately, of human communities. A recent norovirus outbreak in aquaculture oysters in central Bayes
Sound near Vancouver Island has resulted in healthproblems, and the resulting closure of the BC shellfish
fishery has stressed small businesses in particular.

Threats to Aquatic Ecosystem Health andImplications for Human Water Use
World Wildlife Fund Canada released a watershedhealth report using seven indicators- pollution, habitat loss, fragmentation, water use, invasive species,
alteration of flows and climate change – to assesswatershed-mediated threats to aquatic biodiversityand drinking water. Two key findings were that dataon these indicators are lacking, and that where data
are available, it appears that watersheds are sufferingfrom several anthropogenic stressors:••••

110 of 167 sub-watersheds were data
deficient;
53 of 167 are stressed (especially those insouthern Canada);
60 of 167 show pollution is a serious concern;
21 of 167 are experiencing high impacts fromclimate change

Pollution in watersheds in particular can adversely
affect natural ecosystems and human communities
alike. With increased development activities meetingthe needs of a growing population, watersheds will
become more susceptible to pollutants such as toxins and carcinogens from pesticides and herbicides,
industrial pollution from mining and fossil fuel extraction, plastics & microplastics, nutrient overloadfrom agricultural fertilizers and sewage, dams andmethyl-mercury.

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The interviewees expressed concern that the government is not placing enough emphasis on the watershed as a unit of conservation as insurance for future water use. While Canada’s 2020 commitment to
17% protected terrestrial and inland freshwater areas
is commendable and will contribute to watershedhealth, we must explicitly consider protecting an adequate number of wetlands and aquifers from paving and irrigation to avoid drought or flooding, and in
so doing protect potentially invaluable groundwater
sources under future climate change.

Source: World Wildlife Fund. Watershed Reports. http://watershedreports.wwf.ca“It is impossible to have healthy, functioning
communities without clean water.”—Oliver Brandes, Co-Director of the POLIS Projecton Ecological Governance at the University ofVictoria’s Centre for Global Studies

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CLEAN WATER AND SANITATIONWATER AND AGENDA 2030
Of the goals under review at the High-Level Political Forum this year,
SDG 6 intersects most of the 2030 Agenda and a failure to meet thetargets would have major implications for meeting the other goals. As
Oliver Brandes, Co-Director of the POLIS Project on Ecological Governance at the University of Victoria’s Centre for Global Studies, points out,
“it is impossible to have healthy, functioning communities without cleanwater.” Meeting SDG 6 can have implications on meeting the targets ofother SDGs in Canada in the following ways:
SDG 1: No Poverty – Poor access to clean water
can act in a vicious cycle with poverty. Impoverishedcommunities tend to have poor sanitation infrastructure due to lack of funds for water treatment and sanitation facilities. They also tend to be situated closer toindustrial activities and water stressed areas (polluted
water, outdated water treatment and sanitation). Poor
communities are therefore less able to adapt to climate change impacts on water or upgrade their treatment systems. Poverty and water interactions arechronic issues in many First Nations communities –400 of 618 First Nations communities had some kindof water problem between 2004 and 2014 according
to a CBC investigation.
SDG 3: Good health and well-being – Clean water for
drinking, cooking, and personal hygiene is crucial forgood health. Without robust source protection, sufficient treatment, and well-maintained lead-free infrastructure, Canadians could consume water contaminated with bio-toxins, pathogens, pharmaceuticals,
plastics, lead, and industrial chemicals. Water rations
or contamination of the supply can cause psychological stress. Lack of reliable clean water supplies is a
key factor affecting the health of people in many First
Nations communities and youth and pregnant women are especially vulnerable to contaminated water.
According to the Globe & Mail – 57,000 people in 101
First Nations communities are faced with high healthrisks from their drinking water supply.
SDG 4: Quality Education – Clean water is linked to education in two important ways. First, successful learning outcomes depend on proper nutrition and reliable
access to clean, lead-free water. Exposure to water-

28

borne toxins such as lead in childhood can cause lifelong learning and behavioral problems. Second, education is an important tool for promoting water quality
values, and equip current and future generations withthe proper skills and knowledge to maintain water infrastructure and conserve watersheds.
SDG 5: Gender equality – Target 5.2 articulates theneed to pay “special attention to the needs of womenand girls and those in vulnerable situations” – however gender is not discussed in the indicators under
SDG 6, nor is it considered in Canada’s Federal Sustainable Development Strategy. As a result, womenand girls could be at risk of being left behind. For example, pregnant and nursing women are at higher riskof health complications due to poor drinking water.
SDG 7: Affordable and Clean Energy – the bidirectional relationship between water and energy is described by Policy Horizons Canada as the “WaterEnergy Nexus”. Wise water management is is criticalto providing sustainable access to Canadian communities in the coming decades, and access to renewable energy is necessary to provide treatment
and sanitation services for water. A concrete exampleof the water-energy nexus is hydroelectricity, which
accounts for approximately 60% of the energy produced in Canada. Though it is considered to be a renewable energy source, hydro still has some negative
consequences. Hydroelectric dams by their very nature stop the flow of water, which can drastically alter
ecosystems (ie. by blocking fish migration pathways).
The trapping of organic sediments in dams also results in high emissions of methane, which is a stronger greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide.

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The large volumes of water required by other energy and resource sectors act as a double stressor- excessive
amounts of water are diverted from their natural sources and from other uses such as drinking, and this water
often contains accumulated pollutants and re-enters watersheds, posing health risks to humans and natural
ecosystems. For example, high quantities of water are used to extract fossil fuels through hydraulic fracturing,steam-assisted gravity drainage extraction of bitumen from the oil sands, and processing and upgrading theoil sands. The production of fossil fuels generates large volumes of contaminated water which are stored intailings dams or in the case of fracking, injected back into the ground. Open-pit mining of metals also makenearby waterways vulnerable to contamination with heavy metals.
SDG 14 and 15: Life on Land and Life Under Water - Development activities heavily impact flora and faunain freshwater ecosystems. Eutrophication- or excessive nutrients such as nitrates and phosphates from agricultural fertilizers infiltrating waterways- causes uncontrolled algal blooms in lakes and other wetlands. These
blooms can have negative implications for the human use of lakes; along with preventing the recreational useof these water bodies, many species of algae can be toxic to humans and animals, resulting in fisheries closures and possibly health risks if these water bodies are linked to drinking sources.

RECOMMENDATIONS•

Mobilize assets as soon as possible to permanently end all boil advisories inrural communities.

•

Explicitly designate the watershed as a unit of conservation, and consider aquatic
ecosystems that are connected to drinking water sources as warranting protection
under Canada’s Biodiversity Target 1.

•

Canada lacks a national water strategy that will be resilient to emerging threats suchas climate change and ageing infrastructure. Experts across the country recommend
the drafting of a Pan-Canadian framework on water that outlines rigorous standards
for water quality, access and waste treatment.

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CLEAN WATER AND SANITATIONCASE STUDY:
PARTNERSHIPS FORADDRESSING CHALLENGESIN THE GREAT LAKES BASIN
Background
Lake Erie, Lake Huron, Lake
Michigan, Lake Ontario, andLake Superior – collectively
known as the ‘Great Lakes’ ofNorth America – cover 244,106
km2 and contain 22,671 km3
of water, which equals 84% ofNorth America’s surface fresh
water and nearly 20% of theworld’s surface fresh water. The
Great Lakes drainage basin ishome to 30% of Canada’s population and 10% of America’s,
totaling around 32 million people. The basin supports closeto 25% of Canada’s agricultural
production, and billions of dollars’ worth of economic activity
such as manufacturing, shipping, fishing, mining and tourism occur in the region.

30

Finally, the lakes are the direct source of drinking water for 10 million Canadians. Despite
their iconic status, however, there is a myth ofabundance in the region that ought to be shattered; 1% of the water is renewed annually.
Every potential challenge that water sources
face- pollution, improper sewage treatment, invasive species, overfishing, heightened waterlevel fluctuations and effective transboundary
management- applies in the Great Lakes. In
spite of this, many water management successstories have arisen from the region. Networks
and partnerships of individuals, organizations,
universities, communities, and all levels ofgovernment in Canada and the United States
have been a critical tool for tackling the multiple challenges faced in the Great Lakes Basin.
The overall takeaway message from the casestudy in the Great Lakes is that cooperationand collaboration among diverse actors andstakeholders can yield positive results for sustainable development.

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Canada’s Great Lakes. Image was taken by the Expedition 31 crew from the International Space Station, June 14, 2012(https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=78617)

Challenges and Solutions
Invasive Species
Invasive species are flora and fauna that are inadvertently introduced to waterways that canalter the health of ecosystems and threaten thesurvival of native species, with potential negative impacts on local economy, recreation, andculture. Initiatives from the Great Lakes region
have demonstrated leadership mitigating thethreat of invasive species. Since the discovery
of invasive zebra mussels in Lake St Clair, there
have been concerted efforts to reduce theirspread by implementing ballast water management tests on foreign ships coming into the St.
Lawrence seaway. This was the first initiativeof its kind globally when it was implemented
in 1989. Another well-known invasive species
control success story is of the sea lamprey- aparasitic fish that is considered a pest in the
Great Lakes region. The lamprey- which typically causes mortality in its hosts to due excessive fluid loss and infection- threatened several
species of commercial and cultural importancesuch as lake trout, whitefish, and chub. A joint
US-Canada initiative- the Great Lakes Fishery
Commission- has successfully reduced thesea lamprey population by about 90% througha variety of physical and chemical techniques
recommended by researchers from both sidesof the border.

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CLEAN WATER AND SANITATION

Innovation
There are multiple examples of technological innovation for water management and treatmentin the Great Lakes. Trojan UV treatment, developed in London Ontario, is a small-scale water
disinfection system that poses a safer alternative to chemical water treatment. While water treatment can be a very energy-intensive process, innovative thinkers from the Great Lakes region (inparticular, the University of Guelph and the McMaster University) are investigating the feasibility ofharnessing energy from the sewage treatment process to render it energy-neutral. Dr. Adeel notesthat more effort could be allocated to scaling up innovations from the region to provide solutions
to anticipated challenges in water management.

Transboundary governance and collaboration
Experts note that the Great Lakes has seen several novel transboundary agreements for water
governance, largely owing to the fact that Canada and US share the largest de-militarized borderin the world upon which several of the Great Lakes span. The Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement was originally signed between Canada and the United States in 1972, with a mandate to“restore and maintain the chemical, physical, and biological integrity of the Waters of the Great
Lakes”. It has since been amended to articulate specific objectives pertaining to water quality
and ecosystem health, such as preventing nutrients causing algal and cyanobacterial blooms,
eliminating the contamination of groundwater, and developing climate models to better predictclimate change impacts in the Great Lakes region. The International Joint Commission (IJC) is the
key administrative body of the Act. It regulates shared water uses such as hydroelectric power
generation, drinking water, fishing, and commercial shipping, and also proposes solutions on
specific disputes over the use of these waters.

Great Lakes Drainage Basin Map from Natural Resources Canada
https://www.canada.ca/en/environment-climate-change/services/great-lakesprotection/maps/drainage-basin.html

32“Every potential
challenge thatwater sources
face- pollution,
improper sewage
treatment, invasive
species, overfishing,heightened waterlevel fluctuations
and effective
transboundary
managementapplies in the
Great Lakes.”

WHERE CANADA STANDS: A SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS SHADOW REPORTCLEAN WATER AND SANITATIONREFERENCES
Adeel, Zafar. Personal Interview. 15 May 2018.
Maas, Tony. Personal Interview. 26 May 2018.
Brandes, Oliver. Personal Interview. 7 May 2018.
Cruickshank, Ainslie, and Jeremy Nuttall. “Over 120 B.C. Schools Report Unsafe Levels of Lead in Drinking
Water.” Thestar.com, Toronto Star, 9 May 2018, Retrieved from: www.thestar.com/vancouver/2018/05/08/
over-120-bc-schools-report-unsafe-levels-of-lead-in-drinking-water.html
Policy Horizons Canada, “The Energy-Water Nexus”, 29 Sept. 2017. Retrieved from: www.horizons.gc.ca/en/
content/energy-water-nexus
Enhancing Collaboration on Renewable Energy Technologies. Natural Resources Canada, 2013, Enhancing
Collaboration on Renewable Energy Technologies, Retrieved from: www.nrcan.gc.ca/sites/www.nrcan.
gc.ca/files/www/pdf/publications/emmc/renewable_energy_e.pdf
Federation of Canadian Municipalities. “Clean Water.” , 6 June 2018, www.fcm.ca/home/issues/clean-water-.
htm
Kines, Lindsay. “B.C. Shellfish Industry Reeling from Oyster-Linked Illnesses.” Vancouver Sun, 3 May 2018,www.vancouversun.com/business/local-business/b-c-shellfish-industry-reeling-from-oyster-linkedillnesses
Levasseur, Joanne, and Jacques Marcoux. “ Bad Water: ‘Third World’ Conditions on First Nations in
Canada.” CBCnews, CBC/Radio Canada, 15 Oct. 2015, www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/bad-waterthird-world-conditions-on-first-nations-in-canada-1.3269500
McClearn, Matthew. Water Systems at Risk. The Globe and Mail, 12 Nov. 2017, www.theglobeandmail.com/
news/national/Indigenous-water/article31589755/
A National Assessment of Canada’s Freshwater. World Wildlife Fund Canada, 2017, A National Assessmentof Canada’s Freshwater, www.assets.wwf.ca/downloads/WWF_Watershed_Reports_Summit_FINAL_web.
pdf
Project Tests Way to Make Energy Neutral Wastewater Treatment Plant. CBC, 1 Feb. 2017, www.cbc.ca/
news/canada/kitchener-waterloo/wastewater-treatment-plants-ge-water-university-of-guelph-1.3961772.
Statistics Canada. “Human Activity and the Environment 2016 Freshwater in CanadaHuman Activity and theEnvironment 2016: Freshwater in Canada.” Human Activity and the Environment, Freshwater in Canada,
21 Mar. 2017, www.150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/16-201-x/16-201-x2017000-eng.htm

WHERE CANADA STANDS: A SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS SHADOW REPORT33

AFFORDABLE
AND CLEAN
ENERGY34

WHERE CANADA STANDS: A SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS SHADOW REPORTAFFORDABLE AND CLEAN ENERGYTARGETS
Ensure access to affordable, reliable,
sustainable and modern energy for all.

By 2030, ensure universal accessto affordable, reliable and modern
energy services

By 2030, increase substantially theshare of renewable energy in the
global energy mix

By 2030, double the global rate of
improvement in energy efficiency

By 2030, enhance international cooperation to facilitate access to clean
energy research and technology,
including renewable energy, energy
efficiency and advanced and cleaner
fossil-fuel technology, and promote
investment in energy infrastructure
and clean energy technology

By 2030, expand infrastructure andupgrade technology for supplying modern and sustainable energy
services for all in developing countries,
in particular least developed countries, small island developing States
and landlocked developing countries,
in accordance with their respective
programmes of support

There are 311 renewable energy
projects in various stages ofdevelopment in 194 Indigenous
communities across Canada. British
Columbia, with its own provincial
clean energy fund for Indigenous
communities has by far the mostdevelopments with approximately
153 at last count. Ontario, Canada’s
most populous province, falls a
distant second at 82” OR “British
Columbia is home to the largest
share of Canadian Indigenous clean
energy projects with 52%, followedby Ontario at 24% and Quebec at
10%. The remaining 14% is spread
between Canada’s 10 other Provinces
and Territories.

WHERE CANADA STANDS: A SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS SHADOW REPORT35

AFFORDABLE AND CLEAN ENERGY

EXPERT CONTRIBUTORS••••

Jatin Nathwani, Professor, University of Waterloo; Founder & Executive Director, Waterloo Institute for
Sustainable Energy; Ontario Research Chair in Public Policy for Sustainable Energy.
Julie Wright, General Manager, Waterloo Global Science Initiative.
Chris Henderson, Founder & President, Lumos Energy.
Kim Scott, CEO, AKI Resources; Co-Chair, Indigenous Clean Energy Advisory Council.

CROSS-CUTTING THEMES
Indigenous Communities
Throughout history, Indigenous territories have been exploited for resource extraction,leaving local communities and Indigenous peoples to bear the consequences of megaprojects that pollute soil and waterways, and displace local wildlife. To scale clean energy in a way that aligns with the framework of the SDGs, Indigenous Peoples must be
central partners in Canada’s energy policies and investments.

Gender
Women play a key role in accelerating not only Canada’s, but the world’s clean energy
future. Gender equality is closely tied to both access to, and the provision of, energy.
Women in entrepreneurship, finance, and policy have led the transition to date, and must
be empowered both domestically and abroad with comprehensive social and economic
resources to achieve the energy solutions we desire.

Climate Change
There is perhaps no issue more closely tied to climate change than energy. As a top
per-capita consumer of energy and the country possessing the world’s third-largest oil
reserves, Canada has a key role to play in exhibiting leadership on the transition awayfrom fossil fuels and towards a clean energy future.

Youth
Youth are and will be disproportionately affected by the outcomes of today’s energy
decisions. Inter-generational equity is of the utmost importance in the development ofboth energy policy and the reorganization of energy markets. Moreover, as Millennials
and Generation Z will be recipients of the largest transfer of wealth in human history,
they are well positioned to make significant investments to spur the growth of the clean
energy industry.

36

WHERE CANADA STANDS: A SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS SHADOW REPORTAFFORDABLE AND CLEAN ENERGYNATIONAL DATA
•

•
•
•

Canada provides some data through its SDG Data Hub to demonstrate its progress towards SDG 7
targets. Three indicators currently have accompanying data: 7.1.1, 7.2.1 and 7.3.1. The rest remain indevelopment as Statistics Canada searches for the best source of data.
For 7.1.1 (Proportion of population with access to electricity), consumption was measured at 92.5
gigajoules per capita in 2015, down from 97.5 in 2013;
7.2.1 (Renewable energy share in the total final energy consumption) showed 18.9% in 2015, a slight
drop from 2014’s figure of 19.1%;
And 7.3.1 (Energy intensity measured in terms of primary energy and GDP), measured in Terajoules per
million dollars of real GDP, also fell, totalling 5.37 in 2015 and 5.44 in 2014.

Introduction
Reliable and affordable energy is the founding pillarof modern industrialized civilization. It has enabledcountries across the world to transform their economies, lifting hundreds of millions out of poverty andenabling the largest wave of economic growth inhistory. However, this progress was made at the expense of globe’s environmental health, deteriorating
the world’s waterways, soil, biodiversity, and more.
To address climate change and sustainable development, it is critical that we scale up hydro, solar, wind,biomass, community energy planning, geothermal,
and transmission projects at an accelerated rate, withevery policy, investment and community-based tool
available.
This section will examine Canada’s progress, shortcomings, and areas for improvement in relation toSDG 7, Clean and Affordable Energy, with emphasis
on its intersections with climate change and Indigenous communities, from the perspective of energy
experts across the country. As it stands in relation toother nations across the globe, Canada has a ways
to go before it can call itself a leader in renewableenergy.

Getting to 100% Clean Energy
Getting Canada to 100% renewable energy is a multifaceted and intergenerational challenge. Becauseof the scale and differentiation of Canada’s energy
system and its multigenerational impacts, 2030 isa cursory timeline to make evaluations on the longterm transition ahead. In reference to this issue, Julie
Wright, General Manager of the Waterloo Global Science Initiative, notes:“It is more practical to look at a 60 or 70 year energy
transition… [yet,] from the benchmarking that has
been done to-date on Canada’s submissions, we’re
not moving fast enough to meet our 2030 goals, letalone our 2050 goals; and the fact that we’re not on
track to meet our 2050 goals is far more alarming thanthe 2030 issue because that means we’re going to beseriously lagging in terms of [a] full system transition”.
Canada has yet to effectively examine all aspects of anational energy ecosystem and how it needs to move
forward. Looking at the status of Canada’s transition,
2030 represents an important milestone, and “there
are initiatives that should be well underway at thispoint that we’re clearly moving backwards on, andin cases where we need absolute complete breakthroughs”, adds Wright.
Furthermore, with an abundance of energy supply
across Canada, relatively little has been done to advance the efficiency of the energy being generated.
For instance, Quebec and British Columbia have anabundance of renewable hydroelectricity, and otherprovinces such as Ontario have eclectic energy generation portfolios. However, these provinces remaintied to legacy infrastructure, including large-scalehydro dams and generation plants, which make it difficult to diversify as capital costs keep governments
tied to that existing infrastructure. Canada is doing
well province-to-province, relative to global progress.
However, as this comes largely from an advantage ofeasy access to these resources, Canada should bedoing much more to leverage its expertise and build
capacity, as it has the potential to demonstrate policy
leadership across not just the provinces but internationally as well.

