The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) put the famous investor–state dispute settlement mechanism (ISDS) on the map. Now its rebirth as the United States–Mexico–Canada Agreement (USMCA) is taking it off again—at least between the United States and Canada.

Bilateral investment treaties with investor–state arbitration provisions have existed since the 1980s. They were not broadly used initially; the first handful of cases went unnoticed. But when companies used NAFTA’s investment chapter to launch the first international arbitrations against Canada (then the United States and Mexico), law firms leaped at the new business opportunities, and investment arbitration took off.

Today we know of close to 900 arbitrations worldwide—far more than in any other field of public international law. The early NAFTA cases are studied in university programs that did not previously exist.

When the first NAFTA case in the late 1990s challenged a Canadian government environmental measure, it hit like a bombshell. In the following years, foreign investors would sue the Government of Canada 27 times; 26 of those cases were brought under NAFTA by U.S. investors. These cases challenged a wide range of government actions, such as banning products due to their health and environmental risks and denying permits for environmentally unsound projects.

But Canada and the United States have just pulled the plug on this practice. Under the new USMCA, U.S. investors already present in Canada will be allowed to use investment arbitration for another three years. After that, they will have to go back to the good old Canadian courts, like Canadian companies already do. And that is probably about right.

“But what about Mexico?” you might ask. Mexico and the U.S. have negotiated an annex that allows investment arbitration to continue, but only in well-defined circumstances. Established investors can only bring claims about expropriation and non-discrimination. They can no longer base allegations on the most worrisome and fluffy concepts like "fair and equitable treatment." 

Most interestingly, the U.S.–Mexico dispute resolution annex has brought in a concept at the heart of international law: claimants need to first try to resolve issues in domestic courts and can only afterward bring disputes to the international level.

NAFTA’s investment chapter did not follow this international rule and allowed investors to bring claims directly to international arbitration, sidestepping local courts altogether. In the new United States–Mexico annex, investors cannot bypass domestic courts. They must try to use local remedies for 30 months. International arbitration then becomes an option if this does not reach a conclusion.

A few sectors—including oil and gas and some public service sectors— get special treatment. If foreign investors in these sectors have a contract with their host government, they , allowing such can bring claims based on most investor protections contained in the USMCA, including fair and equitable treatment; this includes oil and gas and some public service sectors. In addition, they are not required to go to domestic courts before initiating arbitration. But even claims from these investors are subject to significant new limitations.

All in all, Canada comes out of the investment negotiations in a better situation than when it went in, at least with respect to the United States. Its relations with Mexico, on the other hand, will be regulated under the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, which includes traditional investor–state arbitration.

How Canada will deal with these different approaches and what path it will adopt in future and ongoing negotiations remains to be seen. But, whatever the context of the overall renegotiations of NAFTA, the outcome of the renegotiations on investment should pave the way for new ideas that can provide food for thought for the Canadian administration in its ongoing or future negotiations. At a time when many countries are overhauling their approach to international investment governance, these changes demonstrate a willingness for new thinking.

The dramatic turnaround on ISDS in the renegotiated NAFTA, the agreement which triggered the explosion of ISDS cases in the late 1990s, is significant. Perhaps it will once again spur a novel approach to international investment governance, but one in which ISDS is no longer the norm or is at least more tightly circumscribed.

Can better standards in food labelling lead to healthier communities?

As of 2015, one in five adults and nearly one in six children are overweight or obese in OECD countries. Groups of people facing inequalities are hit harder by these health impacts, with less-educated women two to three times more likely to be overweight than women with higher levels of education. Projections also expect obesity rates to continue to rise by 2030. Estimates suggest the United States, Mexico and England will see 47 per cent, 39 per cent and 35 per cent of their populations respectively reaching obesity by 2030.

Countries are taking a number of approaches to curb obesity rates. Mexico and the United Kingdom, for example, have introduced sugary drink taxes to curb the purchase and consumption of unhealthy, sugar-sweetened beverages.

