Staff at the District of Saanich have become the first in Canada to propose an aggressive solution to close the fiscal gap and balance the district’s budget: sue the world’s largest oil and gas companies.
Date: February 14, 2024
Complete Article: Times Colonist
This in-depth article discusses how suing big oil can help address inflationary pressures, which are preventing municipalities from fulfilling their plans for mitigating and adapting to climate change.
Excerpt:
Inflation is threatening to derail the climate plans of one of the most ambitious municipalities in British Columbia, prompting fears cities across the province could be quietly following a similar path.
In response, staff at the District of Saanich have become the first in Canada to propose an aggressive solution to close the fiscal gap and balance the district’s budget: sue the world’s largest oil and gas companies.
On Monday, council members for the District of Saanich unanimously passed the recommendation, which now directs staff to explore joining other local governments in potential future litigation.
The move from the Vancouver Island municipality comes as federal, provincial and local governments across the country consistently fail to meet their climate targets.
In the District of Saanich’s case, high rates of inflation and oversubscribed federal and provincial funding has left the municipality falling behind on its own climate targets, according to a recent report to council.
“Inflation really has had an impact on us,” Rebecca Newlove, manager of sustainability at the District of Saanich, said in an interview.
Newlove pointed to recent plans to retrofit two community centres, and in the process, lower the community’s carbon footprint by thousands of tonnes a year. But when [provincial and federal grants] were finally approved, inflation and building costs had raised the district’s share of the projects to unsustainable levels.
While the local government has made some positive progress in recent years, its latest climate report card found one in five of its climate actions are behind schedule or on hold.
The district’s two largest emitting sectors — transportation and housing — remain far off-track its 2030 targets.
Without enough government funding to accelerate its action on climate change, Newlove said Saanich is looking at more creative ways to balance its budget.
“We’re going up to budget time and we’re realizing that gap,” she said. “We know the numbers are going to be a lot bigger.”