WHERE CANADA STANDS: A SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS SHADOW REPORT37

AFFORDABLE AND CLEAN ENERGY“[The transition requires] a full spectrum policy suitethat incentivizes, supports and regulates a market
towards clean energy” says Kim Scott, Chief Executive Officer of AKI Resources and Member of Kitigan
Zibi First Nation . There remains a gap in the existing
regulations of energy markets in Canada; they have
yet to be in line with our climate agenda. A majority of policy leadership that is occurring, adds Scott,“is happening at a sub-national level”. British Columbia’s carbon tax, Ontario’s cap-and-trade programand its green energy and economy act, and policies
of a similar nature are examples that should be scaled
nationally. While the Pan-Canadian Framework on
Clean Growth & Climate Change mandates a carbon
price nationally, there are additional favorable initiatives, programs and policies that need to be scaled
for renewable energy technology and the distributed
production of power to grow so that homeowners,
mini grids and a fringe of microgrid solutions can beaccommodated, as not all emissions are covered bycarbon pricing. Chris Henderson, President of Lumos
Energy, adds:“If we try to think top-down, we’re going to fail. We
don’t need to perpetuate the whole structure we havein the current energy market with large, dominatingcompanies... we want to make sure that local leadership, because of distributed generation where people
are energy consumers and producers at the sametime, plays in that space”.
Moreover, the involvement of Indigenous communities is of critical importance in this context. To follow
an SDG-guided policy framework that is truly impactful, Indigenous involvement and consultation mustoccur at every level, particularly locally.

Indigenous Participation
Indigenous leadership is inexorable in the development and scaling of renewable energy initiatives
across Canada. Not only is the inclusion and empowerment of Indigenous communities critical to trueand equitable reconciliation, but it is also critical tobuilding the localized, decentralized, resilient systems of energy our future depends on. “We cannot
get to 100% renewable energy [in Canada] without
having local leadership and local participation in energy democracy, and that includes municipalities, rural communities and Indigenous communities” says
Chris Henderson. Currently, one-fifth of all Canada’s
electricity generation capacity is either owned, coowned or has a defined benefit agreement with fiscal
payments to Indigenous communities. Funding plansby First Nations, non-profits, advisory firms, and federal and provincial governments are integrating Indigenous Peoples into decision-making and assisting communities with both the financial and personal
capacity to have control over the projects in their territories.
“A review of the sources cited previously in 2015
resulted in the identification of approximately 311
renewable energy projects in various stages of development in 194 Indigenous communities acrossCanada… British Columbia, with its own provincial
clean energy fund for Indigenous communities has,
not surprisingly, by far the most developments withapproximately 153 at last count. Ontario, Canada’s
most populous province, falls a distant second at 82”(Lowan 2017).

“Our own Indigenous
communities...are electricity
constrained,”

In Indigenous Clean Energy’s report “Powering Reconciliation”, they identified the respective regional
shares of Indigenous-led projects across Canada.
British Columbia is home to the largest share of Canadian Indigenous clean energy projects with 52%,
followed by Ontario at 24% and Quebec at 10%. The
remaining 14% is spread between Canada’s 10 other
Provinces and Territories.

—Jatin Nathwani, founding
director of the Waterloo Institutefor Sustainable Energy

While there are a number of examples of developments across the country and policies working toaccelerate the participation and capacity of First Nations to adopt clean energy projects or standards intheir communities, a few are outlined here:

38

WHERE CANADA STANDS: A SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS SHADOW REPORTAFFORDABLE AND CLEAN ENERGY

Existing / Previous Examples
Vancouver Island - The Tla-o-qui-aht First Nation, located in Clayoquot Sound, near Tofino, followed theirtraditional principles of focusing on long-term sustainability over short-term profit by building two renewableenergy projects through partnership programs and athird on their own, including a 75% ownership of the
Canoe Creek run-of-river hydro project, emphasizing the potential for capacity building and Indigenous
self-determination. In a 2017 interview, Tla-o-qui-aht
Natural Resources Manager, Saya Masso, remarked:“This economic engine we’re creating in green energy
will help us get other projects, like language revitalization, totem pole restoration and cultural activities off
the ground”. The scaling of these projects is critical, as
they offer First Nations communities economic, socialand environmental benefits in unison.
Similarly, the Hupacasath First Nation
built a 6.5 MW run-ofthe-river hydro project at China Creek,
electrifying the equivalent of 6,000 homes
in Port Alberni.

er federal departments to develop a plan and timeline
for deploying innovative renewable energy and efficiency alternatives to diesel. It provides direct funding support to northern communities, governments,and organizations (eg. Northern Responsible Energy
Approach for Community Heating and Electricity program) to plan and construct renewable energy andenergy efficiency projects that reduce diesel use forelectricity and heating.

Just Transition
Just transition is a critical component of the movement to a low-carbon economy. Particularly in Canada, where the total estimated upstream jobs in theoil and gas sector have been estimated to be as highas 533,000. In 2016, at the 23rd Conference of Parties (COP 23), Canada announced that, in partnership with the United Kingdom, it would be leading thePowering Past Coal
Alliance to accelerate the phase-out ofcoal-fired electricity
generation across theworld. While many
major
consumersof coal remain nonmembers, as of April
2018, the allianceincludes over 60 national and sub-national actors, and has
had the support ofbusinesses and nonprofit organizations
alike. To address thevastemployment
displacement of coal
workers, the government announced a Just Transition taskforce in 2018,
which has been commissioned to provide recommendations on how to make the transition in a lowcost, equitable manner.

“We’re not moving fast enoughto meet our 2030 goals, let alone
our 2050 goals; and...that means
we’re going to be seriously
lagging in terms of [a] fullsystem transition.”

BC - First Nations
Clean Energy Business Fund (FNCEBF)
is a policy example
developed from theprovincial government
in coordination withFirst Nations communities, which aimed
to promote increased
Indigenous community participation in
the clean energy sector within their asserted traditional
territories and treaty areas. The First Nations Energy
Efficiency Building Policy Program is another policy
which, delivered from 2011 - 2016, supported energy
efficiency in First Nations housing through funding
innovation, policy support, and community training /awareness measures.

—Julie Wright,
General Manager of the Waterloo
Global Science Initiative

Canada - The Federal Sustainable Development
Strategy (FSDS) works with territorial governments,
Indigenous organizations and communities, and oth-

Nonetheless, a gap remains between the needs ofoil and gas workers and what is currently available
to support them. Just transition is deeply connected to Indigenous communities, says Henderson,“as 10,000 people were employed in Fort McMurrayFirst Nations’ companies, in the oil and gas sector.”
He adds that as of today, that number has fallen to

WHERE CANADA STANDS: A SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS SHADOW REPORT39

AFFORDABLE AND CLEAN ENERGY

4,000. Indigenous clean energy is part of the solution, but not necessarily the whole picture as it creates a majority of jobs in construction rather than operations. As the transition is undertaken, better jobs
in the industry will be in IT systems, smart grids andenergy efficiency monitoring, which is why including
energy and conservation, advanced energy systems
and green infrastructure in the consideration of varied
development paths is crucial. The clean energy sector cannot make up for all the displacement from thehydrocarbon sector, but it can play an important role.
A robust national transition program and multi-sector
retraining will be required for all the employment losses to be offset.
Furthermore, in resource-dependent economies like
Alberta, providing an economic floor for workers tomake the transition could be an important tool moving forward, says Julie Wright. Economic growth andsecure jobs go hand-in-hand with the development ofa clean energy economy; however, with Canada aiming to follow a carbon budget which expires in 2050,
investment in the transition of workers and their livelihoods must occur at a far higher rate. Existing energy
companies are looking to transition and diversify energy generation, and there is tremendous technicalcapacity in both Saskatchewan and Alberta to do so.
It is critical that both the public and private sector think
actively about where that capacity be redirected anda reasonable timeframe may be. “I think part of the
problem is that we’re looking in 4-year cycles insteadof looking at a full 30 years from now, looking moreat the 2050+ lens, because you really want to set up
those provinces for success in the transition”, adds
Wright. “[As it stands], Canada as a whole is not doing a good enough job of thinking about how embedded the service economy is in the oil and gas sector.”
Unskilled labour, specifically energy sector skill-sets
and the construction trades, represent a large portionof the service industry that is dependent on the Oil
and Gas sector. Canada needs to ensure that its rural
economies in particular are diversified sufficiently to
mitigate the impacts of the industry’s phase-out. Thistransition is closely tied to other SDGs beyond justgoal 7, due to the need for decent work (SDG 8) andthe persisting urban / rural divide across the country,
particularly pronounced in the prairie provinces (SDG
10); which “provides a fodder ground for very divisive dialogue.” The importance of inclusion cannot
be underscored. It is vital that more national-scope

40

solutions and innovations arise from rural economies,
and that we support and invest in rural economies fortheir priorities to be heard in order to build a just transition plan that fits into the SDG framework.

Gaps in Public Policy
Comprehensive and ambitious energy policy is criticalto the achievement of the SDGs. Canada has taken
existing steps towards developing stronger clean energy policies, but there still remains a significant gap
between what is needed and what has been pledged,
according to experts.

Source: “Estimated impacts of the Federal Carbon Pollution
Pricing System”, Government of Canada (2018).

Carbon Pricing
Carbon Pricing is a key policy in the path towards
implementing clean and affordable energy for all. By
pricing GHG emissions according to their true cost
and thereby internalizing the market externalities theygenerate, governments can correct market failures
and provide the clean energy sector with the competitive edge it deserves.1 Canada is part of the Carbon
Pricing Leadership Coalition, a group of national andsub-national actors working to advance carbon pricing across the world and interweave carbon trading
and taxation policies within the global economy. In its
recent report, “[The] Estimated Impacts of the Federal
Carbon Pollution Pricing System”, the government of
Canada also used a gender-based + (also known as
1
It should be noted that at the time of writing this report,
Ontario premier-designate Doug Ford has announced his intention
to end his province’s cap-and-trade policy. The government of
Canada will respond by implementing a provincial pricing system
and returning all revenues to Ontario.

WHERE CANADA STANDS: A SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS SHADOW REPORTAFFORDABLE AND CLEAN ENERGY“A majority ofpolicy leadershipintersectional) lens in its analysis, outlining diversity implications of carbon pricing. Findings on the outcomes of an output-based system in- that is occurring
cluded: lower risks of carbon leakage benefiting men more than women,
due to the gender composition of energy-intensive industries; low-in- is happening atcome households’ cost changes being contingent on facility-level decisions; and the impacts on low-income, as well as Indigenous commu- a sub-national
nities (particularly fly-in communities), being highly dependent on how
carbon pricing revenues are recycled, which is the choice of respective
level” —Chiefprovincial and territorial governments, whether that be through direct
rebates, incentives, public infrastructure or otherwise.
Executive Officer
Outside of government, Canada’s Ecofiscal Commission, a group of Canadian economists informing the public and private sectors on the ben- of AKI Resources
efits of carbon pricing, have outlined in numerous reports and research
papers why carbon pricing is critical to minimizing the cost of a clean and Member ofenergy transition. Their findings include recommendations such as increasing the stringency of prices over time to drive greater emissions reKitigan Zibi First
ductions, communicating the details and implications of carbon pricing
policies to everyday Canadians, and monitoring the isolated progress of
Nationthe policies over the medium and long term.
Source: “Estimated impacts of the Federal Carbon Pollution Pricing System”, Government of Canada (2018).

All experts interviewed agree Canada is not on track to reach the social
cost of carbon or methane for existing industry to be displaced in atime frame that aligns with our emissions reduction targets, as our priceschedules both nationally and provincially remain modest. Nonetheless,carbon pricing programs such as cap-and-trade or carbon taxation programs are critical to achieving the clean energy acceleration we require.
Namely, a steady and consistent rise in the price of carbon is of theutmost importance, as it sends a reliable signal to business interests on
how the value of GHGs will change over time. A combination of the policy apparatuses of the electricity market and the electrification of energy,
along with carbon pricing, will make the necessary economic impact toshift investment towards clean energy sources.
WHERE CANADA STANDS: A SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS SHADOW REPORT41

AFFORDABLE AND CLEAN ENERGY

Public Investments

Rural & Northern Support

Public investments are exceedingly important to give
signals to the private sector and provide leverage.
Despite this importance, Canada still has a large gap
between the supply and need for public investment.
Wright notes: “we’re not invested in innovation in ourelectricity systems. We’re invested in reliability and legacy infrastructure.” This is a significant mistake which
could be consequential for the scalability of Canada’s
clean energy economy. “Once [a large wave of] electriccars come on the road, you need the capacity”, sheadds. A legacy of policy decisions has been largely
responsible for poor allocations of investments. Nonetheless, there has been some progress. Reductions in
the use of diesel fuel in Canada’s North could likely
not be achieved without the Federal government’s fiscal stimulus accelerating the transition. “Other formsof public policy are even more important”, notes Henderson, “particularly at the Provincial and Territorial
level”. There are 155 small, medium and large-scaleclean energy projects with Indigenous participation
across the country because provinces like Ontario andBC paved the way for procurement mechanisms thatgive preferences to First Nations participation. Without discounting the importance of fiscal investments,
Henderson states that the right kind of economic andprocurement signals at the policy level are the number one priority. “Fiscal support without policy reform
would be ineffective.”

Rural and Northern communities in Canada face asymmetric barriers to clean energy development and affordability. “We’re not looking at energy through the rightkind of lens… we’ve come to a point where we’re soused to the reliability of it, especially in our more southern geographic, population-dense range of Canada”
says Wright. As a result, energy policy in Canada is almost entirely focused through an urban, southern lens.

Innovation & Leading Up
to 2030 and the 2050 Targets
In terms of global agreements and Canada’s pledges
on the international stage, Canada is not currently
doing enough to achieve its targets, says Henderson. Canada has major pressure points including
significant oil and gas emissions and complementing growth in the heavy oil sector that is obstructing progress. It is essential that Canada countersthat growth while making improvements towards ourclean energy aspirations. In renewable energy, we
have come far, but the present opportunities lie in theelectrification of transportation, heating and cooling.
The key question is ‘how will Canada work harder to
use these developing sources of clean electricity toreplace existing oil and gas-based infrastructure forheating and transport?’

42

Furthermore, Canada has made limited progress ininterpreting how its energy distribution intersects
with housing stock, housing affordability and a hostof other issues. “We don’t think about our 279 remotecommunities that completely rely on diesel, and we’re
not thinking about the entire package, from generation of energy to management of energy through tothe efficiency and conservation of energy”, adds
Wright. There remain significant issues surrounding
evaluating the impacts of diesel generator reliancein the North. “Off-grid access is a global problem, in
terms of the third of humanity that has no electricity access or reasonable quality of energy services.
This is mainly a problem of Sub-Saharan Africa, Latin
America somewhat, and parts of Asia; but we havethat same problem in a slightly different disguisewithin our own Indigenous communities, they areelectricity constrained,” notes Jatin Nathwani, founding director of the Waterloo Institute for Sustainable
Energy. The issue is an exhibition of energy poverty inNorthern communities and the load restrictions they
face. The full cost of diesel is still unaccounted for. “Ifyou’re a constrained community with respect to energy services (constrained meaning the population of
the community is growing), your ability to build businesses and grow economic opportunity is somewhat
limited without energy access,” Nathwani adds. The
market cost is available, but doesn’t demonstrate thescale of diesel contamination in the North when evaluating energy alternatives, or the opportunity cost of
better energy alternatives. The Federal Governmentof Canada has yet to provide an inventory of sites
with reliable information on diesel contamination,
without which it is virtually impossible to determine
a social cost. In terms of the scale of generating newelectricity sources for communities that are non-diesel, which can be in the hundreds of millions, evaluating the perspective of legacy infrastructure is critical.
From a policy perspective, these decisions must be
made in a holistic way.

WHERE CANADA STANDS: A SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS SHADOW REPORTAFFORDABLE AND CLEAN ENERGY

Source: National Energy Board (2016).

Over 250 communities in the North rely on diesel forheat and power generation. For example, in a remotecommunity in Canada’s North, there would be exorbitant costs to set up a micro grid. Those types of ruralprojects must be subsidized to get communities off ofdiesel in a way that’s appropriate for the context. Expertise needs to be shipped in, if there is limited capacity locally, and all the relevant feasibility and prefeasibility costing measures need to be recognizedand planned for. In the 2016 Federal budget, the government made a $10.7 million commitment over two
years to reduce Northern community dependency on
diesel fuels. However, Henderson remarks that thiswould not have likely been possible without the important push from Indigenous Clean Energy, which isa key partner in building capacity for Indigenous communities across Canada to reach renewable energy
objectives, working with 5-10 Northern communities
a day on different projects. While it is an important issue, Henderson notes, “Diesel emissions are 0.3% of
Canadian emissions”, and emphasizes that the issue
is more a livelihood and health issue than a significant
contributor to climate change.

“We cannot get to 100%
renewable energy [inCanada] without having
local leadership and local
participation in energy
democracy.”—Chris Henderson,
President of Lumos
Energy

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AFFORDABLE AND CLEAN ENERGY

Decentralization

Moving Indigenous and rural communities to a clean combination of either
bio-energy, hydro, solar, wind and/or geothermal energy, is the basis ofrebooting their energy systems so that there are no constraints to capacity,
the transportation expenses associated with diesel fuel are eliminated, andenergy systems are easier to maintain and manage.

Source: “Wind, solar energy real options for Canada’s remote
Arctic communities”, CBC (2016).

For remote communities, “with most of the projects
that come online, they are subsistent projects (theoutcome of diesel generator approaches)... so it’sconstantly band-aiding issues over decades.” states
Wright. A change in the energy paradigm by diversifying energy sources is a step in the right direction
towards self-sufficiency and resiliency. Nonetheless,completely decarbonizing all Northern rural communities immediately, for the sake of resiliency, is notnecessarily the optimal option as many need to havesome sort of backup generation capacity. However,this provides opportunities to create the conditions
for growth in those communities. For example, Wrightadds that recognizing and investing in the capacity
within those communities to manage projects is key.
For example, ensuring there is support over successive council generations is important to the continuityof productive project management.
Distributed energy generation remains a small factor in
the role of clean energy generation across Canada, weshould be cautious to overplay distributed generation,says Henderson. He notes that it will likely take at least
another 10 years before it makes a more significant
impact on the domestic market. Baseload generationis still critically important and Indigenous communities
are playing an even larger role than municipalities, as
the number of Indigenous coalitions for project developments vastly outnumbers that of municipalities in
the clean energy sector. Larger scale renewables areimportant currently and will be into the future, and distributed generation capacity will have a role to play inthe future as well, however it is part of the transition
process, Henderson emphasizes. In the meantime,
investments in smart and local grids allow distributed
generation to be more pertinent. As it stands, Canada simply does not have the existing infrastructure inthese sectors to support localized electric vehicles.
Investments in smart grids take time, and when appropriately scaled, they will be important; but so will
large-scale renewable baseload electricity.

44

WHERE CANADA STANDS: A SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS SHADOW REPORTAFFORDABLE AND CLEAN ENERGYAFFORDABLE & RENEWABLE
ENERGY AND AGENDA 2030
It is essential to have a holistic view of the ways inwhich clean energy intersects with the SDGs. Thereis a fundamental difference in the way in which Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities intersectwith the clean energy economy. “Because Indigenous
communities are place-based and dealing with traditional territory, other issues within the SDG framework
are equally as important to them as having an impact
on clean energy and climate,” says Henderson. This
includes Climate Action (Goal 13), because they aredisproportionately affected by its effects being oncoastal and vulnerable regions; includes the issues ofLife Below Water (Goal 14) and Life on Land (Goal15) as they are essential to their traditional livelihoods;
and it includes Partnerships for the Goals (Goal 17),

without which the SDGs could not be successful. All
the clean energy projects done with Indigenous involvement include partnerships, whether that is witha public or private company. If the prime impact islooking at affordable and clean energy, then there isa secondary impact which includes Climate Action;
Innovation, Industry and infrastructure; Sustainable
Cities and Communities; as well as Partnerships.
Furthermore, there is a tertiary impact, which gets tosome of the broader socio-economic conditions that
get realized after projects are completed, such as the
reduction of poverty, good health and wellbeing, decent work and economic growth, and so on, notes
Henderson.

RECOMMENDATIONS•

Accelerate the national carbon pricing schedule beyond its current levy of $50/tonne
by 2022. The social cost of carbon has been estimated to be as high as $220/tonne.
While the government of Canada’s own 2016 estimates placed the central cost at $40.7
and its corresponding 95th percentile estimate at $167 (scaling up to $74.8 and $319.8,
respectively, by 2050, in C$ 2012), a price schedule that low cannot move market supply
and demand at the speed needed to reach Canada’s 2030 and 2050 targets.

•Continue to grow Canada’s clean energy sector by increasing public investments
and subsidies, which not only provide early-stage capital, but also de-risk projects toleverage billions more in private sector financing.

•

Commit to clean energy partnerships that center Indigenous communities and have them
control local projects, to spur numerous economic benefits for their local communities
and provide long-term energy and economic resiliency.