Recently, Belgium announced it will introduce the NutriScore labelling scheme to help promote healthy eating throughout their country.

NutriScore ranks food from healthiest to less healthy, taking into account a wide range of factors. These include sugar levels, saturated fat, salt, calories, presence of fruit, fibre levels and more. Based on the ranking, the food product receives a traffic light rating system. The healthiest foods are various shades of green, with the less healthy foods marked yellow or red.

Belgium’s public health minister Maggie De Block hopes the NutriScore ranking system will facilitate “the choice of healthy eating” by making it easier to understand what truly is healthy and therefore easier to consume a healthy diet.

But will Belgium’s adoption of this food labelling initiative benefit its communities’ health?

The evidence says yes. Adopted earlier in France, leading French retailer E. Leclerc applauds the initiative’s efforts: a survey of 300,000 consumers confirmed the positive impact of the NutriScore ranking.

NutriScore is a voluntary initiative retailers can use to help their shoppers make healthier purchasing decisions. The importance of these types of initiatives cannot be overstated: they let buyers like you or me easily make informed decisions based on actions taken by the retailer to be more transparent.

As these experiences reveal, consumers are increasingly requesting transparency in food labelling, and voluntary sustainability standards may also adapt themselves to this trend. For example, many markets now incorporate organic labels that provide  information about ingredients the food does not contain, such as genetically modified products, high-fructose corn syrup or harmful pesticides.

With over 400 voluntary sustainability standards operating across the planet, these steps towards transparency enable consumers to make healthier purchasing decisions.  Standards in the aquaculture sector, such as GLOBAL G.A.P., IFOAM or China G.A.P., prohibit the use of synthetic inputs during the aquafarming process, such as using antimicrobials or antibiotics, which can have negative effects on human health when fish are consumed.

Food labelling initiatives can create positive change in our communities, making it easier for people to choose healthy foods. Countries around the world can take note of Belgium’s efforts with NutriScore, and should consider increasing transparency and accessibility to these initiatives for improved community health.

Following the NAFTA negotiations has been like riding a roller coaster, holding your breath because you don’t know what shock might be coming around the next corner.

But one part of the conversation has been utterly predictable: agriculture.

Trade negotiators have struggled over agriculture for decades. The World Trade Organization (WTO) and its predecessor (the GATT) were hamstrung because of disagreements around agriculture. 

Stumbling around dairy supply management continues with NAFTA—with disagreements around how, or whether, production quotas and prices should be supported by governments for domestic dairy, poultry and eggs. It’s a model that strains NAFTA’s style of free trade, but so too do almost all other domestic agricultural support programs.

A bigger debate, however, is being missed around the role of approaches like supply management as a new engine of innovation, productivity engagement, engaging farmers and finding new models for Canada to champion sustainable agriculture in the 21st century. Regardless of what turn the NAFTA roller coaster takes, that’s a conversation this country should be having.

Today, Canada is the seventh-largest exporter of agricultural goods in the world, employing over two million people to produce an impressive variety of crops: from wheat, to fruit and vegetables, to poultry and cattle. Reports from Canada’s Advisory Council on Economic Growth—the 2016 Barton Reports—estimate that Canada could become the second largest food exporter in coming decades, depending on the choices we make.

With the right choices, we could become a leader in sustainable agriculture: building resilient food systems that contribute to economic, social and environmental sustainability. With the wrong choices, however, agriculture could continue to be a leading source of greenhouse gas emissions, biodiversity loss and deforestation.

The policy decisions we make for the sector today will determine agriculture’s contribution to sustainable development in the future. Given the outlook for economic growth, it is increasingly urgent that Canadian agriculture embrace sustainability by integrating techniques that protect the environment, human health and animal welfare. This includes embracing higher productivity yields, increasing the use of precision fertilizers and selecting bio-economy options more broadly, among other approaches.