•

Continue to scale just transition initiatives beyond the coal sector, to oil and gas workers,
in order to accelerate the repurposing of skills towards clean energy projects.

WHERE CANADA STANDS: A SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS SHADOW REPORT45

AFFORDABLE AND CLEAN ENERGYCASE STUDY:DOKIS FIRST NATIONOKIKENDAWT HYDRO PROJECT

Source: Indigenous and Northern Affairs, Success stories: Economic development, Dokis First Nation Okikendawt
Project

Across Canada, First Nations have grown the number of clean energy projects drastically, providing energy independence, revenues, jobs and resiliency to their communities. The Dokis First
Nation, located on the boundaries separating the Districts of Parry Sound, Sudbury and Nipissing in Ontario, is a successful example. In June 2015, the Dokis completed the Okikendawt
Project, a hydroelectric facility that served to replace coal-fired electricity across the provinceof Ontario. The 10-megawatt dam produces enough power equal to the need of roughly 3,000
homes, and collects up to $4 million in revenue per year for Dokis leadership to allocate towards
community infrastructure, social programs, and environmental conservation.
Starting in 2007, the previous Dokis chief, Denise Restoule, took a community-centric approachin consulting with members about the proposal. This eventually led to a significant milestone forthe Dokis, when in 2013 they voted against sections of the Indian Act dealing with land, to ratify
their own land code and reclaim independence in the management of their resources. This wasfollowed by a 97% vote in favour of the Okikendawt dam.

46

WHERE CANADA STANDS: A SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS SHADOW REPORTAFFORDABLE AND CLEAN ENERGY

By building this project, withthe support of Chris Henderson
and Indigenous Clean Energy
Advisors, the Dokis Nation wasable to secure a long-term asset
for their community, providing
years worth of benefits to come.
Throughout this project theyalso protected and rebuilt habitats for local wildlife and spawning beds for fish; employed 35
people from their community,
including the two stationary engineers; and gathered income
from the project to reinvest in
their community infrastructure,
local education and economic development. “Project design and partnerships have to
be done with that intention up
front”, notes Henderson. Thisholistic approach serves as amodel for Indigenous communities across Canada, with accessto energy on their lands, to takeadvantage of their resources ina responsible way.

The Dokis, partnering with Quebec firm Hydromega, own 40% of the project. With the province of Ontario committing to buy electricity
from the facility until 2055, the outlook for the
Nation’s economic growth looks extremely positive. Projects like these are excellent examplesof the interlinkages between SDGs. Indigenous
clean energy projects across Canada highlightthe traditional roles and knowledge Indigenous
peoples possess as historic stewards of theland. Offering an alternative to the norm of fossil fuel extraction projects, which have been thecenterpiece of the Canadian economy in thepast, the Dokis’ Okikendawt project provides
a pathway towards reconciliation and decolonization in unison with climate objectives. Trueand equitable reconciliation requires that Indigenous communities become self-governed andself-reliant, and are not pressured or coerced
by settler governments to pursue particularpathways of development.
For First Nations leaders, projects like thesegrant them independence from reliance on thegovernment of Canada. Fair relationships in the
distribution of ownership goes far in ensuringthat First Nations are set up well, especially after taking on large sums of debt to start projects(which is often the case). Furthermore, ownership also provides them with leverage to ensurethat both training and immediate employment
are given to the local nation’s members, as in
the Dokis Nation’s case.
As governments play a key role in incentivizing the participation of Indigenous communities in these projects, provincial governments
and their Federal counterpart should step up to
their reconciliation commitments to Indigenous
peoples by continuing to subsidize community
ownership in clean energy projects. By doing
so, they not only accelerate the transition towards a clean energy future, but also reducepoverty and inequality, spur economic growth,and touch on a host of additional benefits encompassed by the SDGs.

WHERE CANADA STANDS: A SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS SHADOW REPORT47

AFFORDABLE AND CLEAN ENERGYREFERENCES“Clean Energy Opportunities for 11 First Nations’ Communities.” BC Government News, 23 Mar. 2013, news.
gov.bc.ca/stories/clean-energy-opportunities-for-11-first-nations-communities.
“Billions of Dollars in Limbo as Doug Ford Nixes Cap and Trade.” The Globe and Mail, 24 June 2018, www.
theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-billions-of-dollars-in-limbo-as-doug-ford-nixes-cap-and-trade/.
“Budget 2016 – Restricting the Relief of Excise Tax on Diesel Fuel and Aviation Fuel.” Canada.ca, 3 June
2016, www.canada.ca/en/revenue-agency/services/forms-publications/publications/etsl77/budget-2016restricting-relief-excise-tax-on-diesel-fuel-aviation-fuel.html.
Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, 2018, Frequently Used Statistics.
“Cap and Trade.” Ontario.ca, 2 June 2016, www.ontario.ca/page/cap-and-trade.
“Clearing the Air: How Carbon Pricing Helps Canada Fight Climate Change.” Canada’s Ecofiscal
Commission, ecofiscal.ca/reports/clearing-air-carbon-pricing-helps-canada-fight-climate-change/.
“Coal Phase-out: the Powering Past Coal Alliance.” Canada.ca, 23 Apr. 2018, www.canada.ca/en/services/
environment/weather/climatechange/canada-international-action/coal-phase-out.html.
“CPLC Partners.” Carbon Pricing Leadership, www.carbonpricingleadership.org/partners/.
“Estimated Impacts of the Federal Carbon Pollution Pricing System.” Canada.ca, 30 Apr. 2018, www.canada.
ca/en/services/environment/weather/climatechange/climate-action/pricing-carbon-pollution/estimatedimpacts-federal-system.html.
Farooqi, Hina. “Energizing the Nation to Nation Relationship: The Rise of Indigenous Participation in the
Energy Industry.” York University: Osgoode Law School, 19 Feb. 2018, ejsclinic.info.yorku.ca/2018/02/
Indigenous-participation-in-energy-industry/.
“First Nations Energy Efficiency Building Policy Program.” BC Government, www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/
industry/electricity-alternative-energy/community-energy-systems/first-nation-energy-efficiency-program.
Gilpin, Emilee. “Old Pipes for New Clean Energy Projects, This Nation Is Leading in Renewable
Development.” National Observer, 17 May 2018, www.nationalobserver.com/2018/05/15/old-pipes-newclean-energy-projects-nation-leading-renewable-development.
Ireland, Nicole. “First Nations See Economic Future in Canada’s Growing Clean Energy Industry.” CBC, 5
Nov. 2016, www.cbc.ca/news/Indigenous/first-nations-pursue-canada-clean-energy-economy-1.3829405.
Krackle, Joey. “Dokis Okikendawt Project Brings Green Energy to Ontario Consumers.” Anishinabek News,
3 Dec. 2015, anishinabeknews.ca/2015/12/03/dokis-okikendawt-project-brings-green-energy-to-ontarioconsumers/.
Lowan-Trudeau, G. (2017). Indigenous Environmental Education: The Case of Renewable Energy Projects.
Educational Studies, 53(6), 601-613. doi:10.1080/00131946.2017.1369084
Ministry of Environment. “British Columbia’s Carbon Tax.” Province of British Columbia, 19 Apr. 2018, www2.
gov.bc.ca/gov/content/environment/climate-change/planning-and-action/carbon-tax.
“Law Document English View.” Ontario.ca, 14 Apr. 2015, www.ontario.ca/laws/statute/S09012.

48

WHERE CANADA STANDS: A SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS SHADOW REPORTAFFORDABLE AND CLEAN ENERGY“Pricing Carbon Pollution.” Canada.ca, 14 Dec. 2016, www.canada.ca/en/services/environment/weather/climatechange/pan-canadian-framework/pricing-carbon-pollution1.html.
Statistics Canada. “Goal 7 - Affordable and Clean Energy.” Government of Canada, Statistics Canada, 6June 2018, www144.statcan.gc.ca/sdg-odd/goal-objectif07-eng.htm.
“Task Force: Just Transition for Canadian Coal Power Workers and Communities.” Canada.ca, 25 Apr. 2018,www.canada.ca/en/environment-climate-change/services/climate-change/task-force-just-transition.html.
“Technical Paper: Federal Carbon Pricing Backstop.” Canada.ca, 5 Jan. 2018, www.canada.ca/en/services/
environment/weather/climatechange/technical-paper-federal-carbon-pricing-backstop.html.
“Technical Update to Environment and Climate Change Canada’s Social Cost of Greenhouse Gas
Estimates.” Environment and Climate Change Canada, Mar. 2016, www.ec.gc.ca/cc/default.asp?lang.
Than, Ker. “Estimated Social Cost of Climate Change Not Accurate, Stanford Scientists Say.” Stanford
University, 9 Apr. 2016, news.stanford.edu/2015/01/12/emissions-social-costs-011215/.
Zerehi, Sima Sahar. “Wind, Solar Energy Real Options for Canada’s Remote Arctic Communities | CBC
News.” CBC News, CBC/Radio Canada, 19 Sept. 2016, www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/wind-solarenergy-arctic-1.3766381.

WHERE CANADA STANDS: A SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS SHADOW REPORT49

SUSTAINABLE
CITIES ANDCOMMUNITIES50WHERE CANADA STANDS: A SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS SHADOW REPORTSUSTAINABLE CITIES AND COMMUNITIESTARGETS
Make cities and human settlements inclusive,
safe, resilient and sustainable.

By 2030, ensure access for all toadequate, safe and affordable housing
and basic services and upgrade slums

By 2030, significantly reduce thenumber of deaths and the numberof people affected and substantiallydecrease the direct economic losses
relative to global gross domestic
product caused by disasters, including water-related disasters, with afocus on protecting the poor andpeople in vulnerable situations

By 2030, provide access to safe, affordable, accessible and sustainabletransport systems for all, improving
road safety, notably by expanding
public transport, with special attention
to the needs of those in vulnerable
situations, women, children, persons
with disabilities and older persons

By 2030, reduce the adverse percapita environmental impact of cities,
including by paying special attention
to air quality and municipal and otherwaste management

By 2030, enhance inclusive and sustainable urbanization and capacity forparticipatory, integrated and sustainable human settlement planning andmanagement in all countries

By 2030, provide universal access tosafe, inclusive and accessible, green
and public spaces, in particular for
women and children, older persons
and persons with disabilities

Strengthen efforts to protect andsafeguard the world’s cultural andnatural heritage

Support positive economic, socialand environmental links between
urban, peri-urban and rural areas bystrengthening national and regional
development planning

WHERE CANADA STANDS: A SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS SHADOW REPORT51

SUSTAINABLE CITIES AND COMMUNITIESBy 2020, substantially increase thenumber of cities and human settlements adopting and implementing
integrated policies and plans towards inclusion, resource efficiency,
mitigation and adaptation to climatechange, resilience to disasters, anddevelop and implement, in line with
the Sendai Framework for Disaster
Risk Reduction 2015-2030, holistic
disaster risk management at all levels

Support least developed countries,
including through financial and technical assistance, in building sustainable and resilient buildings utilizing
local materials

EXPERT CONTRIBUTORS
•

•
•
•
•

Christopher Bell, a Masters candidate in Urban Planning at the University of Waterloo, Summer
Associate for Infrastructure Ontario, and Regional Focal Facilitator for the United Nations Major Group
for Children and Youth.
Dr. Penelope Gurstein, Urban Planning Professor and Director of the University of British Columbia’s
School of Community and Regional Planning.
Dr. Meg Holden, Associate Professor of Urban Studies and Geography at Simon Fraser University.
Rosanna McGregor, President of the Aboriginal Housing Management Association (AHMA) and
Executive Director for the Cariboo Friendship Society in Williams Lake, British Columbia.
Andrea Reimer, Vancouver City Councillor.

In 2016, 83.2% of the population lives inside
cities, while only 16.8% of the population
lives outside of the urban sector.
From 2006 to 2016, the urban Aboriginal
population increased by 59.7%

52

WHERE CANADA STANDS: A SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS SHADOW REPORTSUSTAINABLE CITIES AND COMMUNITIESCROSS-CUTTING THEMES
Indigenous Communities
More half of Aboriginal people live off reserves and in urban areas. However, their voice
and participation in developing a sustainable city are still considered an afterthought.
Basic health and social services do not always adapt to cultural sensitivities and relevancy due to possible retraumatization.

Gender
The lack of safe and adequate public transportation that connects rural and remote areas
to urban areas has resulted in people, particularly women, to resort to hitchhiking. Since
the 1970s, there have been 18 reported cases of missing or murdered women to the British Columbia’s Royal Canadian Mounted Police with 10 of those cases were identified as
Aboriginal women. However, several NGOs and Indigenous groups have referenced approximately 40 women having disappeared or murdered. As a result, Canada launched an
independent National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women.

Climate Change
The rise in sea levels and forest fires have threatened and disturbed the financial andenvironmental sustainability of many communities. Furthermore, infrastructures are notprepared to accommodate for natural disasters.

Youth
Young people are making sustainable transportation choices by walking or cycling, however, they are disproportionately in traffic-related collisions. Not only are the at most riskof collision with a motor vehicle, but they have the highest portion injury or fatality rates.

NATIONAL DATA
•
•
•
•
•

From 2006 to 2016, Canada’s population has grown by 11.2% from 31,612,897 to 35,151,728.
In 2016, 83.2% of the population lives inside cities, while only 16.8% of the population lives outsideof the urban sector.
Aboriginal people account for for 4.9% of the total population with 1,673,785 Aboriginal people
in Canada.
From 2006 to 2016, the urban Aboriginal population increased by 59.7%.
44.2% of First Nations people ARE living off reserves.

WHERE CANADA STANDS: A SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS SHADOW REPORT53

SUSTAINABLE CITIES AND COMMUNITIESIntroduction
Sustainable Development Goal 11:
Sustainable Cities and Communities aims to make cities safe, inclusive, resilient, and sustainable forthe ever-growing number of urban
dwellers through bettering urban
planning practices. Rapid urbanization results in high concentrationsof economic resources, making cities an attractive and desirable area
for settlement for those hoping or
needing to access these resources.
Subsequently, new immigrants and young rural residents moving to urban areas in pursuit of educationaland job opportunities put pressure on cities and communities to continually accommodate its diverse andgrowing population. At the same time, urban growth
pushes vulnerable people out of the city due to development projects that increase the value of properties.
The lack of access to affordable housing and an adequate public transportation system become barriersfor vulnerable groups to continue living in and aroundthe urban core. Urban sectors must provide basic
services and adequate infrastructure that promotes asafe, inclusive and resilient community.
For this chapter, five experts from diverse backgrounds were interviewed to comment on Canada’s
progress towards Sustainable Development Goal 11,
keeping the principal of ‘No One Left Behind’ in mind.
The experts are comprised of civil society leaders,city council government representatives, and university professors who are familiar with both grassroots
advocacy initiatives and government-level policies
for sustainable cities and communities. Recognizing that “vulnerable groups” is a broad category,
this report will focus on the disadvantages faced byyouths, Indigenous Peoples, and low-income urban
dwellers. Sustainability initiatives at a federal, subnational and municipal level were reviewed, withparticular focus on the provincial progress of British
Columbia and the municipal initiatives of Vancouver.
54

Three themes were identified as encompassing thespirit of the goal and its interconnectedness withthe other Sustainable Development Goals: housing,transportation, and natural disasters.

Affordable Housing
Major societal and economic changes in Canada resulted in a steady decline of young adults living inrural areas. Among the G7 countries, Canada has thethird lowest portion of the population living in rural areas. According to Dr. Penelope Gurstein, Urban Planning Professor and Director of the University of British Columbia’s School of Community and Regional
Planning, northern and southern communities havedisproportionate economic development opportunities. Unlike the dense metropolitan communities
in the south, northern communities are scattered inremote areas and therefore have limited opportunities for economic development. Drawn by those opportunities and resources, rural migration and new
immigrants settling in urban centres has resulted
in an upswing in housing prices as land becomesscarce. There is therefore a need to establish a range
of affordable housing, beyond homeownership, bystrengthening rental agreement and tenant tenure
protection policies.

Source: Statistics Canada, “Census of population 1851 to2011,” Canada Goes Urban, 2015.

WHERE CANADA STANDS: A SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS SHADOW REPORTSUSTAINABLE CITIES AND COMMUNITIESIn particular, young adults between the ages of 15 to
29 have been migrating from rural dwellings into urban areas - a figure projected to increase over the
coming years. In 2011, only 17% of the young adults
lived in rural areas. Chris Bell, a Masters candidate in
Urban Planning at the University of Waterloo, Summer Associate for Infrastructure Ontario, and Regional Focal Facilitator for the United Nations Major
Group for Children and Youth, notes that cities andcommunities need to rethink the traditional North
American cultural construct of residential landscapesand single family dwellings. Single family dwellings
are not only unaffordable, but are not energy efficient in a high density population from an environmental standpoint. Instead, he believes that communities should shift the focus of residential land use
toward protecting farmlands that surround the city,
and adapt to a more densified community by accept-

Integrated and Sustainable Housing
For an urban sector to be inclusive and for urbanization to be sustainable, vulnerable and minority
groups should not be neglected, but rather explicitly
considered in urban planning. Even though Canada
does not have slums in the traditional sense, there
is a low-income population in least-desirable neighbourhoods. Addressing this social issue goes beyond
affordable housing and must incorporate accommodative housing that address various social needs.
Integrated housing blends supportive affordable
housing units in developments, applying this strategy prevents housing developments from turning into
ghettos. This model ensures that subsidized housing
is economically sustainable as well as providing affordable housing alongside rentals at market value.
The federal government is continually partnering with“We need to update relevant building codes andregulation policies to integrate and reflect the different
cultures within the urban core.”—Andrea Reimer, Vancouver City Councillor
ing an alternative compact way of living. Living in amore dense and compact lifestyle provides affordable housing and is more apt to supply appropriate
homes for young people, Indigenous Peoples, andother vulnerable groups since they can offer better
access to services and more supportive community
structures. Some communities are beginning to takesteps to incorporate a youth perspective into their affordable housing planning by establishing their own
youth council and advisory boards. Bell, however,had difficulty seeing the result of these youth initiatives because there has not been a lot of evidence on
how youth consultation and engagement will result inchanges or what kind of recommendations will show
follow through.
Nonetheless, the renewed interest in youth is a stepping stone to incorporating youth voices in addressing problems across all levels of government.

the Canadian Housing Revenue Association and Aboriginal Housing Management Association (AHMA)
to provide support for this model, and to create andshare new ideas for housing initiatives.
Currently, British Columbia is one of the provinces
that is still investing in and interested in providing social housing, with providers keen on recognizing its
advantages. Rosanna McGregor, President of AHMA
and Executive Director for the Cariboo Friendship Society in Williams Lake, British Columbia, and AHMA
have an exemplary transactional relationship between the provincial government and with non-profit
organizations spearheading project initiatives that
addresses the housing crisis for Aboriginal people,
while considering the social and cultural needs in urban planning and in the engineering of housing structures. The Provincial Government of British Columbia
recently announced plans for a new affordable rental
housing in the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver, us-

WHERE CANADA STANDS: A SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS SHADOW REPORT55

SUSTAINABLE CITIES AND COMMUNITIES

ing an integrated housing model that reserves units
to be rented at a welfare rate and the remaining units
at market cost. Creating alternative housing solutions
with the provincial government shows solid partnership with civil society organizations who are on the
ground with the people, understanding their needs,
recommending and lobbying for programs that are
proven to work.

Creating culturally safe spaces
through urban planning and housing development allows Aboriginal
people, and also different culturalgroups, to find and feel a sense ofcommunity within the city. Having
experienced the residential school
system, elderly Aboriginal people
often face re-traumatization if they
are put back in environments thatthey consider similar to their residential school experiences such as
hospitals or nursing homes.

56

Still, McGregor found that a lot of elderly Aboriginal
people would move to Kelowna, BC for the Aboriginal nursing home because of its culturally appropriate
and safe environment. Employing the model of thenursing home in Kelowna provides a good foundation
in how to implement measures and considerations
to provide culturally safe and sensitive accommodative housing. Additionally, Vancouver City Councillor, Andrea Reimer, updated relevant building codes
and regulation policies to integrate and reflect thedifferent cultures within the urban core. She speaks
to encounters with communities residing in small,inadequate buildings, specifically a South Asian immigrant community from the Punjab region of India.
She arranged town meetings, yet not many of themshowed up. To meet in the middle, she instructed herengineers to meet with the community at the temple, where they were able to engage with the South
Asians and receive feedback on changes to the building codes that would suit their different cultural needs
and factor in their different experiences in how theyutilize space. This example demonstrates the need toconsider cultural sensitivity in all levels of urban planning, especially when providing social services.