Demand for sustainably produced products is growing. A 2013 Business Development Bank of Canada report showed that a majority of Canadians now make an effort to buy local or Canadian-made products, and some are even willing to pay a premium.

With this growing demand as a backdrop, and with the urgent need to protect our natural environment, Canada has the chance to harvest an economic boon by blending a new degree of agricultural productivity with sustainability. A reimagined agriculture sector would not only allow us to help feed the world, but also to do so in a way that benefits farmers, consumers and the planet.

In a world where water scarcity affects more than 40 per cent of the population—and potentially up to five billion people by 2050—it is inevitable that human ingenuity will search for a solution.

While water scarcity is a complex issue, unequal distribution of water across the world is definitely a factor. Some regions enjoy abundant access to fresh water while many others suffer from acute shortages. This inequality of water availability will increase in the future based on climate change scenarios.

One of the most ambitious responses to unequal distribution is the large-scale physical transfers of water from one source or basin to another—otherwise known as water transfers.

Ambitious Engineering Undertakings

Water transfers often involve systems of dams, reservoirs, pipes or canals to transfer large amounts of water from a donor basin to a recipient basin. These might extend within the same region or country, but they can also extend across continents.

While many water transfers are implemented to address a water imbalance, they can also be developed for economic reasons. The engineering of dams and reservoirs to relocate vast amounts of water for the generation of hydroelectricity or to enable irrigated agriculture, for example, is considered a water transfer.

Some regions enjoy abundant access to fresh water while many others suffer from acute shortages. This inequality of water availability will increase in the future based on climate change scenarios.

Either way, water transfers are large and lengthy undertakings that expend significant resources and can have long-term impacts on large areas.

Impacts on Water Quality and Water Chemistry

The large-scale transfer of water from one basin to another brings major economic, social and environmental impacts.

Communities around the donor basin can be affected by lower water levels, limiting their own access to freshwater supplies and their capacity to water crops for food. In fact, some water transfer projects have resulted in entire communities being displaced.

Constructing reservoirs by flooding wetlands can also result in the release of greenhouse gases (GHGs), such as carbon dioxide and methane. In the 1990s, researchers at IISD Experimental Lakes Area conducted two experiments to understand the full effect of flooding wetlands and uplands, respectively. In addition to GHG release, scientists found that flooding creates conditions that favour and increase the conversion by bacteria of mercury in flooded soils and vegetation to methylmercury—its toxic form.

Unsurprisingly, water transfers can facilitate the transfer of alien invasive species to the recipient basin and can mix waters of varying salinities. Moreover, moving large amounts of water can interrupt river systems and disrupt fish spawning and migration patterns.

A Curious Loophole: A case from the United States

Whether or not water transfers effectively address water scarcity issues is up for debate. The fact that water transfers have a significant impact on water quality and chemistry, and therefore surrounding environments, is clear.

As scarcity and variability continue, we also need to seek more sustainable alternatives to water transfers. For instance, let’s spend more time and energy considering water efficiency and conservation projects to meet the challenge of water scarcity and growing irrigation or hydroelectricity needs.

If we continue to think of water transfers as viable management options, at minimum we need stringent regulations on the implementation and management of water transfers—particularly for environmental protection. The current legislative landscape, however, reveals a different reality.

In the United States, for example, a decision earlier this year by the Supreme Court rejected a challenge to a loophole in its Clean Water Act that allows governments to conduct water transfers with few restrictions.

In short, the U.S. Clean Water Act exists to prohibit the release of harmful pollutants into waterways. Nevertheless, under its Water Transfers Rule, if water is being transferred between basins, a discharge permit is not required. Environmentalists, nine U.S. states and the Canadian province of Manitoba sued in order to stop the rule, citing many of the water quality concerns explored above, but the Supreme Court has just declined to hear the case.