WHERE CANADA STANDS: A SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS SHADOW REPORTSUSTAINABLE CITIES AND COMMUNITIESTransportation
In addition to the lack of affordable housing, Bell notes
young people are making sustainable transportation
choices. However, the group is still disproportionately
impacted by traffic-related fatalities. Although Statistics Canada has not been able to provide a nationwide report on these statistics, local data from someof Canada’s largest municipalities confirms the assertion. Nationally, there is an fatality rate of 8.8 per
100,000 population in all modes of transportation.
For comparison, the transportation fatality rate in the
Netherlands is 4.8. Within Canadian urban centres,
41.1% of males and females have reported to havecycled in the past 12 months. There is a large disparity in traffic-related fatality rates between motor
vehicle occupants, cyclist and pedestrians. In British
Columbia, per 100 million person-trips, the rate fordrivers and passengers injuries is 713 and 9.6 for fatalities; pedestrians have a 392 injury rate and 14.7
rate for fatalities; bicyclist have a 1398 injury rate and13.8 rate for fatalities. In Vancouver, young adults, between the ages of 16-25, are more likely to be being
involved in a cycling collision. In Vancouver, young
adults accounted for 4% of all daily bicycle trips, yetaccounted for 24% of all reported cycling collisions.
Young adults also make up the highest proportionof injuries and fatalities from cycling, as well as being the highest risk for experiencing the most severe
injuries or fatalities as a result of a collision with amotor vehicle. As a result, the current traffic design
has negatively impacted youths from choosing moresustainable methods of transportation.
Walking and cycling are sustainable alternatives tomotor vehicles as it reduces greenhouse gas emissions but also promotes an active and healthy lifestyle. Dr. Gurstein suggests adopting the European
model that uses fewer resources by designing cities
to be more walkable and transit-oriented. Bell recommends that local government implement better policies for the design of traffic systems to include more
protected bicycle lanes, which in turn will encourage
people to use sustainable forms of transportation. In
contrast, European countries have lower bicycle andpedestrian injury and fatality rates because their infrastructures are conducive to these alternate formsof transportation. While in Canada and the UnitedStates cyclists are placed on roads, often besidemoving or parked motor vehicles.

Source: City of Vancouver, “Portion of Reported Motor Vehicle- Bicycle Collisions and Bicycle Trips by Age,” Cycling Safety
Study: Final Report, Urban Systems, 2018

“In British Columbia, per
100 million person-trips,
injury rates for: drivers
and passengers is 713;
for pedestrians is 392;
and for bicyclists is 1398.”“In Vancouver, young
adults account for 4%of all daily bicycle trips,
yet 24% of all reported
cycling collisions.”

WHERE CANADA STANDS: A SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS SHADOW REPORT57

SUSTAINABLE CITIES AND COMMUNITIESRural-Urban Transportation

In rural and remote communities,
inadequate transportation limits
the ability for vulnerable people toaccess the resources they need —whether it be their place of work,social or health services. With affordable housing as an issue, vulnerable groups are unable to relocate to the urban core to accesshealth and social needs. Therefore,
adequate and safe public transportation is vital to connecting remotecommunities to the larger cities.
According to Dr. Gurstein, the lackof proper, safe and accessible public transportation that connects remote areas to larger cities has become a life and death situation.

58

Source: The Guardian, ”Highway of Tears,” The Guardian, 2017.

For example, Highway 16 in British Columbia, whichcuts through the northern part of the province andwinds through First Nation reserves, is known as the“Highway of Tears” because of the many womenmostly Indigenous - who have disappeared or beenfound murdered along the route. Due to poverty andinadequate access to public transportation, people
who want to go into the city resort to hitchhiking.
Aboriginal women disproportionately represent the
number of women reported as missing or murderedalong the road. Since the 1970s, British Columbia’sRoyal Canadian Mounted Police listed the disappearance or murder of 18 women from the Highway ofTears; 10 of the 18 identified as Indigenous women.
However, Human Rights Watch states that several
Indigenous groups have come forward referencing
approximately 40 women having disappeared or murdered. As of 2016, the British Columbia government
has issued funding for the Transportation Action Planfor Highway 16 that includes the expansion or having
new public transit services, as well as a new transit
shelter and webcams.

WHERE CANADA STANDS: A SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS SHADOW REPORTSUSTAINABLE CITIES AND COMMUNITIESClimate Change Impacts
Since 1948, Canada has become 1.3°C warmer,
which is twice the global average increase. Precipitation in Canada, although harder to measure due toits discontinuous nature in its various states of rain,snow and freezing rain, has on average has produced
a mean of 12% increase in the country’s wetness.
Extreme warm summer temperatures that exceed
30°C is projected to increase across Canada, withheat waves becoming more intense and frequent.
In British Columbia, data from 1900 to 2013 showsthat the province has experience an average annual
temperature warmed by 1.4 °C. With precipitation as
a fundamental aspect of climate, therefore is also a
key indicator of climate change. Province-wide annual precipitation increased by 12% per century.
Increased precipitation may be responsible for increased flooding, and damage to ecosystems andinfrastructure. The year-to-year variability may havean adverse impact on the wetland, as well as complicating water planning.

Forest Fires
Warmer summer temperatures may increase rates of
evaporation and plant transpiration, reducing moisture on the ground, and contributing to dust storms
and soil erosion. As a result, demands for irrigation
may increase, wetlands may be lost, vegetation
growth rates may slow, and the incidence of forest
fires may increase. Nationally, there has been huge interannual variability in areas burnt, with a range fromless than 300,000 hectares to more than 7,500,000
hectares in any given year. Additionally, fire occurrences can range from approximately 3,000 to 11,000
fires annually. In recent years, trends in both fire activity and area burnt appeared to have risen steadily,with an average of more than 8000 fires and 2 million
hectares burned, compared to the trends in the early
1920s with an average of 6000 fires and less than 1
million hectares burned.

Flooding
Rising sea levels due to climate change is causing
considerable flood risk to Metro Vancouver. Dr. Meg
Holden, Associate Professor of Urban Studies andGeography at Simon Fraser University, notes flooding is the biggest risk in the region as it threatens andpresents a real danger to public land, since public infrastructures are not equipped to bear the effects ofclimate change. This is due to the underinvestment in
the upkeep and maintenance to protect public parks,
green spaces, and wildlife habitat; as well as public infrastructure such as roads, bridges and tunnels.
Areas of particular risks are the Fraser River Delta,
where 100 square kilometre of land lies within one
metre of sea level, and Prince Rupert, which experiences high water events more frequently than othercoastal areas. Flooding will have a larger impact invulnerable communities, particularly within homelesscommunities, where mobility, transportation, and thenecessary resources needed to relocate are scarce.
Limited resources can also affect low income families who do not have substantial financial resources
to relocate temporarily or to renovate their homes toprepare for disasters.

Source: B.J. Stocks Wildfire Investigations Ltd, “Canada Average Annual Area Burned and Number of Fires by Decades
1920 - 2013,” Evaluating Past, Current and Future Forest
Fire Load Trends in Canada, 2013. https://www.ccfm.org/
pdf/2%20Fire%20Load%20Trends.pdf

In the summer of 2017, the Government of British
Columbia declared a state of emergency that lasted
70 days, between July 7 until September 15th, during the peak activity for forest fires. This marked thelongest state of emergency in the province since thefirestorm in 2003. Large and unpredictable forest fires
presents a challenge for both budgeting and resourcing management agencies, as its peak often strips
available resources. Over 4,700 personnel were engaged in fighting wildfires across BC, with 1,200 personnel from outside of the province and international
support with personnels from Australia, New Zea-

WHERE CANADA STANDS: A SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS SHADOW REPORT59

SUSTAINABLE CITIES AND COMMUNITIES

land, Mexico, and the United States. As a result, over
1.2 million hectares of land was burned,and the total
cost of fire suppression cost over $586 million CDN,
and displaced roughly 65,000 people. Threats ofnatural disasters to communities can disproportionately affect its members, especially from low income
backgrounds as one of the most vulnerable as theylack the due to economic constraints of evacuating.
With a town of residents, the evacuation alert forced
thousands to migrate to a nearby community in Kamloops, which can be a three to nine drive. Due to theforest fire some evacuees had to find work in other
cities. The evacuation also left the community of Williams Lake understaffed. With a fluctuating wildfire
trend, it is difficult not only to manage risks associated with climate change, but also to build resilience incommunities - both the people and the infrastructure.

Policies for a Greener City
Vancouver City Councillor Andrea Reimer points to
the City of Vancouver’s Corporate Climate Action
Plan - signed by municipalities in Metro Vancouver- and Greenest City 2020 Action Plan as examplesof policy approaches to designing greener cities. Collectively, cities across the region are adopting greener
policies to collectively reduce carbon emissions andwaste, and to build resilience to the impacts of climatechange. Councillor Reimer states that even though
this action plan is a non-binding commitment, the actof monitoring and reporting on the targets is enoughto drive action. The Greenest City 2020 Action Plan
led to the construction of the Vancouver Convention Centre as the first double LEED Platinum award
building in the world, as well as to the world’s tallest
hybrid wood building at the University of British Columbia. Dr. Holden admits that LEED certification isconsidered a low bar in terms of setting a framework
for reducing toxic, dangerous and non-renewable resources for construction. However, using renewable
resources or reclaimed wood-based materials sets a
precedent and can be adapted to future buildings thatare environmentally friendly, less energy intensive tomanufacture, and more affordable. As part of its Zero
Waste 2040 strategy, the Vancouver City Council approved a new bylaw in May 2018 to ban the use of
disposable plastic straws and styrofoam to-go cups
and containers by 2019 in an effort to further mitigate
climate change.

“Over 1.2 million
hectares of land wasburned; the total cost offire suppression was over
$586 million CDN anddisplaced roughly
65,000 people.”

60

WHERE CANADA STANDS: A SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS SHADOW REPORTSUSTAINABLE CITIES AND COMMUNITIESSUSTAINABLE CITIES &COMMUNITIES AND AGENDA 2030
SDG 11, Sustainable Cities and Communities intersects with almost every goal in the 2030 Agenda. Creating
an inclusive city that considers the social and cultural needs of vulnerable groups has a positive influence on
their health and well-being (SDG 3). Considering and consulting with different social and cultural groups forhousing development reduces systemic inequalities that marginalize vulnerable groups’ experiences (SDG 10).
Moreover, cities and communities have adopted and mitigated climate change (SDG 13) by implementing
policies such as building resilient and sustainable infrastructure and fostering sustainable innovation in incorporating renewable resources for development (SDG 9). Additionally, mitigating climate change also entails
implementing policies that promote responsible consumption and production (SDG 12) to manage and decrease overall waste. These policies will educate people (SDG 4) on protecting life below water and land (SDGs
14 and 15) from waste and pollution.

RECOMMENDATIONS•

Increase range of supportive and affordable housing, especially for the elderly, that issocially and culturally relevant.

•Provide stricter policies to protect and secure rental tenures.

•

Improve relations with Aboriginal Peoples for knowledge sharing on environmental
sustainable initiatives.

•

Improve infrastructures to ensure the protection of wildlife, ecosystems and communities
from natural disasters.

•

Implement designated bike lanes in infrastructural design.

•

Expand public transportation that connects urban areas to rural and remote regions.

WHERE CANADA STANDS: A SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS SHADOW REPORT61

SUSTAINABLE CITIES AND COMMUNITIESCASE STUDY:
SDG SCORECARDS FOR CITIES

Source: BC Council for International Cooperation. BC 2030. Community Scorecards. https://bc2030.ca/achievingTheGoals.htm

Localizing the SDGs is critical to the success of the 2030
Agenda for Sustainable Development. Localization takes
into account “on-the-ground”
contexts and reflects the reality that the responsibility formany of the targets falls under regional and local government authority.

62

Since 2016, the British Columbia Council forInternational Cooperation (BCCIC) has been
engaging with British Columbians across theprovince to determine how the existing workof individuals and organizations might drive
progress toward the SDGs not just in their own
communities, but globally as contributors to
Canada’s leadership on the goals.
Beginning with a series of 31 roundtables
across 29 communities, BCCIC met with over
700 local leaders that included representatives
from Indigenous communities, youth, civil society, and government. From these meetings
emerged a Movement Map of over 2500 organizations and individuals interested in achieving
the SDGs. Several of these communities also
expressed interest in tracking their toward the

WHERE CANADA STANDS: A SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS SHADOW REPORTSUSTAINABLE CITIES AND COMMUNITIESSDGs; something local communities are wellplaced to monitor as they localize the Goals,
and are able to identify relevant measures ofsuccess that can ensure no one is left behind.
Community engagement in data collection canfurther ensure that data are relevant, actionable, and acted upon.
To support community interest, BCCIC developed an SDG Scorecard as a tool for municipalities to track local progress toward the SDGs.
The scorecards analyse existing Official Community Plans and supporting municipal strategies such as climate action plans, healthy city
strategies, and housing and transportationplans, to align local targets and indicators withthe ones laid out in the SDG framework. By linking local targets to the internationally recognized
ones within the SDG framework, communities
can make a direct link between their contributions toward local sustainable development andthe contributions that Canada has committed toas a partner on Agenda 2030. After all, issues
such as transportation and infrastructure development are often handled at the municipal leveland only by incorporating community targets
and data into the “Canadian picture” can we
make sure that Canada’s reporting is more geographically and demographically precise, in turnidentifying measures of success that can ensure
no one is left behind.

Working with the SDG Scorecards has ofcourse presented challenges. The UN framework does not fit perfectly within the Canadian context - for instance, the globally definedpoverty line of $1.25/day does not make sensein the Canadian context , but neither Canada
nor BC has a clear definition of poverty. As
a result, proxy indicators must often be used.
Coupled with the need to interpret local planning language to align local intent with a global
framework, there will always be a small level of
uncertainty or bias introduced into the selection of local indicators. Still, the SDG Scorecards have proven to be a useful tool for local
communities to measure local progress andengage with local government to address thegaps that it identifies. BCCIC is now working
with the International Institute for Sustainable
Development (IISD) to expand the scorecards
into a digital community indicator system.

WHERE CANADA STANDS: A SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS SHADOW REPORT63

SUSTAINABLE CITIES AND COMMUNITIESREFERENCES
Bell, Christopher. Personal Interview. 12 May 2018.
Gurstein, Penelope. Personal Interview. 1 May 2018.
Holden, Meg. Personal Interview. 20 April 2018.
McGregor, Rosanna. Personal Interview. 4 June 2018.
Reimer, Andrea. Personal Interview. 25 April 2018.
B.J. Stocks Wildfire Investigations Ltd. Evaluating Past, Current and Future Forest Fire Load Trends in
Canada, January 2013. Retrieved from: https://www.ccfm.org/pdf/2%20Fire%20Load%20Trends.pdf
British Columbia Ministry of Environment. Indicators of Climate Change for British Columbia, 2016
Update. British Columbia, June 2016. Retrieved from: https://www2.gov.bc.ca/assets/gov/environment/
research-monitoring-and-reporting/reporting/envreportbc/archived-reports/climate-change/
climatechangeindicators-13sept2016_final.pdf
British Columbia Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure. Progress made, new funding for Transportation
Action Plan for Highway 6. 15 June 2016. Retrieved from: https://archive.news.gov.bc.ca/releases/news_
releases_2013-2017/2016TRAN0137-001042.htm
City of Vancouver. “City adopts Zero Waste 2040 Strategic Plan, Single-Use Item Reduction Strategy, anddeconstruction waste measures” The City of Vancouver, 16 May 2018. Retrieved from: http://vancouver.
ca/news-calendar/city-adopts-zero-waste-2040-strategic-plan-single-use-item-reduction-strategy-anddeconstruction-waste-measures.aspx
City of Vancouver. Cycling Safety Study: Final Report. Cycling in Cities Research Program at the University of
British Columbia and Simon Fraser University, 22 January 2015. Retrieved from: http://vancouver.ca/files/
cov/cycling-safety-study-final-report.pdf
Denniston, Holly. Integrated Supportive Housing: Creating A Community Housing Network, Corporation for
Supportive Housing, February 2012. Retrieved from: http://www.csh.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/
Doc_ISHCreatingACommunityHousingNetwork_403.pdf
Fumano, Dan. & Lori Culbert, ”Province Announces New Funding for New Affordable Rental Housing in
Downtown Eastside” Vancouver Sun, 16 January 2018. Retrieved from: http://vancouversun.com/news/
local-news/province-announces-funding-for-new-affordable-rental-housing-in-downtown-eastside
Government of British Columbia. Impacts of Climate Change, n.d. Retrieved from: https://www2.gov.bc.ca/
gov/content/environment/climate-change/adaptation/impacts
Government of British Columbia. Wildfire Season Summary, n.d. Retrieved from: https://www2.gov.bc.ca/
gov/content/safety/wildfire-status/about-bcws/wildfire-history/wildfire-season-summary
Human Rights Watch. Those Who Takes Us Away: Abusive Policing and Failures in Protection of Indigenous
Women and Girls in Northern British Columbia, Canada. United States of America, February 2013.
Retrieved from: https://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/reports/canada0213webwcover_0.pdf
Kassam, Ashifa. “Highway of Tears to get bus route after 18 women murdered or missing” The Guardian, 17
June 2016. Retrieved from: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jun/17/canada-highway-of-tearsbus-service-murdered-Indigenous-women64

WHERE CANADA STANDS: A SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS SHADOW REPORTSUSTAINABLE CITIES AND COMMUNITIESKurjata, Andrew. “Gone for good: wildfire evacuees find work in other cities, leaving Williams Lake shortstaffed” CBC, 01 September 2017. Retrieved from: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/
gone-for-good-wildfire-evacuees-find-work-in-other-cities-leaving-williams-lake-short-staffed-1.4270748
Natural Resources Canada. Overview of Climate Change in Canada, 10 November 2015. Retrieved from:http://www.nrcan.gc.ca/node/10321
Natural Resources Canada. World’s tallest hybrid wood building: Vancouver’s 18-storey student residence,
18 May 2018. Retrieved from: https://www.nrcan.gc.ca/simply-science/20305
Statistics Canada. Aboriginal Peoples in Canada: Key Results from the 2016 Census, 25 May 2017.
Retrieved from: https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/171025/dq171025a-eng.htm
Statistics Canada. Canada at a Glance 2017, 31 March 2018. Retrieved from: https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/
n1/pub/12-581-x/12-581-x2017000-eng.htm
Statistics Canada. Canada Goes Urban, 17 May 2015. Retrieved from: https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/
pub/11-630-x/11-630-x2015004-eng.htm
Statistics Canada. Census Profile, 2016 Census, 24 April 2018. Retrieved from: https://www12.statcan.gc.ca/
census-recensement/2016/dp-pd/prof/details/page.cfm?Lang=E&Geo1=PR&Code1=01&Geo2=&Code2=&Data=Count&SearchText=Canada&SearchType=Begins&SearchPR=01&B1=All&TABID=1
Teschke, K., et al. “Exposure-Based Traffic Crash Injury Rates” Can J Public Health, vol. 103, no. 1, 2013,
pp. 75 - 79. Retrieved from: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4289714/
The University of British Columbia, Cycling in Cities Research Program. Safety & Travel Mode, 26 October
2017. Retrieved from: http://cyclingincities.spph.ubc.ca/injuries/
Woo, Andrea. “B.C. wildfires displace nearly 40,000 as Williams Lake becomes largest town to evacuate”
The Globe and Mail, 16 July 2017. Retrieved from: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/britishcolumbia/thousands-of-williams-lake-wildfire-evacuees-arrive-in-kamloops/article35701794/

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RESPONSIBLE
CONSUMPTION AND
PRODUCTION

66

WHERE CANADA STANDS: A SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS SHADOW REPORTRESPONSIBLE CONSUMPTION AND PRODUCTIONTARGETS
Ensure sustainable consumption andproduction patterns.

Implement the 10-Year Framework ofProgrammes on Sustainable Consumption and Production Patterns, allcountries taking action, with developed countries taking the lead, taking
into account the development andcapabilities of developing countries

By 2030, substantially reduce waste
generation through prevention, reduction, recycling and reuse

By 2030, achieve the sustainable
management and efficient use ofnatural resources

Encourage companies, especiallylarge and transnational companies,
to adopt sustainable practices andto integrate sustainability information
into their reporting cycle

By 2030, halve per capita global foodwaste at the retail and consumer
levels and reduce food losses alongproduction and supply chains, including post-harvest losses

Promote public procurement practices that are sustainable, in accordancewith national policies and priorities

By 2020, achieve the environmentallysound management of chemicals andall wastes throughout their life cycle, in
accordance with agreed internationalframeworks, and significantly reduce
their release to air, water and soil in order to minimize their adverse impacts
on human health and the environment

By 2030, ensure that people everywhere have the relevant information
and awareness for sustainable development and lifestyles in harmony withnatureWHERE CANADA STANDS: A SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS SHADOW REPORT67

RESPONSIBLE CONSUMPTION AND PRODUCTION
Support developing countries tostrengthen their scientific and technological capacity to move towards
more sustainable patterns of consumption and production

Develop and implement tools tomonitor sustainable development
impacts for sustainable tourism thatcreates jobs and promotes local
culture and products

Rationalize inefficient fossil-fuelsubsidies that encourage wasteful
consumption by removing market distortions, in accordance with national
circumstances, including by restructuring taxation and phasing out those
harmful subsidies, where they exist,
to reflect their environmental impacts,
taking fully into account the specificneeds and conditions of developing
countries and minimizing the possible
adverse impacts on their development in a manner that protects thepoor and the affected communities

EXPERT CONTRIBUTORS••••

Yanick Touchette, Policy Advisor, International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD)
Jamie Kaminski, Co-Founder & Board Member, Zero Waste Canada; Board Member, Zero Waste
International Alliance (ZWIA)
Stefan Jungcurt, SDG Indicators & Monitoring Lead, International Institute for Sustainable
Development (IISD)
Ugo Lapointe, Canadian Program Coordinator, Mining Watch Canada

CROSS-CUTTING THEMES
Indigenous Communities
Indigenous communities face disproportionate impacts from the consequences of traditional resource extraction and waste development in consumption and production practices. Respecting Indigenous traditional territories, knowledge and rights is a criticalpiece of the movement towards a circular economy, as we reorient our consumption to
return back to the land what we consume.

GenderGender has clear and significant interlinkages with consumption and production decisions. Greater female leadership in business and government yields positive environmental outcomes through the reform of sustainable production decision-making.
68

WHERE CANADA STANDS: A SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS SHADOW REPORTRESPONSIBLE CONSUMPTION AND PRODUCTION

Climate Change
Sustainable Consumption and Production practices are closely related to climate change,
and are a vitally important part of the path towards a low-carbon, sustainable world. Namely, targets relating to fossil fuel subsidies and GHG-producing food waste are of particularimportance.

Youth
Youth are critically important in the push towards zero-waste, circular, clean economies.
Pollution resulting from poor procurement, consumption and agricultural practices will besaddled on the next generation. Changing the life-cycle of our consumption decisions is ofdire importance for the survivability of future generations.

NATIONAL DATA
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•
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•
•
•

•

•

12.2.2a (direct household energy consumption, 2015) = 2,798,362 terajoules;
12.2.2b (direct household energy use per capita, 2015) = 78.1 gigajoules;
12.2.2c (direct plus indirect personal expenditure energy use, 2014) = 5,216,046 terajoules;
12.2.2d (direct plus indirect personal expenditure energy use, per capita, 2014) = 146.8 gigajoules;
12.2.2e (household water use, 2013) = 3,239,158,000m cubed;
12.2.2f (household water use per capita, 2013) = 92.1m cubed;
Total Canadian Finance devoted to fossil fuel production (2015-2016): $4.74 billion
Material footprint per capita, 2010 (sum of the material footprint for biomass, fossil fuels, metal ores
and non-metal ores, measured in tonnes per person per year): 28.37 metric tons / capita
Material footprint per unit of GDP, 2010 (attribution of global material extraction to domestic final
demand of a country. The total material footprint is the sum of the material footprint for biomass, fossil
fuels, metal ores and non-metal ores. This is measured as kilograms of material per US$): 0.78 kg/$
Domestic material consumption (DMC) per capita, 2010 (measured in tonnes per person per year, is a
production-side measure of the use of materials within an economy. A country’s DMC may therefore
be lower if it outsources a lot of production): 22.3 metric tons / capita
Domestic material consumption per unit of GDP, 2010 (Domestic material consumption (DMC) per unitof gross domestic product (GDP),measured in kilograms per US$, is a production-side measure of theuse of materials within an economy. A country’s DMC may therefore be lower if it outsources a lot of
production): 0.62 kg/$

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RESPONSIBLE CONSUMPTION AND PRODUCTION

Introduction
SDG 12, Responsible Consumption and Production, encompasses
several issues pertaining to sustainable development, resource utilization and reuse; including waste
and recycling, natural resource extraction and mining, supply chain
management, fossil fuel subsidies
and capacity-building. This section
will go over Canada’s progress andshortcomings on issues relating to
SDG 12, as well as recommendations and focal points that need attention moving forward, from theperspectives of civil society experts
across Canada.

70

Producer / Consumer Dichotomy
Both consumer education / awareness and producer
responsibility are important in cleaning up markets.
Tackling the source of waste is key. Moreover, if there
are a lack of options in the market for limited/singleuse products, people won’t have the option to use
them. Consumers can only use their reusable containers so much to solve the problem of waste. Ultimately,
the responsibility must fall on the companies providing products and services. In order to change thelandscape of how we consume products in Canada,
additional scaling is needed to provide services thatphase-out the need for single-use items and packaging, and respond to the growing demand for circular
products with a focus on reusable products, packaging and systems among consumers. Social norms
among consumers regarding waste must also change
for desired outcomes on zero-waste to be adopted.

Waste & Disposal
Waste Imports & Exports
From the viewpoint of advocating for highest andbest use of materials, developing country and emerging economy (eg. China) bans on the imports ofdeveloped countries’ waste appears to be a positive development, as it restricts the amount of contamination flowing from the developed to developingworld, and pushes back on countries like Canada,
who have taken advantage of developing countries
for years to easily dispose of their waste and consider
it ‘recycled’, without solving core issues behind theirconsumption and production practices. Ostensibly,
countries and sub-national actors who have a lackof recycling infrastructure are not necessarily worse
off, as this alternative starting point lets them catchup to zero waste initiatives much more rapidly thanthose saddled with expensive legacy infrastructure.
There is no longer a concern with closing them down
and and experiencing irredeemable lost capital costs
when citizens begin to reduce waste or switch to reusable systems. “The indecision [on a pathway] is the
problem… if countries like Canada don’t decide toaddress the [waste] situation, they will be in a bad position” says Jamie Kaminski, Zero Waste International
Alliance (ZWIA) Board Member and Co-Founder ofZero Waste Canada.

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Sub-National Initiatives

Public Policy

While not completely in line with international guidelines, the City of Vancouver has begun to implement
zero waste strategies and discuss waste reduction
more broadly. So far, bans on plastic straws and bags
have enveloped the conversation around waste reduction. However, while bans on particular disposable materials are important, it is not necessarily thebest approach to single-out a particular material type.
Kaminski states:

Looking at Canada’s current approach on a large scale,
we lack a formal approach to reducing waste from the
top-down. “I don’t see a master plan of how they’regoing to tackle this. What I see is kind of a patchwork
system, and a lot of it is heavily reliant on Extended
Producer Responsibility (EPR)” notes Kaminski. While
EPR is promoted by many as a program celebrating
success, there are unconsidered costs which make ita less desirable system of accountability. In considering ‘who’s being left behind?’, existing companies
and players who are and have been implementing lowwaste initiatives, as well as competition among industry players and the ability to increase program ambition is not sufficiently addressed.

“In my discussions, I talk more about the application... let’s not [just] look a plastic straws,
let’s look at single-use straws... Straws aren’t
the problem, the problem is that we use themfor 2 seconds and then throw them out regardless of whether they’re plastic or paper.”While paper consumables are preferable to their plastic counterparts in terms of their impact on the environment, the waste problem still remains. Banning
plastic straws alone is considered a ‘band-aid solution’ rather than the systemic change that is needed.
“We advocate for all disposable straws to be eliminated” adds Kaminski, “Straws have a small impact
in the grand scheme of things, single-issue items [asa whole] are the huge issue”. Growing a consumption and production system which bans all single-use
items should be the goal of all Canadian cities; andthe Federal government should do everything in its
power to help municipalities get there. Vancouver ismoving in the right direction and Montreal is making
strides towards impactful waste bans. On the otherend of the disposal process, Metro Vancouver has
opted against pursuing incinerators due to uncertainty around future waste volumes, while vocal opposition from municipalities continued. In Canada’s east,
Ontario communities have constructed incinerators,
such as the one in Durham recently, and are struggling with its health and emissions impacts, whichhave been documented in Europe as well wherewaste-to-energy incinerators are numerous.

Source: “The way to Zero Waste”, Zero Waste Canada.

Canada is currently following a nationwide trend of
approaching waste issues through producer responsibility policy. In British Columbia, where the policy
has been considered by some as a benchmark of recycling, producers have responsibility for at least 16
products, and more coming through the new productand packaging program. Governments who aren’t
familiar with producer responsibility can portray the
program as a ‘silver bullet’ to solving our waste problems. However, “that’s not quite true because they
pay very little attention to the collection side of things[where low-income earners reside], so there’s not asignificant way of improving people’s’ livelihoods”
contends Kaminski. This can result in growing many
low-income jobs, as the policy relies heavily on recycling, followed by disposal; nothing else no reuse,no repair. Rather than tackling system change, thepolicy perpetuates existing waste issues. Traditional

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RESPONSIBLE CONSUMPTION AND PRODUCTION

electronic recycling programs, for instance, do not necessarily“Straws aren’t refurbish or test electronics for re-use; collection and subsequent destruction are common practice. This results in little
the problem, the recycling and much disposal. Additionally, high quantities ofheavy metals have to be handled in particular ways, which ofresults in materials being sent to smelting to capture theproblem is that ten
heavy metals; and plastics are wasted. “Maybe they get moreout of it, but that’s as far as it goes; you’re just looking
we use them for recycling
at recycling” adds Kaminski. In sum, when discussing tradiapproaches to recycling and the jobs the industry cre2 seconds and tional
ates - there are better accountability measures that need to bein place for workers and circular waste models to prosper.
then throw them put
If producer responsibility were to move into more of a reuse
position (which at this time is currently unlikely), training could
out regardless of be re-approached to have workers in recycling plants test andrefurbish the electronics. This would immediately generate
whether they’re higher-paying jobs.
Canada continues on the path of approaching waste issues
plastic or paper. Ifwith
the view that recycling will be the answer, workers will...straws have a small
impact in the grandscheme of things,
single-issue items[as a whole] are thehuge issue”

be lead into low-paying jobs and we will miss out on a lost
opportunity to advance their skills into a higher paying reuse market (~70% more in terms of wages). Similarly, policies
supporting incinerators create a similar issue for Canada inachieving its sustainable development targets, as they are often located in disadvantaged communities, which are willingto accept the infrastructure due to the resulting tax income;yet they bear potentially greater health costs from production
externalities. Canada cannot afford to pursue policies which
propagate short-term thinking; we must do a better job of using a long-term lens when crafting our solutions to the current
waste calamity.

—Jamie Kaminski,
Co-Founder of Zero
Waste Canada

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MiningMining has clear implications for the goals of responsible consumption and production. A traditionally wasteful industry, it is a critical piece to SDG 12.
One of the major trends affecting the global mining
industry is the increase in mines opening across theglobe, particularly for metals and other materials
such as phosphate, potassium, and more marginally, diamonds. However, the ore grade of mines isdecreasing, therefore the environmental intensity ofthe mines is increasing; meaning there’s more energy,
water, and a larger environmental footprint created forevery ton of metal produced. Thus, the communityand social impacts associated with these processes
are increasing in intensity. In sum, humanity is facing
an increasing challenge with its non-renewable metals and resources. Ugo Lapointe, Canadian Program
Coordinator at MiningWatch Canada notes:“I think, more and more we’re aware of this,particularly for the petroleum and gas industry,
but not so much for metal and other resource
industries... there are some fundamental differences between those and oil and gas. We
know in a century from now, there won’t bemuch, if any fossil fuel fuel used. With minerals however, the resources remaining to humanity will be quite substantial, it’s just thatthe quality will be so degraded that we willneed to displace far more soil and earth, aswell as use more energy and water to extract
those resources, so the environmental and social impacts will be greater.”shows it will at increasing rates, then the waterways,
fish, livelihoods of communities downstream, and so
on will be harshly affected”, adds Lapointe. The issueof the legacy and liability of large-scale mine waste
sites is one of the biggest environmental issues facing the industry moving forward; of which it is aware.
There is troubling research showing that the rate ofmine failures is increasing, and is likely to increase forseveral decades. In a recent report, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) called for the
global community to act on two recommendations for
tailing dam safety: adopting a zero-failure approachto tailing storage, and establishing a UNEP forum forthe strengthening of tailing dam regulation acrossthe globe. Furthermore, in an acknowledgement of
Canada’s high rate of dam failure, the report marked
Canada as having the second-worst mining record in
the world. The Federal government must take bolder
action to regulate the mining sector, coordinate withother countries to minimize spills and reduce thenumber of tailings accumulating globally.

“For each kilogram of
metal we consume wegenerate a hundred
For instance, for each kilogram of metal we consume, particularly in the Western market and emerg- kilograms of waste.”ing Asian markets, “we generate a hundred kilogramsof waste”, adds Lapointe. Typically, a metal mine will
extract one percent, or half of one percent of metals, depending on the resource, and 99.5% of thatis waste. Then that waste needs to be stored above
ground, virtually forever, creating tailings and mining
waste ponds. The Mt. Polley spill in British Columbia, which spilled 24 million cubic metres of sludge
and mine waste into waterways, is an example of thedevastation that can be caused in local communities
by these tailings. Across the globe, there are thousands of sites building up with dams that are retaining
waste. “The reality is that many of them won’t last,
and they will spill. When this happens, as the research—Ugo Lapointe,
Canadian Program
Coordinator at
MiningWatch Canada

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RESPONSIBLE CONSUMPTION AND PRODUCTION

Source: Photo by Zbynek Burival.

Fossil Fuel Subsidies

Fossil fuel subsidies are an issue of critical importance for responsible
consumption and production. Whether it’s the packaging in consumer
goods, the fuel Canadians use to heat their homes, or the transportation
choices cities and consumers make, fossil fuel subsidies have massive
cost implications for Canada’s transition to a clean energy future.
Canada first committed to phasing-out its estimated$4 billion in annual fossil fuel subsidies in 2009, butnever followed-through. Canada’s current Liberal
government pledged in its most recent election platform that subsidy phase-out was key by 2025, and inJune 2018 announced a mutual peer-review of subsidies, with Argentina. In 2018, Canada ranked 3rd
overall among it’s G7 counterparts, with high marks
coming from its low support for fossil fuel-based
power generation and coal mining, but ranks low intransparency and its support for oil and gas. For Can74

ada to accelerate the clean energy options it needs,
and particularly for its carbon pricing plan to work effectively, it must phase out all fossil fuel subsidies ina timely manner.
However, beyond the current subsidies, answering
the question of where Canada will move its assets
to support clean growth is paramount. Fortunately,
Canada faces few resource restrictions in terms of its
energy endowment. “Whatever solution emerges as
a viable one, Canada does not face any restrictions

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in terms of implementation. That means the wholetransition issue becomes a question of reallocating
the capital that’s being spent, in a way that enables
a just transition” says Stefan Jungcurt, SDG Indicators & Monitoring Lead at the International Institutefor Sustainable Development (IISD). The principle
objective is ensuring that the reallocation of public funds doesn’t leave behind, or inflict particular
hardships, on any specific group. The challenge is
not easy, but beginning with a diversity of options
and an already established network of renewablypowered grids will give Canada the opportunity todetermine the best avenue, and proceed to disseminate best practices to countries who lack resource
endowments as rich as Canada’s.

LNG Facility in Kitimat, BC. Source: “G20 countries spend$450B a year on fossil fuel subsidies”, CBC (2015).

Overall, the allocation of subsidies is a challenging issue for a number of reasons. Policies exist at the provincial level, but at the federal level they are different
from one province to the next, and differ further for
production and consumption. For some of the policies trying to make energy affordable in remote communities other than the north, such as Prince George
in British Columbia or communities in northern Quebec, “the energy is often comprised of fossil fuels”,
says Touchette.
This is problematic, as even in hydro-dense regions
like Quebec, where there is a broad electrificationof transportation, the strategy is limited to the more
densely populated areas. For a rapid shift to takeplace, policies at all levels of government would haveto be reformed. In the transition to sustainable development, faced with goals around reduced inequalities, infrastructure, and poverty, “[it is difficult to] argue against making public transit cheaper, even whenthat public transit is using oil or diesel” adds Yanick
Touchette, Policy Advisor at the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD). If the marginal changes can fit within the scope of Canada’s
emissions reduction goals, then the transit upgrades
could be a stepping stone while policies are implemented to make electric buses cheaper. The interlinkages are so numerous, it’s hard to have a clear
timeline. However, if this step-by-step process cannot fit within Canada’s Paris Agreement targets, it’sa non-starter.

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RESPONSIBLE CONSUMPTION AND PRODUCTION

Just Transition
Examining how reforms to direct or tax-based subsidies in the oil and gas industry might have an impact
on local communities is critical to Canada’s movement to a clean energy future, particularly in ensuringa Just Transition for workers. “[What] we’ve looked at
is trying to map different policies to identify the net
influence of investments in different regions of theoil sands,” says Touchette. The removal of subsidies
is attached to other cascading measures, including a broader strategy for Canada to shift towards
carbon-neutral sources of energy, and eventually areform of the country’s economic composition (asCanada remains heavily-reliant on natural resources
for its GDP, it will have to diversify in the future). However, for communities based on those resources (oil,natural gas, coal), the intermediary transition requires
attention. For example, what are the implications ofsubsidy phase-outs for rural communities / municipalities who rely on a coal mine to power the local
economy? The jobs, employee revenue, and income
tax revenue are all assets to the residents. When anatural resource project shuts down, the houses inthose communities may become stranded assets
and residents will not be able to sell those houses as
they move to communities with better employment
opportunities. The issue requires a broader perspective, as Canada’s clean energy future is not only amatter of reforming the energy mix, but also of conducting a deep and comprehensive analysis of theindividual implications the transition has for all communities who currently rely on large natural resource
projects for their livelihoods, across Canada.
Moving forward, “the taskforce on coal phaseout [is] a good starting point, and hopefully we canlearn and apply those strategies to the oil and gas
industries in 5, 10 or 15 years” says Touchette. The
transition is already happening in coal communities
across Canada, therefore the taskforce will be criticalto finding the best solutions. In response, researchers from across the country, and particularly Alberta, have tried to look at how to repurpose the scaleof those workers. For instance, “some researchers
have been looking at how a portion of workers could
be put to work, not in the oil sands or traditional oil
wells, but by completing reclamation of those wells,
because there are several thousand or even tens of
thousands of wells that will need to be reclaimed in76

the future”, add Touchette. In Saskatchewan and Alberta there has been an interest in how, for conventional oil wells, workers’ skills can be repurposed forgeothermal projects. Moreover, many wells that needreclamation, or can be reclaimed are in the communities where workers are already residing. Meaning,
there is minimized concern around displacement andmany workers won’t have to move out of their existing communities to find jobs. As a result, the need torepurpose skills in traditionally extraction-based locations is driving innovation toward new ways of using
geothermal and other sources of renewable energy.
These economic innovations are of particular importance, as the phase-out is tightly connected to SDG
8 (Decent Work & Economic Growth). The transition is
not only about switching to sustainable consumption
and production energy mixes, but also how Canada
will repurpose the skills that were developed into lesssustainable energy mixes. Lastly, in terms of regionaland demographic displacement, as Canada moves
away from the oil and gas sector, there are regional
pockets, in Alberta, British Columbia, Saskatchewan,
and Newfoundland & Labrador where resources arelocated, which will be impacted more by the transition if there is no repurposing of skills. Moreover, being a majority male industry, research points towards
young males as the demographic group to be mostdisplaced in the transition.

“The need torepurpose skills in
traditionally extractionbased locations is driving
innovation toward new
ways of using geothermaland other sources ofrenewable energy.”

WHERE CANADA STANDS: A SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS SHADOW REPORTRESPONSIBLE CONSUMPTION AND PRODUCTIONRESPONSIBLE CONSUMPTION &PRODUCTION AND AGENDA 2030
SDG 12, Responsible Consumption & Production is a key aspect of of the Agenda 2030 portfolio, interactingwith almost every other goal. For example, zero waste pursuits create green, sustainable jobs (SDG 8); they
reduce pollution which enhances our health and well-being (SDG 3), and cleans up the oceans (SDG 14), ourcities (SDG 11), and forests and parks (SDG 15); it incentivizes innovation and green infrastructure (SDG 9);
and affects climate change through the reduction of consumption (SDG 13). The issue of waste is not only
about waste that comes after consumption, it is about the process of creating the product; reducing waste on
the demand side, and responsibly managing it on the supply side. This leads to the other goals. Additionally,for disadvantaged demographics (SDG 10), these changes in the production, consumption and managementof waste also incentivize education opportunities (SDG 4) in response to the growth of local jobs. In reflection,
Jamie Kaminski notes:“As a zero-waste community, when we were looking at the goals, we were seeing that yes, our valuesline up with these goals, but we don’t have policies around them. Now we have groups looking at thegaps in our areas [of expertise], and asking ‘how do we fill them?’”
Fossil fuel subsidies are another principal issue of responsible consumption and production which ties inclosely with many, if not all the SDGs. being a propagator of GHG emissions fuelling climate change (SDG
13), phasing out fossil fuel subsidies directly impacts the accelerated adoption of clean energy (SDG 7), leads
to reduced inequalities across countries resulting from damaging climate-fuelled disasters (SDG 10), and has
countless more implications towards the pursuit of sustainable development.