The result? Water transfers, for the time being, still go relatively unregulated in the United States. While small victories such as the recent decision to reinstate the Clean Water Rule in 26 states may seem like gains, they have little—if any—impact on the water transfers debate.

Decisions to Manage Water Based on Clear Scientific Evidence

The Supreme Court decision might be disheartening, but it does highlight the need for stronger, evidence-based controls on these rather controversial decisions.

While the Government of Canada goes so far as to publicly prescribe against water transfers, in a world facing climate change, ever-intensifying water scarcity, increasing reliance on hydroelectricity and the need for irrigated, stable food production, water transfers may prove inevitable.

If transfers are necessary, let’s make sure that we do all we can to protect water basins from pollutants, invasive species, and altered chemistries. We need stronger regulations to ensure transfers are managed for their long-term and potentially devastating impacts on people, ecosystems and economies. From industry to engineering firms to government, all links in the chain must be held to these standards to ensure implementation across the board.

As scarcity and variability continue, we also need to seek more sustainable alternatives to water transfers. For instance, let’s spend more time and energy considering water efficiency and conservation projects to meet the challenge of water scarcity and growing irrigation or hydroelectricity needs.

Soil contamination is an urgent problem around the world, but the situation is much worse in developing countries undergoing rapid industrialization and urbanization.

China, which underwent its own rapid industrialization in the 20th century, recently estimated nearly 20 per cent of its total farmland had been contaminated by heavy metals.

This dire environmental reality poses serious societal challenges, such as food insecurity and public health threats. Governments around the world have been taking measures and enacting legislation to address the adverse effects of soil contamination. One of the most recent examples is the Soil Pollution Prevention and Control Law (土壤污染防治法) adopted by the top Chinese legislatures on August 31, 2018.

This is the first time China has enacted a law targeting soil pollution. Along with revisions to the Air Pollution Prevention and Control Law (大气污染防治法) in 2015 and to the Water Pollution Prevention and Control Law (水污染防治法) in 2017, this move further demonstrates China’s shift in putting the environment above GDP growth.

Like previous laws addressing pollution, the soil pollution law takes the “putting prevention first” approach (art. 3) and includes an entire chapter (Chapter 3) on preventative measures government authorities and land users should take to protect soil from future pollution. For existing soil pollution, the law holds polluters and users (as it is rare in China for individuals to own land) accountable for a series of risk management and remediation obligations (Chapter 4), with the polluters being primarily responsible.

However, the practicality and effectiveness of these provisions largely depend on whether enough financing is available for cleanup. Unlike air or water pollution, soil pollution may take a long time to surface, which makes identifying polluters difficult. What’s more, toxins remain in soil for centuries and are significantly more expensive—if not impossible—to eradicate.

Some estimates put the cost for remediation efforts between 2016 and 2020 at up to CNY 9 trillion, or approximately USD 1.3 trillion. The government itself estimates it might be able to cover only a small fraction of the overall cost. During the 12th Five-year Plan (2011–2015), only CNY 30 billion (USD 4.546 billion) was allocated to soil remediation, mainly for urban areas.

Combine polluter payments with government support and a prohibitive capital gap still exists in China’s efforts to restore land and protect public health. This gap will have to be filled by private sources.

There are two challenges in attracting this private capital. First, how do we make soil remediation a worthwhile investment for private capital holders? Second, how do we ensure the limited investments from the public purse are used optimally—namely, they are deployed in such a manner as to leverage the maximum private investment?

As an attempt to address these challenges, the new law proposes the establishment of special funds at the provincial level to prevent and control soil pollution in situations where polluters are difficult or impossible to identify (art. 71). However, the law remains silent on the composition or sources of the funds, nor does it contain any provisions on the monitoring of the funds.

In addition to the special funds, the law also encourages donations (art. 74) and establishes a legal basis for issuing tax credits (art. 73) and developing innovative credit enhancement tools (art. 72) to encourage private investments into soil remediation projects.