RECOMMENDATIONS•

Implement bans across all municipalities in the country to tackle the root of the production
problem, and avoid incinerators and diversion of waste towards low-income regions.

•Improve government oversight and regulation of the mining industry to prevent further
dam failures causing environmental and health disasters.

•

Accelerate the phase-out of fossil fuel subsidies, by both the Federal and provincial/territorial governments, going beyond the current pledge to phase-out ‘inefficient’subsidies by 2025.

•

Attach a comprehensive just transition plan to the phase-out of fossil fuel subsidies, toensure that rural communities aren’t left behind.

•

Improve transparency by publishing reports on fiscal support for fossil fuels, as this iscurrently a major gap in Canada’s progress.

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RESPONSIBLE CONSUMPTION AND PRODUCTION

CASE STUDY:DIESEL SUBSIDIESIN CANADA’S NORTH

Source: “Costing Energy and Fossil Fuel Subsidies in Nunavut: A Mapping Exercise”, (2017).

A demonstration of the uniquechallenges northern Canada
faces, Nunavut is an outlier
due to its limited land access,causing communities to fulfill
virtually all their energy needsin the form of diesel fuel.

78

While the Petroleum Products Division (PPD)
is responsible for the purchase, import, anddistribution of fuels in the territory, the Government of Nunavut, the Qulliq Power Corporation, and the Nunavut Housing Corporation are
responsible for the distribution of subsidies tosupport diesel fuel. These entities play a keyrole in servicing the remote and majority Indigenous communities which require reliable
heating for large portions of the year, as well aslack a grid to supply them with electricity froma large-scale system.

WHERE CANADA STANDS: A SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS SHADOW REPORTRESPONSIBLE CONSUMPTION AND PRODUCTION

In collaboration with the World Wildlife Foundation (WWF), the International Institute for
Sustainable Development (IISD) completed
a comprehensive analysis that mapped thelandscape of fossil fuel subsidies in Nunavut.
In total, IISD found that from 2012 to 2016,“The Government of Nunavut [spent] on average $60.5 million each year to subsidize theuse of diesel fuel in the territory, however, using a less conservative estimate, this could“amount to a total cost of approximately $100
million per year,” says Yanick Touchette. “[Topay,] either programs will absorb the cost directly (before point-of-sale), or consumers will
have alternative social programs to reduce thecost of goods.”
As earlier sections of the report have noted,
diesel is an underpriced, problematic fuel thathas negative environmental and social externalities. Its use is largely a situational reason
than one of efficiency. The North, and nunavut in particular’s, high cost of electricity hascaused subsidies to be prominent for a regionof Canada with such a small population.

However, phasing-out subsidies completely is
not the only solution. Rather than lowering thesubsidies significantly over time, the government could begin shifting portions of existing
funds earmarked for diesel subsidies, towards
renewable energy companies implementing
community-based projects in the North, andscaling initiatives over time. As battery technology further develops and intermittency remains
an issue, many communities could also reduce
dependency on diesel fuels by roughly 35%
by using diesel-wind or diesel-solar hybrid
technologies. A switch to renewable technologies through subsidy transition offers low-cost
methods of new technology adoption, avoidance of spills and accompanying livelihood impacts, and greater resiliency for all communities across the territory.

WHERE CANADA STANDS: A SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS SHADOW REPORT79

RESPONSIBLE CONSUMPTION AND PRODUCTIONREFERENCES“Are the G7 on Track to Phase out Fossil Fuel Subsidies by 2025?” ODI, 1 June 2018, www.odi.org/
opinion/10482-are-g7-track-phase-out-fossil-fuel-subsidies-2025.
Chambers, David. Post-Mount Polley: Tailings Dam Safety in British Columbia. MiningWatch Canada, 2016,
Post-Mount Polley: Tailings Dam Safety in British Columbia, miningwatch.ca/publications/2016/3/22/postmount-polley-tailings-dam-safety-british-columbia.
Cohen, Howard. “Montreal’s Plastic Bag Ban to Kick off 2018.” Global News, 31 Dec. 2017, globalnews.ca/
news/3940058/montreals-plastic-bag-ban-to-kick-off-2018/.
“Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) Programs in BC.” Recycling Council of British Columbia, 6 Mar.
2018, www.rcbc.ca/recycling-programs/epr.
“Goal 12: Ensure Sustainable Consumption and Production Patterns - SDG Tracker.” Our World in Data, sdgtracker.org/sustainable-consumption-production.
“Goal 12 - Responsible Cities and Communities.” Government of Canada, Statistics Canada, 6 June 2018,www144.statcan.gc.ca/sdg-odd/goal-objectif12-eng.htm.
Javed, Noor. “Durham Grapples with Incinerator’s ‘Alarming’ Emissions.” The Star, Toronto Star, 14 June
2016, www.thestar.com/news/gta/2016/06/14/durham-grapples-with-incinerators-alarming-emissions.
html.
Lapointe, Ugo. “What Green Economy? New OECD Report Finds Canada Worst of G7 on Recycling,
Minerals Efficiency.” MiningWatch Canada, 19 Dec. 2017, miningwatch.ca/news/2017/12/19/what-greeneconomy-new-oecd-report-finds-canada-worst-g7-recycling-minerals.
Lavoie, Judith. “Canada Has Second-Worst Mining Record in World: UN.” MiningWatch Canada, 27 Oct.
2017, miningwatch.ca/news/2017/10/27/canada-has-second-worst-mining-record-world-un.
Lyons, Kallan. “Vuntut Gwitchin First Nation Plugs in Old Crow Solar Power Project.” Yukon News, 25 June
2018, www.yukon-news.com/business/vuntut-gwitchin-first-nation-plugs-in-old-crow-solar-powerproject/.
McDiarmid, Margo. “G20 Spends $450B Annually Subsidizing Fossil Fuel Industry: Study.” CBC News, 17
Nov. 2015, www.cbc.ca/news/politics/g20-fossil-fuel-subsidies-450b-1.3314291.
Rabson, Mia. “Canada’s Billions in Fossil Fuel Subsidies to Go under the Microscope.” IPolitics, 15 June
2018, ipolitics.ca/2018/06/15/canadas-billions-in-fossil-fuel-subsidies-to-go-under-the-microscope/.
Seldman, Neil. “What Does Zero Waste Mean? Zero Is Zero.” Zero Waste International Alliance, 25 Sept.
2014, zwia.org/standards/zero-is-zero/.
Sinoski, Kelly. “Metro Vancouver Postpones Plans for New Trash Incinerator.” Www.vancouversun.
com, 12 Oct. 2015, www.vancouversun.com/technology/Metro Vancouver postpones plans trashincinerator/11580216/story.html.
Taylor, Matthew. “Rubbish Already Building up at UK Recycling Plants Due to China Import Ban.” The
Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 2 Jan. 2018, www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/jan/02/
rubbish-already-building-up-at-uk-recycling-plants-due-to-china-import-ban.
Tombe, Trevor. “Why Young Men Are Being Left out of Alberta’s Economic Recovery.” CBC News, 14
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Mar. 2018, www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/young-men-left-out-of-economic-recovery-alberta-roadahead-1.4573024.
Touchette, Yanick, et al. Costing Energy and Fossil Fuel Subsidies in Nunavut: A Mapping Exercise. IISD &WWF Canada, 2017, Costing Energy and Fossil Fuel Subsidies in Nunavut: A Mapping Exercise, www.iisd.
org/library/costing-energy-fossil-fuel-subsidies-nunavut-mapping-exercise.
Touchette, Yanick, et al. “G7 Fossil Fuel Subsidy Scorecard: Tracking the Phase-out of Fiscal Support andPublic Finance for Oil, Gas and Coal.” ODI, 1 June 2018, www.odi.org/publications/11131-g7-fossil-fuelsubsidy-scorecard.
“Zero Waste Hierarchy.” Zero Waste International Alliance, zwia.org/standards/zero-waste-hierarchy/.

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LIFE
ON LAND

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WHERE CANADA STANDS: A SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS SHADOW REPORTLIFE ON LANDTARGETS
Protect, restore and promote sustainable use of terrestrial
ecosystems, sustainably manage forests, combat
desertification, and halt and reverse land degradation andhalt biodiversity loss.

By 2020, ensure the conservation,
restoration and sustainable use ofterrestrial and inland freshwater
ecosystems and their services, in particular forests, wetlands, mountains
and drylands, in line with obligations
under international agreements

Take urgent and significant action
to reduce the degradation of natural
habitats, halt the loss of biodiversity
and, by 2020, protect and prevent theextinction of threatened species

By 2020, promote the implementation of sustainable management of all
types of forests, halt deforestation,
restore degraded forests and substantially increase afforestation andreforestation globally

Promote fair and equitable sharing of
the benefits arising from the utilizationof genetic resources and promote appropriate access to such resources,
as internationally agreed

By 2030, combat desertification,
restore degraded land and soil,
including land affected by desertification, drought and floods, and strive
to achieve a land degradation-neutral
world

Take urgent action to end poaching
and trafficking of protected speciesof flora and fauna and address bothdemand and supply of illegal wildlife
products

By 2030, ensure the conservation ofmountain ecosystems, including theirbiodiversity, in order to enhance theircapacity to provide benefits that are
essential for sustainable development

By 2020, introduce measures to prevent the introduction and significantly
reduce the impact of invasive alien
species on land and water ecosystems and control or eradicate thepriority species

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LIFE ON LAND
By 2020, integrate ecosystem andbiodiversity values into national andlocal planning, development processes, poverty reduction strategies
and accounts

Mobilize significant resources fromall sources and at all levels to financesustainable forest management andprovide adequate incentives to developing countries to advance suchmanagement, including for conservation and reforestation

Mobilize and significantly increasefinancial resources from all sources toconserve and sustainably use biodiversity and ecosystems

Enhance global support for efforts
to combat poaching and trafficking of protected species, including
by increasing the capacity of local
communities to pursue sustainable
livelihood opportunities

EXPERT CONTRIBUTORS
•
•
•
•
•

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Dr. Eric Taylor, Chair of the Committee on Status of Wildlife in Canada (COSEWIC) and Professor in
UBC Department of Zoology
Satnam Manhas, Director of Forestry at EcoTrust Canada
Dr. Wynet Smith, Faculty, Bishop’s University and Senior Associate/Geographer in Residence, IISD
Neil Fletcher, Wetlands Education Program Manager, BC Wildlife Federation
Christine Korol, National Risk Assessment Coordinator, Forestry Stewardship Council (FSC) Canada

WHERE CANADA STANDS: A SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS SHADOW REPORTLIFE ON LANDCROSS-CUTTING THEMES
Indigenous Communities
Satnam Manhas, Director of Forestry at Ecotrust, notes that “a loss of biodiversity is aloss of cultural diversity”, and that this has been demonstrated of Indigenous cultures
around the globe. The path to reconciliation must involve empowering Indigenous communities to reclaim their culture and lands by reclaiming their natural resources andtraditional ways of using them.

GenderMeeting the targets for Life on Land while achieving a more inclusive and equitableworld requires empowering more women and girls to be involved in conservation practice, scientific research, natural resource management, and public policy surrounding
conservation. The stigma that spending time in the wilderness is mostly for boys candissuade young girls from wanting to obtain experience and skills in the outdoors, which
can create barriers to access later in life both for conservation job prospects and for
personal recreation. Programs and policies aimed at encouraging more women andgirls to participate in wilderness activities or pursue careers in STEM, natural resource
management, and conservation policy can achieve this goal.

Climate Change
Climate change exacerbates the need for the precautionary principle in designated protected areas and implementing sustainable forestry practices. We do not fully understand how species and whole ecosystems will respond to increases in average temperatures and changes in climatic regimes; to avoid catastrophic biodiversity declines in
the future, we must act now to foster resilience in Canada’s ecosystems.

Youth
Young people will have to suffer the consequences of today’s habitat and biodiversity
loss. This will mean a degraded landscape for outdoor recreation, fewer available natural resources to support their livelihoods, and a generally poorer quality of life due to theloss of critical ecosystem services.

NATIONAL DATA•••

Canada’s main ecosystem types on land are forests, wetlands, grasslands, tundra, lakes, and rivers
Approximately half of all Canada’s monitored species have seen declining populations since 1974, andhave seen an average of 82% decline between 1974 and 2014
The number one cause of biodiversity loss in Canada is habitat degradation for development andindustrial activities. Other stressors include invasive species, pollution, overharvest, and climate change.

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Introduction

Systems of Protected Areas

Non-human life- from mammals,
fish, birds and insects to plants, fungi, and algae- are consistently left
behind in development projects.
Of the species that are monitored
in Canada, approximately half haveseen declining population numbers
since the 1970s. Activities that are
intended to support the livelihoodsof communities such as logging,mining, and oil and gas development are destroying habitat at a
rate that will cause unprecedented
wildlife extinction in the near future
without adequate action.

Implementing large, well-enforced networks of protected areas is a government’s best tool for protecting critical habitat and enforcing biodiversity loss. Inline with its commitment to the UN Convention on
Biological Diversity, Canada adopted its own 2020
Biodiversity Goals and Targets for Canada in 2015.
Canada’s “Target 1” is a commitment to 17 percent ofterrestrial and inland aquatic ecosystems conservedin its network of protected areas.

Sustainable Development Goal 15 aims to ensurethat Life on Land does not get left behind on the path
to a sustainable future. Progress on the targets under
SDG 15 must be rigorously assessed to keep Canada
accountable, especially because Canadian wildlife
cannot speak for themselves.
This section highlights Canada’s progress on selecttargets under SDG 15. In interviewing experts from adiversity of backgrounds (forestry, wetlands conservation, species at risk assessment, biological consulting), three main issues emerged that applied to allissues and ecosystem types:
1. Challenges emerging from the division ofjurisdiction over natural resources and lands
between the federal, provincial, territorial, andIndigenous governments;
2. Poor data on species abundance andhabitat extent making it difficult to assess
the risk associated with logging, prioritize
restoration sites;
3. A lack of political will to adequately conserve
biodiversity in Canada.

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As of June 2018, only approximately 10% of Canada’s lands are protected; this leaves us last among
the G7 countries for terrestrial and inland freshwater
protected areas, behind Australia and China. This isparticularly inexcusable given Canada has among thegreatest total land area, and proportionally the least
developed land area of these countries. As mentioned in a recent report by the Canada Parks andWilderness Society and other conservation organizations, the government has much catch-up to do in thenext two years to meet Target 1.
Historically, our system of protected areas has seena few criticisms. First, there have been concernsthat some of our National Parks are not adequately
protecting wildlife from human disturbance- one example is Banff National Park, where the presence of
the Trans-Canada Highway has resulted in suspected
to have separated grizzly bear populations. In 2017,
public consultations and a ministerial roundtable wereApproximately half of
all Canada’s monitored
species have seen
declining populations
since 1974, and haveseen an average of 82%
decline between 1974
and 2014.

WHERE CANADA STANDS: A SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS SHADOW REPORTLIFE ON LAND

held and, after several months of delays, the Minister
released a response statement in May 2018 re-iterating the focus on ecological integrity and robust scientific monitoring over tourism in Parks management.
The second criticism has been that Indigenous Peoples have been displaced, left out of the planning dialogue, and stripped of their rights to traditional hunting and other cultural practices in parks. The paththus far working towards Target 1 has aimed to identify what Reconciliation might look like in Canada’s
approach to protected areas. As part of the national
consultation process, an Indigenous Circle of Experts(ICE) facilitated gatherings across the country to discuss how Indigenous communities can be leadersin achieving Target 1. The ICE Report highlights key
messages from these gatherings, and outlines therole Indigenous Protected Conservation Areas (IPCAs) can play in achieving Canada’s 17% protectedarea target. Beyond this, they would elevate Indigenous rights and responsibilities to manage lands
which are rightfully theirs, and respect Indigenous
knowledge systems which have protected natural
systems in Canada for thousands of years throughholistic, ecosystem-based approaches.

“In its most recent
2018 Ramsar report,
Environment and Climate
Change Canada highlights
the National Wetland
Conservation Fund several
times, despite the factthat it was discontinued
partway through theinitially committed
funding period.”

Wetlands
Another international agreement Canada is obliged
to uphold is the Ramsar Convention, which requires
signatories to implement “conservation and wise useof all wetlands and their resources”. In Canada, thisapplies to all lakes and rivers, underground aquifers,
swamps and marshes, wet grasslands, peatlands,
estuaries, deltas, tidal flats, and other coastal areas.
These all provide critical ecosystem services that
benefit wildlife and humans alike, including carbon
sequestration, sediment stabilization to prevent erosion, nutrient cycling, and critical habitat for hundredsof wildlife species nationwide.
While the government has been somewhat effective at protecting and restoring wetlands throughpartnerships with conservancies and private landowners (e.g. Nature Conservancy Canada’s Natural
Areas Conservation Program), more must be done
as an estimated 70% of wetlands in settled areas
have been destroyed. In addition, the government’s
reporting on wetlands conservation to the Ramsar
Convention Conference of Parties must not overstate its achievements. For example, in its most recent 2018 Ramsar report, Environment and Climate
Change Canada highlights the National Wetland
Conservation Fund several times, despite the factthat it was discontinued partway through the initiallycommitted funding period. New funds should be established in the near future to ensure that wetland
conservation and restoration projects receive adequate support.
Currently there is no nationwide system for inventory or monitoring of wetlands. This is problematic for
two reasons. First, we do not know the actual extent
of wetland loss in the recent past for most regionsin Canada. According to Neil Fletcher from the BC
Wildlife Federation Wetlands Education Program,some estimates from the 1980s state that wetlandarea declines at that point in time were up to 90%
for regions such as the Okanagan lowlands in British Columbia. Second, challenges may arise in prioritizing restoration sites if the state of neighbouring
wetlands is not known.
There also is generally no common standard of bestpractice for compensating for wetlands damaged ordrained for development projects. Qualified professionals (biological consultants or “QPs”) are hired by

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industry to provide advice on ecosystem impact mitigation such that the industry project can move forward with minimal costs or hurdles. These QPs will
look to standards outlined in various pieces of legislation that are relevant to the site in question; often thestandards they have to work with are rather sparse as
top-down standards that are legally binding do notexist. In other words, having this work done and standardized at the federal level will incentivize QPs at the
project level to communicate to the company wishing
to undertake a project can expect to bear the costof a restoration or mitigation project that will ensure
the conservation of wetlands habitat and the species
they house. An example of an existing document likethis is the Canadian framework on classification of
wetlands; while not a formal piece of legislation, having the groundwork research and defining completed makes it an easy guideline to follow for resource
managers and conservation practitioners.
Finally, it should be the responsibility of the Ministryof Environment and Climate Change to ensure that
there is no disagreement across Ministries where
wetlands protection is concerned. For example, theMinistry of Agriculture has published reports giving
guidance on the best methods to irrigate wetlands.

Forests
There is no single nation-wide standard for sustainable forestry management practices. It is up to private logging companies to complete and submit theirown forestry management plans for approval by therespective province or territory before beginning logging activities. Assessing the sustainability of a particular wood product in Canada is done by third-party
certification programs. In Canada, these are the Canadian Standards Association and the Sustainable
Forestry Initiative, which are both endorsed by theinternational Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification (PEFC). In addition to these there is
the market-based Forest Stewardship Council (FSC)
certification.
According to Satnam Manhas from EcoTrust Canada,
FSC has by far the most robust environmental and human rights standards of forestry practice. It includes
the rights of forestry workers and Indigenous Peoples
as warranting protection, and is the only certificationthat evokes the principle of Free, Prior and Informed
Consent under the UN Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. It also is the only certification that
requires management strategies to strive to maintainthe state of the environment as it naturally was, rather
than in the state when the project began.

“The Forest FSC Canada recently conducted its National Risk Assessment (NRA) on “controlled wood”, or non-FSC
timber products that come from Canadian
Stewardship Council certified
forests but get mixed with FSC timber when pro(hence receiving an “FSC mixed” label). The(FSC) certification...is the cessedgoal of the National Risk Assessment is to identify
to biodiversity, Indigenous communities, in all
only certification that risks
forest regions in Canada to avoid including wood
unacceptable sources in certified “FSC mixed”
evokes the principle of fromproducts. Christine Korol of FSC Canada notes thatduring the NRA process, one great challenge that
Free, Prior and Informed emerged was the lack of available data on habitat
area decline in Canada. She says that it would be imConsent under the UN mensely helpful if ECCC established a federal baseline methodology for assessing the extent of habitat
Declaration of the Rights decline across Canada. While WWF Canada’s Living
Planet Index does offer a coarse scale assessment
the biome level, this may provide accurate enoughof Indigenous Peoples.” atinformation.
She notes that this has been done reallywell in British Columbia with their Red, Yellow andBlue list system on ecosystem conservation status.