The law remains unclear on the type of financing instruments that can be used for soil remediation projects and fails to provide detailed procedures to claim these benefits.

The establishment of remediation funds is common practice in many countries. One of the best known is the Superfund established in the United States in 1980. This federal program established a fund with mixed sources to finance cleanup where responsible parties are unknown or have failed to clean sites. (IISD’s detailed analysis of the Superfund and other similar funds and lessons learned from them is online here.)

Such a fund does not yet exist in China, at least not until the new soil pollution law comes into effect on January 1, 2019. The law announces a new era for Chinese production, with more responsibility and less pollution. But the pollution inherited from past practices will require massive amounts of non-public investments into remediation projects. Innovative solutions will be needed.

To address the specific difficulties and risks associated with financing soil remediation projects, IISD has been working with partners to identify and assess innovative financing vehicles and “new finance” approaches that could be explored to complement public sources. Financing Models for Soil Remediation, a series of reports prepared by IISD and partners, analyzes the state of play on financing soil remediation in China. The reports explore international practice on soil remediation financing, as well as real world examples of innovative blended financing that could be adapted to this urgent issue.

Toronto residents were surprised to wake up recently to discover their harbourfront visibly soiled by the sewage of millions of toilets, after heavy rains overflowed aging sewer systems in the area.

When Lake Ontario Waterkeeper members took their phones and cameras to document the sewage on Toronto’s beaches, they were contributing to an alarmingly small dataset that tells us how much of our waste is flowing into waterways.

Wastewater is, admittedly, not the sexiest of topics. Canadians are witnessing the impacts of climate change on our aging infrastructure. These unpleasant but necessary stories about our sewage are capturing everyone’s attention.

It is shocking how little we monitor wastewater overflows. We are trying to manage a problem the extent of which we don’t even comprehend.

In Canada, some municipalities and provinces report on sewage overflows, but these numbers come from rough-hewn models or rainfall calculations. Most of our cities don’t track sewage overflows into oceans, rivers or lakes in real time, and any data used to make decisions on freshwater management and sewage infrastructure are based on little more than informed conjecture.

And that’s only the ones that report. In 2017, more than a hundred municipal wastewater systems did not report their sewage overflow, meaning that major urban areas’ contributions are unaccounted for.

In a country like Canada, where we are proudly home to 20 per cent of the world’s fresh water, getting a handle on where and when sewage enters the streams and rivers is a logistical nightmare.

But there is hope. Collecting, processing and using large amounts of data is not an impossible challenge, nor is it unique to sewage management. In fact, we do it every day.

The network of internet-connected devices we use daily has come to be known as the Internet of Things. This network provides us with data on any number of topics, from when a cluster of cell phones is stuck in a traffic jam to Instagram posts tagging lakes affected by algae blooms. Inexpensive web-connected sensors are becoming the norm.

Our friends in the financial sector are using data harvested from the IoT to understand their clients better and improve customer experience. In the humanitarian sector, data from satellites and cellphones fills in gaps missing from maps, helping experts and local officials plan risk reduction and disaster response activities accordingly.

Stockholm is rushing to become the “world’s smartest city” by putting sensors across the entire water delivery and sanitation system, so residents and waste managers can understand the human and environmental impacts with real data in real time. There is no reason why a similar system cannot be developed for Canada.

Kofi Annan once said, “[w]ithout good data, we’re flying blind. If you can’t see it, you can’t solve it.” The political and social will to fix aging infrastructure can come from simple data that lets us know how we are affecting the environment and where—and prevent the worst problems before they begin.

This editorial first appeared in the Toronto Star on August 28, 2018.

The Government of Canada slated billions of dollars in its 2016 budget to water, wastewater and green infrastructure funding in an effort to ramp up its commitment to environmental protection.