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Preventing Habitat Degradation andBiodiversity Loss, and Protecting Species At Risk
At the Federal level, Canada’s main legislative instrument for preventing biodiversity loss and the extinction of threatened species (Target 15.5) is the Species
at Risk Act of 2002, or SARA. Species are listed under
the recommendation of the Committee on the Status
of Endangered Wildlife in Canada (COSEWIC) using
the best data available. Species are recommended
for listing based on criteria including per cent population decline, and feasibility of population recovery.
Once a species is listed, the minister must release arecovery strategy within one year, and must report on
its implementation every five years.

The number one
cause of biodiversity
loss in Canada is
habitat degradation
for development andindustrial activities.
WWF Canada’s Living Planet Index report found thatspecies that gained legal protections under SARA
have still seen a 28% average population decline
since the legislation was brought into force in 2002.
For species that COSEWIC have recommended as At
Risk but have not been formally listed by the Minister under SARA, the average population decline has
been 64% since 1970, with some species experiencing declines as high as 90%.
In the legislation’s short lifespan, two main challenges
have arisen. First, Canada’s Species at Risk protection framework had seen serious delays to listing andrelease of recovery plans; for instance, between 20112015, none of the species recommended for listing by
COSEWIC were submitted to the cabinet for official
protection under SARA. While the new 2015 government improved the situation by listing recommended
species again, there currently remain over 100 spe-

cies in “purgatory”, waiting to be listed by the minister.
These delays to listing can arise due to a prolonged
socioeconomic consultation process where protecting
critical habitat may hinder industrial activities, or where
the species itself is of economic importance.
The second issue is of jurisdiction; the automatic protection of critical habitat for terrestrial species listed
under SARA only applies to federally-owned lands.
Provinces may be required to submit their own recovery plans if the critical habitat is within their jurisdiction, however this forestalls the recovery process
and has seen the further decline of species and habitat under our watch. Several conservation organizations and members of academia have expressed that
more pressure should be placed on the provinces toprotect critical habitat on their lands. This, however,would require a new legislative framework that explicitly holds provinces accountable to the federal government in these situation, which could take years topass through parliament. In the short term, the federal government must exercise its right under SARA
to administer an emergency order to protect critical
habitat when a province fails to do so.
An example of Canada’s failure to protect a species
from potential extinction owing to these two hurdles
is the situation with Woodland Caribou, which waslisted as Threatened under SARA in 2004. This species has populations in all provinces and two territories with habitat in both federal and provincial land,
making it challenging for all governments to coordinate protections.
In April of 2018, Environment and Climate Change
Canada released a progress report on what has been
done, and what should be done regarding the protection of critical Caribou habitat. What the report fails tomention are local case studies where emergency action has been strongly recommended by local conservation groups; a specific example is the Deep-Snow
Mountain Caribou population in the Upper Clearwater
Valley of British Columbia. In April of 2017, an application for an emergency order was formally submitted to the Minister, strongly urging the need to ceaselogging activity by CANFOR in Wells Gray Park. A
response was received six months after the submis-

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LIFE ON LAND

sion of the application ensuring that the government
would continue to work with the BC government toprotect and recover the species, however no on-theground actions have been implemented since. Meanwhile, clear-cutting and associated road-building are
placing tremendous pressure on the Caribou by putting them at a closer proximity to predators. Trevor
Goward of Canadians for Caribou notes that the storyof the Deep-Snow Mountain Caribou is a contribution to the “Sixth Great Mass Extinction”, but is highly
preventable with adequate action.

“...a loss of biodiversity isa loss of cultural diversity.”

Financial Resources for theConservation of Life on Land
The 2018 Federal budget committed $1.3 billion over
five years towards protecting habitat and species atrisk in Canada. The adequate amount of funding to effectively implement recovery plans ideally should be“billions annually”, according to COSEWIC Chair Dr.
Eric Taylor. Neil Fletcher of the BC Wildlife Federation
notes that while the tax base has increased in recent
years, expenditures on natural resource conservation have remained relatively stagnant, with the extra
funding being allocated to other sectors such as education and health care. While funding the needs of a
growing population is a key responsibility of government, it is worth noting that population growth also
places tremendous stress on natural ecosystems,
which must be adequately reflected in the budget.
All this considered, the pledged funds must be al-—Satnam Manhas, located to on-the-ground initiatives that will achieve
tangible conservation outcomes. For instance, Dr.
Director of Forestry Taylor notes that funding should be prioritized for the
implementation of recovery plans under SARA, as
at Ecotrust the investigative process only needs to be rigorous
to identify key stressors that will allow the species torecover when reversed.

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LIFE ON LAND AND AGENDA 2030
A great challenge of implementing the 2030 Agenda is that all goals should be met without compromisingothers. Threats to life on land often directly arise in pursuit of meeting other human needs such as access towater and food, urbanization, and access to energy. A common driver of wetland destruction is drainage for
agriculture. Construction of housing and other development targets under the SDGs such as Zero Hunger
and Affordable and Clean Energy that aim to improve human quality of life do no articulate that this should bedone without negative consequences to wild spaces. For example, target 7.2 calls upon countries to increase
the share of renewable energy in the global energy mix- while the transition to renewable energy is importantand critical to slowing climate change, this target does not articulate that land use change to make room forrenewable power plants may destroy natural habitats.
If life on land is diminished, consequences will also be felt across the other SDGs. Access to natural spaces directly promote physical health in humans by cleaning the air and water through natural processes. The degradation of certain natural habitats could pose risks to human health as well. For example, the destruction of wetlands
and other sediment-stabilizing ecosystems could increase flood risks in certain areas. If sewage systems are
impacted, this could place nearby communities at risk of waterborne disease and other health complications.
Habitat degradation and loss of biodiversity can also threaten the future use of natural resources such as timberand freshwater fish that some communities heavily depend on as their economic livelihoods. If this places realstress on economic prospects for these communities, it may catalyze migrations to urban centres, which may inturn place stress on these municipalities to update their infrastructure and construct more developments.

RECOMMENDATIONS•

Mobilize financial resources from the 2018 budget towards on-the-ground conservation
initiatives such as local site restoration projects and maintaining protected lands (Targets
15A and 15B)•

Establish and publish official federal best practices for ecosystem monitoring,
resource management and restoration (Targets 15.1, 15.2, 15.3, 15.4, 15.5). With bothconservation and restoration of terrestrial ecosystems, having a document describing
when and how offsetting of habitat degradation should be done may provide usefulguidance to practitioners on the ground. In other words, having this work done andstandardized at the federal level will provide easy-to-follow guidelines to biologicalconsultants working with industry vis-a-vis good conservation practices.

•

Listen to the advice of civil society and academia where emergency actions on species
at risk are required. Political delays could be the difference between the survival andextinction of a population at risk.

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LIFE ON LANDCASE STUDY:
THE GREAT BEAR
RAINFOREST AGREEMENTS

Aerial view of the Hakai Protected Area within the Great Bear Rainforest. Image: Keila Stark

The Great Bear Rainforest is a conservation success story that has received global attention forthe process of multi-stakeholder collaboration
resulting in a strong conservation agreement.
It began with the leadership of First Nations andenvironmental NGOs taking a stand against
industrial activities in the region, and resulted
in a strong network of protected areas, highstandards of sustainable forestry management
where it is allowed, financing for First Nations
economic diversification in the region, and92

greater land-use decision making powers forFirst Nations who call the region home.
The region from the Discovery Islands to the
Alaska border on the West Coast of British Columbia is a pristine temperate rainforest ecosystem that is home to a stunning array of culturally and ecologically significant flora and fauna,
including the rare spirit bear and the keystone
Pacific salmon. The region is home to a population of approximately 18 000, many of whom live
in remote communities with limited access to

WHERE CANADA STANDS: A SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS SHADOW REPORTLIFE ON LAND

health care and amenities and are more vulnerable to poverty. It also houses the unceded territory of nearly 30 First Nations who have been
stewards on the land for thousands of years.
Industrial logging and mining activities posedserious threats to the ecological and cultural integrity of the region. The Nuxalk First Nation was
the first to take a stand against these activities
on their land by protesting at the site of their origin story on King Island. Several more protests
and court cases led by other nations followed.
Environmental NGOs such as Greenpeace andthe Sierra Club also became involved, and introduced campaigns targeting consumers andlarge companies to stop purchasing products
from this ecologically sensitive region.
Eventually, the volatility in the region caused
challenges for the logging sector, and the BC
government moved forward on a multi-stakeholder land-use planning process in 2001. The
Rainforest Solutions Project and Coast Forest
Conservation Initiative were bodies set up byenvironmental NGOs and forestry companies
respectively, and several agreements weremade on both sides to suspend consumer
campaigns and suspend logging activities toallow solutions to be worked out without continuing to damage the forest. Together, the
RSP and CFCI came to be known as the Joint
Solutions Project, which acted as an advisory
body to First Nations and the BC Government
regarding land-use.
Funds were procured via environmental NGOs
through the federal and provincial governments as well as private donations to create
the Coast Fund, which goes towards stewardship and education as well as sustainable First
Nations businesses such as Ecosystem Basedmanagement programs. These facilitate theeducation and empowerment of local communities and younger generations to care for theGreat Bear Rainforest ecosystem, and allows
the First Nations in the area to take leadershipof how their lands and resources are managed.

After about a decade of research and negotiations, the final agreement that was reached in2016 stated that 85% percent of the land areain Great Bear would be protected against industrial logging, with the remaining 15% being
tightly regulated using Ecosystem Based Management. This extremely high area of protection is considered a massive success by observers from around the world, however the
final outcome of the dispute is only a part ofwhat makes the Great Bear Rainforest Agreements a strong case study. Aside from meetingtargets under SDG 15, the process of reaching
this agreement was inclusive and collaborative. While First Nations could have been more
integrated in the Joint Solutions Project brainstorming phase (as opposed to receiving theiradvise and deliberating on that), the outcome
was a significant improvement over the statusquo, and no lands were ceded in the process
which is often the case with similar conservation agreements. Finally, the Great Bear Rainforest Agreements give a baseline framework
to build upon as Canada works towards its
2020 commitment to 17% protected areas onland by implementing more Indigenous Protected and Conserved Areas.

“Source: BC Ministry of Forests, Lands, and Natural
Resource Operations”

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LIFE ON LANDREFERENCES
Korol, Christine. Personal Interview. 26 May 2018.
Taylor, Eric. Personal Interview. 7 May 2018.
Fletcher, Neil. Personal Interview. 26 April 2018.
Manhas, Satnam. Personal Interview. 25 April 2018.
Smith, Wynet. Personal Interview. 4 May 2018.
World Wildlife Fund Canada. Living Planet Index Report Canada, 2017. Retrieved from: http://www.wwf.ca/
newsroom/reports/lprc.cfm
Mooers, Arne, Jeffrey A. Hutchings, Jeremy Kerr, Jeannette Whitton, Scott Findlay, Sarah P. Otto.
“Recovering the Species at Risk Act”, Policy Options, 14 February 2017. Retrieved from: http://
policyoptions.irpp.org/magazines/february-2017/recovering-the-species-at-risk-act/
Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification. PEFC Canada, n.d. Retrieved from: http://www.
pefccanada.org/about.htm
Government of British Columbia. Red Yellow and Blue Lists, n.d. Retrieved from: https://www2.gov.bc.ca/
gov/content/environment/plants-animals-ecosystems/conservation-data-centre/explore-cdc-data/redblue-yellow-lists
Nature Conservancy Canada. Natural Areas Conservation Program, n.d. Retrieved from: http://www.
natureconservancy.ca/en/what-we-do/conservation-program/
Ducks Unlimited. Our work: wetlands, n.d. Retrieved from: http://www.ducks.ca/our-work/wetlands/
Government of Canada. National Wetland Conservation Fund, 01 February 2018. Retrieved from: https://www.canada.ca/en/environment-climate-change/services/wildlife-habitat/national-wetland-conservationfund.html
Canada Parks and Wilderness Society. “The Clock is Ticking: a Mid-term Report Card on the Federal
Government and its Work on the Environment”, 2018. Retrieved from: http://cpaws.org/uploads/Gvt_
MidTerm_Report_ENG.pdf
Canada Parks and Wilderness Society. “CPAWS welcomes 2017 Round Table Response and Renewed
Focus on Ecological Integrity as the First Management Priority for National Parks”, 7 May 2018. Retrieved
from: http://cpaws.org/news/cpaws-welcomes-2017-round-table-response
Conservation 2020 Indigenous Circle of Experts. We Rise Together: Indigenous Circle of Experts’
Report and Recommendations, March 2018. Retrieved from: https://static1.squarespace.com/
static/57e007452e69cf9a7af0a033/t/5ab94aca6d2a7338ecb1d05e/1522092766605/PA234-ICE_
Report_2018_Mar_22_web.pdf
Ramsar Convention Secretariat. The Ramsar Convention and its Mission, 2014. Retrieved from: https://www.
ramsar.org/about/the-ramsar-convention-and-its-mission
Environment and Climate Change Canada. 2020 Biodiversity Goals and Targets for Canada, 2014. http://publications.gc.ca/site/eng/9.809193/publication.html

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Natural Resources Canada. Ecosystems and their goods and services at the national level, n.d. Retrieved
from: https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/16-201-x/2013000/part-partie3-eng.htm
Goward, Trevor. “The Rest of the Story”, Canadians for Caribou, 21 October 2017. Retrieved from:https://1000clearcuts.ca/the-rest-of-the-story/

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PARTNERSHIPSFOR THEGOALS

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WHERE CANADA STANDS: A SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS SHADOW REPORTPARTNERSHIPS FOR THE GOALSTARGETS
Strengthen the means of implementation
and revitalize the global partnership forsustainable development.
Strengthen domestic resource mobilization, including through international
support to developing countries, toimprove domestic capacity for tax
and other revenue collection

Assist developing countries in attaining long-term debt sustainability
through coordinated policies aimed
at fostering debt financing, debt relief
and debt restructuring, as appropriate, and address the external debt
of highly indebted poor countries toreduce debt distress

Developed countries to implement
fully their official development assistance commitments, including
the commitment by many developed
countries to achieve the target of 0.7
per cent of ODA/GNI to developing
countries and 0.15 to 0.20 percent of
ODA/GNI to least developed countries; ODA providers are encouraged
to consider setting a target to provide
at least 0.20 per cent of ODA/GNI toleast developed countries

Adopt and implement investment
promotion regimes for least developed countries

Mobilize additional financial resources
for developing countries from multiple
sourcesEnhance North-South, South-Southand triangular regional and international
cooperation on and access to science, technology and innovation andenhance knowledge sharing on mutually agreed terms, including throughimproved coordination among existingmechanisms, in particular at the United
Nations level, and through a global
technology facilitation mechanism

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98

Promote the development, transfer, dissemination and diffusion ofenvironmentally sound technologies
to developing countries on favourable
terms, including on concessional andpreferential terms, as mutually agreed

Realize timely implementation of
duty-free and quota-free market access on a lasting basis for all least
developed countries, consistent withWorld Trade Organization decisions,
including by ensuring that preferential
rules of origin applicable to imports
from least developed countries aretransparent and simple, and contribute to facilitating market accessFully operationalize the technology
bank and science, technology andinnovation capacity-building mechanism for least developed countries by
2017 and enhance the use of enabling
technology, in particular informationand communications technology

Enhance global macroeconomic
stability, including through policy
coordination and policy coherence

Enhance international support for
implementing effective and targeted
capacity-building in developing
countries to support national plans
to implement all the sustainable
development goals, including throughNorth-South, South-South and triangular cooperation

Enhance policy coherence for sustainable development

Promote a universal, rules-based,
open, non-discriminatory and equitable multilateral trading system
under the World Trade Organization,
including through the conclusion ofnegotiations under its Doha Development Agenda

Respect each country’s policy spaceand leadership to establish andimplement policies for poverty eradication and sustainable development

Significantly increase the exports ofdeveloping countries, in particularwith a view to doubling the least
developed countries’ share of global
exports by 2020

Enhance the global partnership forsustainable development, complemented by multi-stakeholder partnerships that mobilize and shareknowledge, expertise, technology
and financial resources, to support
the achievement of the sustainable
development goals in all countries, inparticular developing countries

WHERE CANADA STANDS: A SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS SHADOW REPORTSECTION TITLE (REMOVE ON PGS WITH H1)
Encourage and promote effective
public, public-private and civil society
partnerships, building on the experience and resourcing strategies ofpartnerships

By 2030, build on existing initiatives
to develop measurements of progress on sustainable development thatcomplement gross domestic product,and support statistical capacity-building in developing countries

By 2020, enhance capacity-building
support to developing countries, including for least developed countries
and small island developing States,
to increase significantly the availability of high-quality, timely and reliable data disaggregated by income,gender, age, race, ethnicity, migratory
status, disability, geographic locationand other characteristics relevant innational contexts

EXPERT CONTRIBUTORS
•
•
•
•
•
•
•

JP Bervoets, Vice President of Community Foundations Canada.
Gavin Charles, Policy Officer for the Canadian Council for International Co-operation.
Naiara Costa, former Director and International Secretariat for the Together 2030.
Rosanna McGregor, President of the Aboriginal Housing Management Association (AHMA) and
Executive Director for the Cariboo Friendship Society in Williams Lake, British Columbia.
Rikia Saddy, Strategic Advisor and author of We Are Canada.
Helen Scott, Executive Director of Canadian Partnerships for Women and Children’s Health.
Deborah Glaser, Senior Policy Analyst, BC Council for International Cooperation

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PARTNERSHIPS FOR THE GOALSCROSS-CUTTING THEMES
Indigenous Communities
Indigenous peoples are continually left out of the international development discourse.
There is a gap between international discourse, government strategies and Indigenous
knowledge on climate change. Canada has made some effort to include Indigenous
knowledge into planning processes through support for the Local Communities andIndigenous Peoples’ Platform within the United Nation Climate Change Conference
for the first time. Canada invited several members of its Indigenous communities toparticipate in the platform, including representatives of the Assembly of First Nations,
Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami, the Metis National Council, Native Women’s Association, and theCongress of Aboriginal Peoples.

GenderCanada’s Feminist International Assistant Policy has situated Canada as a Human Rights
based actor by taking on intersectional issues by promoting gender equality to eradicate
poverty and build a more peaceful, inclusive and prosperous world. However, the notionof gender in international assistance is still binary, and neglects transgendered women.

Climate Change
In addition to the Sustainable Development Goals, Canada is a signatory to the Paris
Agreement on climate change, the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction, andthe New Urban Agenda for sustainable urbanization. These three frameworks intersect
across issues of climate mitigation, adaptation and resilience and most notably impact
Agenda 2030 around the goals of Sustainable Cities (SDG 11) and Climate Action (SDG
13). Lack of progress on any framework will impact progress on the others and theymust therefore be considered collectively.

YouthIntergenerational dialogue and participation is a crucial aspect in accomplishing theambitions of the 2030 Agenda. Engaging and empowering youths to participate in the
SDGs now ensures that the goals will continue to progress until 2030. It also incorporates a new generation of voices and ideas that not only experiences more acutely someof the immediate impacts of many of the goals, but also contributes fresh ideas andskills for solving the problems.

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WHERE CANADA STANDS: A SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS SHADOW REPORTPARTNERSHIPS FOR THE GOALSIntroduction
Sustainable Development Goal 17: Partnerships for
the Goals encompasses and intersects with the entirety of the SDG framework. This goal is to facilitate
intra-country partnerships by “[revitalizing] and [enhancing] global partnership that brings together Governments, civil society, the private sector, the United Nations system and other actors and mobilizes
all available resources.” Goal 17 is also reviewed in
depth at the High-Level Political Forum every year,
which highlights the importance of cooperation andpartnerships at a global level from actors across theprivate and public sector. Currently, Canada lacks aformal federal structure to oversee the implementation of the sustainable development goals and does
not work across levels of government with subnational actors. Civil society organizations have led theeffort to implement projects and initiatives across thecountry to achieve the SDGs at a grassroots level.
A robust implementation strategy and monitoring
framework, along with stronger partnerships at theinternational and subnational levels, are needed tofoster the enabling environment required for bothgovernment and civil society to hit the targets associated with the SDGs.
BCCIC’s previous SDG progress report, Where Canada Stands, analysed Canada’s progress on the SDG
17 targets associated with Canada’s funding of international development - specifically, the government’s
consultations with civil society organizations in developing new policies, and investments and spending on Overseas Development Assistance (ODA).
This report will shift focus to Canada’s progress on
the SDG 17 targets associated with the potential tobuild capacity and promote policy coherence throughinternational cooperation and partnerships with multiple stakeholders, namely civil society and the private sector. For this report, six civil society experts
in Canada and a global strategist were interviewed inregard to their coordination projects at a national andtransnational level.