The government’s Disaster Mitigation and Adaptation Fund (DMAF) also pledged to "support large-scale infrastructure projects, including natural infrastructure, to help communities better manage risks of disasters triggered by natural hazards."

This is all encouraging news, as it signals an increasing effort to mainstream a critical piece of infrastructure that can provide multiple advantages—natural infrastructure.

What is natural infrastructure?

What does this term mean, and how can humans and the environment gain from it? Natural infrastructure is an area or system that is either naturally occurring or naturalized and then intentionally managed to provide multiple benefits for the environment and human well-being.

Natural infrastructure can be considered an active form of nature likely focused on the most important of these benefits. Natural infrastructure comprises an active management component aimed at providing (or conserving) the key advantages—such as climate resilience, clean water and biodiversity.

It differs from traditional "grey" infrastructure, such as pipes, tunnels and factories, which are completely constructed by humans. Natural infrastructure is a form of "green" infrastructure, a term that also includes systems with positive environmental outcomes, such as renewable energy or electric vehicles.

For a system to count as "natural infrastructure," it needs to tick three boxes:

• It is natural or naturalized. For example, naturally occurring wetlands are included as well as constructed wetlands or even floating treatment wetlands that emulate the functions of natural ones.
• It is targeted at and/or managed by humans. Natural systems or processes that occur without human management don’t count. This active management means natural infrastructure provides higher benefits than comparable natural systems in neighbouring areas and similar contexts.
• It provides enhanced gains, including, for example, climate resilience to communities, enhanced water quality, floodwater retention, etc.

In addition to naturally occurring and constructed wetlands, other examples of natural infrastructure include riparian buffers, urban forests and woodlots, meadows and pastures, and community gardens. Green roofs, treatment lagoons and urban stormwater drains can be naturalized with human intervention and therefore also count as natural infrastructure.

What’s the difference between natural infrastructure and just plain old nature?

Nature provides us with a range of benefits—many of which are quantifiable and valuable in real economic terms.

Natural infrastructure can be considered an active form of nature likely focused on the most important of these benefits. Natural infrastructure comprises an active management component aimed at providing (or conserving) the key advantages—such as climate resilience, clean water and biodiversity.

Consider a ditch or low-lying area that collects water when it rains. Left to its own devices, it might provide some positive effects, including water filtration and a habitat for insects and birds. This is defined as "nature." If not actively managed, over time some benefits might decrease and others might increase.

A managed wetland might involve manipulating the water levels at specific times, cleaning out the plant growth and enhancing the ability of the wetland to provide cleaner water, carbon storage and habitats for a range of species. Wetland management might also enhance some flood damage mitigation effects or provide water in times of drought. This is defined as "natural infrastructure."

One way to think of natural infrastructure is “nature at its best.”

What kind of value can natural infrastructure bring to humans?

Many of the benefits provided by nature and natural systems are not valued in real economic terms.

These benefits, or "ecosystem services," are gaining in popularity as a means to improved well-being and sustainable development. While we need clean water and pay millions to build or upgrade water treatment facilities, there isn’t a dollar value on clean water provided by natural systems, such as wetlands. As a result, it’s harder to value natural infrastructure.

Making the business case is the next challenge. Questions of cost, value depreciation and returns on investment will abound, and proponents of natural infrastructure need to be ready with answers.

Even so, natural infrastructure is emerging as a useful means to acquire these benefits on a larger scale. Moreover, policies and markets are starting to emerge to deliver some ecosystem benefits, such as carbon sequestration. Other systems are being prioritized because they deliver multiple gains (for example, soil health that improves carbon storage, agricultural productivity and water management) or are increasingly important in a time of global growth and deteriorating natural systems (such as cleaner water).

How does natural infrastructure compare to traditional grey infrastructure?

In many instances, natural infrastructure can be more cost efficient and sustainable.

At lower costs than those associated with building and materials, and often at lower operational costs to manage compared to ongoing built infrastructure costs, we can offset millions in spending on a grey infrastructure system that may provide only one key benefit. For example, while a wastewater treatment plant’s sole function is to pump out clean water, well-managed wetlands can perform that function while also providing habitats for key flora and fauna, recreational capacity and removal of greenhouse gases.

In addition, while built infrastructure like dams and pipelines perform one function but can be damaging to the environment and people in other ways, natural infrastructure generally enhances natural systems, often more efficiently and in longer-lasting ways.

Where is natural infrastructure already having an impact?

Perhaps the best-known example of natural infrastructure is in New York City. As part of a larger effort to protect the city’s drinking water sources, Boreas Lake, upstream of the city’s drinking water supplies, is maintained within the protected areas of the Adirondack Park by The Nature Conservancy to provide clean waters, as well as to maintain habitats, tourism and recreation. Thanks to its strategic investment in natural infrastructure, New York City continues to enjoy inexpensive clean drinking water and other valuable benefits.

Where do we go from here?

We should start to envision a future where combined natural and built infrastructure systems meet our not only our water needs but also enhance air quality, biodiversity and provide other benefits.

Making the business case is the next challenge. Questions of cost, value depreciation and returns on investment will abound, and proponents of natural infrastructure need to be ready with answers.

Despite the barriers, we are on the move! In June, Canada announced CAD 1.8 million in funding to restore 75 hectares of salt marshes to combat rising sea levels in Eastern Canada's Bay of Fundy.

Seizing that momentum through more strategic investments in natural infrastructure will help us ensure that we harness the best of what nature has to offer without putting more strain on an already stressed planet.

It began and ended with two new cabinets and two new words: climate change.

They were added to the title of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s first Minister of the Environment and Climate Change in 2015; and taken away from the new title for Ontario Premier Doug Ford’s first Minister of the Environment, Conservation and Parks in 2018.

Those two cabinet changes mark the high- and low-water marks of climate change progress in Canada. With the first, the Trudeau government set about creating the Pan-Canadian Framework on Clean Growth and Climate Change (PCF) in December 2016. With the second, the Ford Progressive Conservative government repealed its cap-and-trade system and commenced a legal challenge to Ottawa’s plan to require provinces to implement carbon pricing regimes by 2019.

In just over two years, Canada has swung from a seeming inevitability on climate action with carbon pricing to a pitched political battle between Liberals and Conservatives, some provinces and Ottawa, challenging the very notion of carbon and climate action at all. Climate policy has reached a crossroads in Canada. Next year’s federal election looks now as the deciding event.

Despite the federal Liberal government’s avowed commitment to global and Canadian climate action under the slogan “Canada is Back”, the terrain for what became the PCF was tilled by “the two Stephens”: Harper and Dion. The 2008 federal election put paid to the notion of a carbon tax to reduce emissions. Then Liberal leader Stéphane Dion promoted his Green Shift carbon tax. Prime Minister Stephen Harper castigated it as a “tax on everything”, winning an increased minority government.

From that moment on, federal Conservatives became unalterably opposed to formal carbon pricing as a tool to reduce emissions, despite their own, soon-to-be-discarded cap-and-trade plan known as Turning the Corner. A slow, sector-by-sector regulatory approach was adopted instead. But the high-emitting oil and gas sector was consistently left out and Canada’s emissions rose until the 2008-09 recession caused them to drop, before rising again.

But if Harper effectively poisoned the political well on using a carbon tax, he bequeathed a poisoned chalice to both his own party and the Trudeau government: his Paris 2030 targets. By setting yet another ambitious GHG reduction target of 30 per cent below 2005 levels by 2030, he just as effectively boxed-in future government action. Thinking this target would be politically bullet-proof from their Conservative opponents, the Liberals adopted it with alacrity in 2015. Andrew Scheer, the new Conservative party leader, then drank from it earlier this year with a public commitment to reach the Paris target but without a carbon tax.