Data, Monitoring,and Accountability
According to Gavin Charles, Policy Officer for the Canadian Council for International Cooperation (CCIC),
a key challenge in implementing the 2030 Agenda isthat there is no national data that states which groups
are systematically disadvantaged and are getting left
behind. The process and methodology in collecting
national data is not often done in a systemic or usefulway that tracks and maps various societal groups.
As a result, national data is not always transparent
and does not capture the diverse public. Helen Scott,Executive Director of the Canadian Partnership for
Women’s and Children’s Health (CanWach) agrees
and explains that Statistics Canada does not disaggregate data into categories that would, otherwise,
create a transparent illustration of the vulnerable
groups. National data needs to be transparent about
estimates and not create false representations basedon small sample surveys - something that is routinely
done when only 500 Canadian households are sampled to represent approximately 36 million Canadians. The extrapolation of data, says Scott, does notaccurately present a picture of Canada’s demography
and geography, and disaggregating data into categories or collecting more data can lead to a better job of
understanding the population.

“Statistics Canada does
not disaggregate data
into categories that createa transparent illustrationof the vulnerable groups.”—Helen Scott, Executive
Director of CanWach

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PARTNERSHIPS FOR THE GOALS

Capacity Building

Multi-Stakeholder Partnerships

Canada is known as a country that embraces it cultural
mosaic. It is part of the Canadian identity to embrace
and welcome different cultures and peoples from allover the world. Rikia Saddy, a global strategist who
works with the private and public sector, states that
supporting grassroots local organizations in Canada
in essence also supports global issues. With global
migration, local action is directly connected to global
initiatives. Sponsoring refugees or volunteering at a
local soup kitchen in Toronto builds partnerships withdiaspora communities that continue to engage with
communities back home through a Canada’s lens.
Of course, it is also important for Canada to engage
in partnerships with vulnerable and minority groups
who are left behind domestically, as well as internationally. With successful partnerships, Canada would
be able to export national perspectives and knowledge as models to be adopted globally as capacity
building and advocacy strategies.

Canadian Partnerships

Capacity building aims to provide support for NorthSouth, South-South, and triangular cooperation on
effective implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals.1 Rikia Saddy, a strategic advisor who
works with the private and public sector, states thatthe traditional systemic notion of a ‘poor country’and ‘rich country’ is changing, citing the exampleof billionaires in many parts of the global south, andthe United Nations investigation of extreme poverty
in the state of Alabama in the United States. Partnerships with the global South are still important, as
those countries are often left behind in the global
political sphere. Charles asserts that the goals
transform how we think and assess development
practice, especially by changing the way we thinkof who is in and out of development, who is brought
ahead and who is left behind.

1
Triangular cooperation: Southern-driven partnerships
between two or more developing countries, supported by a development country(ies) or multilateral organizations), to implement
development cooperation programmes and projects.

102

Despite the federal government’s commitment toimplementing the 2030 Agenda, there is still no governance structure with clearly defined departmental roles and responsibilities, nor an implementation
strategy to meet the SDGs at the time of publicationof this report. A report published by the Auditor General’s Office in April 2018 showed that the Government of Canada - as represented by Employment
and Social Development Canada, Environment andClimate Change Canada, Global Affairs Canada, Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada, Status of
Women Canada, and the Privy Council - is not prepared to implement the 2030 Agenda. In fact, thereport showed that there was “no communication
plan and no engagement strategy on how to include
other levels of government and Canadians in a national dialogue on the 2030 Agenda.” Furthermore, it
showed that the federal government did not have an“implementation plan or system to measure, monitor,
report on the progress in achieving the sustainable
development goals.” In the absence of federal leadership, Canadian civil society has taken the lead indeveloping and implementing sustainable development projects and initiatives across the country. Thiseffort has been separate from government actions,despite efforts on behalf of civil society to contribute“...the Government of
Canada...is not preparedto implement the 2030
Agenda. There is no
implementation plan orsystem to measure ormonitor progress.”—Office of the
Auditor General

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to implementation strategy development, monitoring frameworks, and partner consultations. In orderfor Canada to catch up and be prepared to implement and monitor the SDGs, the federal government
must support a much stronger and more meaningfulcommitment for a multi-stakeholder partnership on
the SDGs. In return, civil society is able to foster an
enabling environment for government to come up to
speed on what it means to implement and track the
SDGs on-the-ground.
Civil society organizations (CSOs) are crucial for providing a voice to advocate and unify those who arebeing left behind. Charles notes the importance of
CSOs as intermediaries between the SDGs and citizens, and notes the opportunity for CSOs to create
spaces for citizens to be engaged and empowered,and to mobilize broad public passion for sustainability and development. By organizing as a coalition network, CSOs provide an even more powerful voice that
can harness the interconnected expertise of organizations across Canada into overarching initiatives andstrategies that address the collective purpose of the2030 Agenda.

“...philanthropy fromfoundations and theprivate sector [can]unlock the momentum
for regional and local
governments to increase
capacity to generate
solutions”—JP Bervoets, Vice
President of Community
Foundations Canada

Community Foundations Canada, along with CCIC,
the International institute for Sustainable Development (IISD), and the British Columbia Council for International Cooperation (BCCIC), spearheaded thedevelopment of Alliance 2030, a network of organizations, institutions, and individuals from coast to coast
to coast that use the 2030 Agenda as a framework towork on issues around youth engagement, diversity
and inclusion, environmental sustainability, and reconciliation between Indigenous and non-Indigenous
Canadians. The 64 Canadian civil society member organizations commit to work creatively and collaboratively at a local and international level. JP Bervoets,
Vice President of Community Foundations Canada,
states that while SDG implementation in Canada
should be driven by grassroots organizations, there
still needs to be an adjusted top down approachfor community members to collectively localize theSDGs. Given the funding challenges often felt by
CSOs, Bervoets sees philanthropy from foundations
and the private sector as a means to unlocking the
momentum for regional and local governments to increase capacity to generate solutions, and to reachout to communities domestically and globally. To
support such innovative approaches to multi stakeholder partnerships between the private and public
sector, the federal and provincial government must
create policies that will encourage philanthropic endeavours from the private sector.
The Alberta Council for Global Cooperation (ACGC)
brought together representatives from across academia, civil society, different levels of government, Indigenous communities, the private sector and youth
at Together 2017: Collaboration, Innovation and theSustainable Development Goals, the first-ever multistakeholder symposium in Canada dedicated to theUnited Nations’ 2030 Agenda and the SDGs. The
symposium set a foundation for how all stakeholders can work together to use the 2030 Agenda as aframework and common language, creating betterorganizations in a better world. Key findings from thesymposium identified that though some efforts areunderway to implement the 2030 Agenda, the Government of Canada has taken limited action to date
and there is a need for the federal government todemonstrate greater leadership, raise awareness ofthe 2030 Agenda, carry out widespread, inclusive andparticipatory consultations with Canadians on national priorities and how Canada can best implement

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PARTNERSHIPS FOR THE GOALS

the SDGs, outline national priorities, and begin building partnerships for a “whole-of-society” approach to
implementation. The conversation with continue with
the Together 2018 Symposium in November.
The Global Compact Network Canada (GCNC) brings
together leading businesses from across Canada tobuild the capacity of the Canadian corporate sector inachieving the SDGs. The network is dedicated to assisting and empowering over 150 Canadian organizations by facilitating dialogue, sharing best practices,and fostering peer-to-peer learning between companies and stakeholders. With existing multi stakeholder partnerships such as these in place, there is anatural fit for the federal and provincial governments
to step in to support the networks and leverage theirexpertise as tools to achieve the goals.

International Partnerships
Internationally, networks for CSOs and stakeholders around the world are critical for fostering partnerships. Coalitions such as Together 2030 provide
a global platform and space for CSOs and otherpartners and stakeholders to push for action on
the 2030 Agenda by providing support for capacity building initiatives. Naiara Costa, former Director
and International Secretariat for the Together 2030,
explains that Together 2030 has become a spacefor non-profit actors globally, and has especially attracted a lot of attention from CSOs from developing countries, which make up 70% of its members,
where capacity and resources are often limited. In
addition to support, Together 2030 also tracks the
structural implementation of the Agenda by tracking whether countries are implementing the 2030
Agenda, whether they are adopting a national development action plan for the SDGs, and if they aremeaningfully engaging with the civil society sector.
Costa states that Together 2030 encourages organizations to move away from working in silos to facilitate cross-partnerships that can lead to innovative
approaches to leaving no one behind. According to
Costa, she found that groups at UN meetings would
advocate for a particular goal or target in the SDG
framework as the most important, rather than seeing the interconnected and indivisible nature of theframework. Global networks such as Together 2030
encourage and remind CSOs and governments that
fostering a more collaborative and knowledge sharing relationship will lead to achieving the goals collectively and establishing international coherence.
In terms of the Canadian civil society experience at
the global level, the long standing accomplishmentsof Aboriginal Housing Management Association(AHMA) and Canadian Housing Revenue Association (CHRA) has garnered international attention. In
2017, Wendy Hayhurst, Chief Executive Officer for
the New South Wales Federation of Housing Association, attended the Congress meeting for CHRA in
Halifax to learn more about AHMA success in providing affordable and supportive housing for Aboriginal
peoples. Additionally, Rosanna McGregor, Presidentof the AHMA and Executive Director for the Cariboo
Friendship Society, will be speaking about Canada’s
progress on Indigenous housing, as well as AHMA’s
achievements and challenges, at the World Indigenous Housing conference. The inaugural conference

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was held in 2012 in Vancouver, with the second conference to be held in Sydney, Australia in 2019. These
conferences are not only spaces for knowledge sharing, but also a place in which Aboriginal housing initiatives can stay in the spotlight, nationally and internationally, to create a unity with Aboriginal people
from all over the world. This is particularly important
for Canada with the adoption of the UN Declarationon the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) in
2016, which recognizes the individual and collective
rights of Indigenous Peoples and the need for nationto-nation partnerships when setting policy.
At the 2017 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Bonn, Germany (COP23), Canada invited
several members of its Indigenous communities toparticipate on its official delegation and on the formalized Local Communities and Indigenous Peoples
Platform, including representatives of the Assemblyof First Nations, Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami, the Metis
National Council, Native Women’s Association, andthe Congress of Aboriginal Peoples. As part of theParis Agreement, the platform provides Indigenous
peoples and local communities a more active role inshaping climate action. This new platform acknowledges Indigenous Peoples and local communities at
the front line of climate change, rather than traditionally excluding them from international development
initiatives. The international community is recognizing the unique perspective of Indigenous peoples on
reducing emissions, adapting and building resilienceagainst climate change.
In addition to Indigenous peoples, COP23 also welcomed youth delegations from all over the world.
BCCIC sent seven youth delegates to COP23, thelargest delegation of Canadian youth at the conference. However, the outcome of both delegations
was that youth were not included in Canada’s negotiation process or consulted in the policymaking
process. Moving forward, youth delegation teams
need to take part in more meaningful participation in
the international arena by giving them a seat at thetable in policymaking.

Canadian International
Development Initiatives
The cross cutting nature of SDG 13 is reflected ingrassroots and country-level implementation of the
SDGs. During Saddy’s time advising the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, she found that young Canadian activists are mostly interested and attracted toprojects that incorporate multiple lenses such as gender and reconciliation. Interrelated global goals are aneffective way to address the most vulnerable groups.
In 2017, Canada announced its Feminist International
Assistance Policy (FIAP) to support “gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls [as]the best way to build a more peaceful, more inclusive and more prosperous world.” FIAP incorporates
various interrelated goals that also meets the SDGs,
including gender equality, inclusive governance, andenvironment and climate action. Moreover, FIAP is an
historic international development assistance policythat positions Canada as a progressive and inclusive
world leader. Charles commends Canada for creatinga feminist and human rights based policy that tackles intersectional issues and takes into account theindividual and group realities and lived experiencesof local populations by tailoring delivery mechanisms
to local needs. Even though FIAP is a positive stepfor Canada, however, Charles notes that policies andregulations, such as anti-terror legislation, impact theability of humanitarian organizations to operate andpartner in conflict zones. On the ground presence by
Canada in emerging conflict and crisis is when partnerships between countries and organizations such
Canadian civil society groups are needed the most.
Amending legal structures can encourage more localized partnerships and allow humanitarianism througha more people-focused approach, as opposed to asystemic approach.

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PARTNERSHIPS FOR THE GOALS

Civil Society Development Initiatives
Recently, a Canadian non-profit organization, PeaceGeeks, launched a Services Advisor web applicationin collaboration with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. This application is designed
to connect refugees with humanitarian services thatthey need. The application has helped more than 3
million refugees in Jordan and Turkey by providingthem with up-to-date information on the location ofthese service providers. Users are able to search for
specific services, such as shelter and medicine. Thisapplication is an example of sharing technological innovations and the success of fostering partnerships
at a global level to assist in humanitarian aid.
Canada’s expertise and historic funding of global
health projects have made the country a leader on theissue and have provided Canada with a comparativeadvantage on issues such as universal healthcare andsocial housing. In 2016 alone, Canada was the sixthlargest donor country for global health initiatives, andthe second largest donor country for nutrition in 2017.
Almost 19% of Canada’s ODA was spent on global health, which is above the 8% average spent bymembers of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development’s Developmental AssistanceCommittee. Organizations such as CanWaCH leadefforts in the field by bringing together diverse actors
from across civil society and the research and medical communities to implement programs for womenand children’s health in over 1,000 regions around theworld. By exporting and sharing knowledge throughthese networks and projects, Scott believes that they
are best able to advance the CaWaCH mission of
women’s and children’s health and support Canada’s
guiding Feminist International Assistance Policy.

106

Source: Donor Tracker, “Canada’s ODA to Health,” Canada
Global Health, n.d.

“Civil society isable to foster an
enabling environment forgovernment to come up
to speed on what itmeans to implement
and track the SDGs
on-the-ground.”

WHERE CANADA STANDS: A SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS SHADOW REPORTPARTNERSHIPS FOR THE GOALSPARTNERSHIPS AND AGENDA 2030
The cross-cutting themes of SDG 17 in all other goals
are deliberate to ensure that most of the sustainable
development goals intersect when implementing andestablishing partnerships. Costa explains that theintentional overlapping of SDG 17 with many of thegoals was due to the G77 countries wanting to ensure that the principle of partnerships was reinforcedin the global framework and prioritized at every levelof the goals.
Failing to implement this goal has implications in reinvigorating global partnerships for development. Reviewing this goal annually at the High-level Political
Forum also encourages delegates and civil society
organizations to collaborate and create partnerships
to strengthen the means of implementation of the2030 Agenda.

implementation in developing countries by increasing Overseas Development Assistance (ODA) and byinitiating development projects that incorporate multiple SDG lenses. For example, addressing the issueof poverty (SDG 1) in development projects will directly address gender equality (SDG 5), hunger (SDG
2), good health and well-being (SDG 4), and peace,justice and strong institutions (SDG 16).
Partnership for the Goals fosters a space for multistakeholder partnerships to coordinate and provide
support for all of the actors who are incorporating
the 2030 Agenda into their national frameworks.This
goal also incentivizes solidarity between vulnerable
groups around the world to have a voice and be carriers and partners in, rather than just recipients of, development projects.

This goal sets a framework for international development agencies to increase monetary support for SDG

RECOMMENDATIONS•

Establish a formal federal structure to oversee the implementation of the SDGs in eachdepartment.

•

Incentivize the private sector, including high networth individuals, to invest inphilanthropic foundations.

•

Expand multi-stakeholder relationships with the private and public sector.

•

Implement a more rigour method for data collection to disaggregate regional anddemographic data to capture those are being marginalized.

•

Increase the participation of Indigenous peoples in international development efforts.

WHERE CANADA STANDS: A SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS SHADOW REPORT107

PARTNERSHIPS FOR THE GOALSCASE STUDY:ALLIANCE 2030

Alliance 2030 partners display some SDGs at a meeting in Vancouver. Photo by Melody MacLean

Alliance 2030 is a network oforganizations, institutions, andindividuals who are committed
to achieving all 17 Sustainable
Development Goals by 2030
by working creatively and collaboratively at a local and global level.

The Alliance was created as a legacy from
Canada’s 150th anniversary of Confederationand incorporates the Canada 150 priorities ofyouth, reconciliation, inclusion and diversity,and environment into its work. Alliance 2030
is building a searchable database of all thework that’s being done across Canada in alignment with the SDGs, amplified by storytellingthrough their blog and podcast series. This
digital space allows member organizations toconnect with others so they can share learnings, find the support they need, and stay upto-date on the current state of the SDGs.
The concept behind the Alliance 2030 is the“power of together”, centered around theknowledge that the efforts to achieve theSDGs in Canada wont be led by any one organization. Having a collaborative, collective and108

WHERE CANADA STANDS: A SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS SHADOW REPORTPARTNERSHIPS FOR THE GOALS

cross-sector network will maximize the impactof civil society organizations at a national andinternational level.
Alliance 2030 is continuing to build out theirmembership and highlight the work of theirmembers such as user-submitted stories, projects, event, and funding opportunities. The
challenge now is to spread the word about the
Alliance and encourage organizations from all
sectors to join. The searchable database being
built at www.alliance2030.ca will only succeed
if Canadian organizations join the Alliance andshare what they’re working on with the networkand the rest of Canada.

Alliance 2030 runs a National Conversation Series on Canada and the SDGs, which has engaged hundreds of organizations across sectors in person and across the country. Since
the soft launch of the Alliance 2030 digitalplatform, more than 100 members have joined,
including individuals, civil society organizations, government departments and corporations. The Alliance will also be engaging with its
2,500 Canada 150 members and inviting them
to be a part of this new SDG network.

WHERE CANADA STANDS: A SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS SHADOW REPORT109

PARTNERSHIPS FOR THE GOALSREFERENCESCharles, Gavin. Personal Interview. 1 June 2018.
Costa, Naiara. Personal Interview. 27 April 2018.
McGregor, Rosanna. Personal Interview. 4 June 2018.
Saddy, Rikia. Personal Interview. 1 May 2018.
Scott, Helen. Personal Interview. 9 May 2018.
Alliance 2030. About, n.d. Retrieved from: https://alliance2030.ca/about/Atlantic Council for Global Cooperation. Together 2017 Symposium Report, January 2018. Retrieved from:http://acgc.ca/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/together2017_web-1.pdf
British Columbia Council for International Cooperation. BCCIC Youth Delegation to COP23: Project Impact
Report, December 2017. Retrieved from: https://bccic.ca/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/BCCIC-YouthDelegation-to-COP-23-Project-Impact-Report-High-Quality.pdf
British Columbia Council for International Cooperation. Where Canada Stands: A Sustainable Development
Goals Progress Report, 2017. Retrieved from: https://www.bccic.ca/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/HLPFReport-Online-Version-v3-24072017.pdf
United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs. Sustainable Knowledge Platform, Sustainable
Development Goal 17, n.d. Retrieved from: https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/sdg17
Donor Tracker. Canada Deep Dive Nutrition, March 2018. Retrieved from: https://donortracker.org/Canada/
nutrition
Donor Tracker. Canada Deep Dive Global Health, March 2018. Retrieved from: https://donortracker.org/
Canada/globalhealth
Global Affairs Canada. Canada’s Feminist International Assistance Policy, 2017. Retrieved from: http://international.gc.ca/world-monde/issues_development-enjeux_developpement/priorities-priorites/policypolitique.aspx?lang=eng
Office of the Auditor General of Canada. 2018 Spring Reports of the Commissioner of the Environment
and Sustainable Development: Canada’s Preparedness to Implement the United Nations’ Sustainable
Development Goals, 24 April 2018. Retrieved from: http://www.oag-bvg.gc.ca/internet/English/
att__e_43001.html
Together 2030, About, n.d. Retrieved from: http://www.together2030.org/
United Nations Development Programme. Frequently Asked Questions: South-SOuth and Triangular
Cooperation, n.d. Retrieved from: http://www.undp.org/content/dam/undp/library/Poverty%20Reduction/
Development%20Cooperation%20and%20Finance/SSC_FAQ%20v1.pdf
United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Introduction to the Local Communities andIndigenous Peoples Platform (LCIPP), n.d. Retrieved from: https://unfccc.int/10475
PeaceGeeks. Service Advisor, n.d. Retrieved from: https://peacegeeks.org/services-advisor

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WHERE CANADA STANDS: A SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS SHADOW REPORTThe British Columbia Council for International
Cooperation (BCCIC) is a coalition of over 140
individuals and civil society organizations thathas engaged in sustainable development andenvironmental issues for over a quarter century.
BCCIC supports its members in becoming more effective
agents of change in their sustainable development efforts
by disseminating knowledge gained through collaborative
projects, building relationships across sectors and networks,
and developing the capacity of sustainable development
practitioners. BCCIC also represents members’ interests andadvances civil society policy recommendations on municipal,
provincial, national, and international issues.
BCCIC receives support from the Government of Canada,
provided through Global Affairs Canada, and membershipdues; project funding from the Kenoli Foundation, the Pacific
Institute for Climate Solutions (PICS) at the University ofVictoria, and Private Donors.
www.bccic.ca