Yet, this target is proving just as resistant to actual achievement as every other Canadian climate target from Kyoto onwards. Now owning it, the Liberals are criticized for instituting a modest carbon tax to help achieve it (it is either too much or not enough, say the same critics). Meanwhile, the Conservative position will be extremely difficult, if not outright impossible, to accomplish with a regulatory approach alone.

The basis, then, for sound climate public policy in this pre-election year is increasingly looking like a re-run of the 2008 campaign.

The Trudeau government’s initiative to knit together a pan-Canadian climate approach was based on the realism of federalism and the state of climate play when he took office. Under the Harper government, provinces had been the leaders in climate action, from British Columbia legislating the country’s first-ever carbon tax to Ontario closing down its coal-fired electricity plants to Quebec bringing in cap-and-trade. Any national policy had to realistically account. Here’s a thought experiment: if the Liberals took office today determined to bring in a national climate policy, would they bring in their current PCF plan?

The answer is very likely “no”. With dimming provincial support for climate action, it would be up to the federal government to impose a uniform carbon price and the elements of a pan-Canadian climate plan. In less than two years, Canada has moved from a provincially-led, federally-backstopped climate policy to one that looks more and more ‘federally-led, provincially-backstopped’.

In that vein, the Ford government’s withdrawal from the climate sphere can be seen as either a brake or an accelerator to a truly pan-Canadian climate policy for the country. Carbon pricing opponents are framing it as unstoppable momentum to ending the “Trudeau carbon tax”—the brake. Seen another way, it actually creates an opportunity for the federal government to re-cast its pan-Canadian climate policy and bring about the carbon price uniformity and certainty sought in the PCF—an accelerator. The tool to do so: revenue recycling to people.

There is today a window to implement a truly national PCF that fits more directly into a federally-mandated carbon and climate policy. One that does not focus on price stringency to achieve environmental outcomes. Here are the elements that could make it up:

First, leave Quebec alone to implement its cap-and-trade system with California under the Western Climate Initiative. There is no movement currently in Quebec to withdraw from carbon pricing or climate action. As this is an international agreement, Ottawa should not sunder it.

Second, bring in a national carbon tax floor of $25 or $30 per tonne (or 5-7 cents per litre of gasoline) for all other provinces at once. Instead of just doing this for two provinces now and presumably Alberta later, apply it to all of them. Provinces could have a higher price if they so desired, but they could not have a lower price. This is higher than the current $20 per tonne price set for 2019 but not unduly so. A higher price would also incent more emissions reductions at the outset.

(A $30 per tonne “carbon price collar” was in fact recommended by the now-defunct National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy in 2010 as a competitiveness measure to allow Canada to move on climate action without getting too far ahead of the U.S.)

Third, keep that price flat until the 2022 review. Business is worried about escalating carbon prices and a “layering” of regulations on top of it, and this would give a pause to businesses’ benefit while NAFTA is settled with the United States.

Fourth, recycle all of the carbon tax revenue directly back to residents in each jurisdiction in the form of dividend or rebate cheques. Better still, do it for individuals, not households, to maximize the size and visibility of the dividend. For those provinces with revenue recycling systems already in place, they could have the choice of retaining their current system or withdrawing in favour of the federal government’s dividend cheques, which would actually be worth $200-$300 for each person. A four-person household could wind up receiving rebates totalling more than a thousand dollars.

Fifth, bring in output-based carbon pricing for large emitters as currently being implemented in Alberta, and planned for Saskatchewan and Manitoba. This system of industrial performance standards reduces the cost of carbon pricing for emitters by returning a portion of their payments in the form of a subsidy. This prevents carbon leakage and reduced production for trade-exposed sectors. The recent adjustments by the federal government to its proposed output-based system actually eased the cost burden even further on industry; smart recognition that industry needs more transition support to implement carbon pricing, even if the politics of doing so has left the Trudeau government open to largely specious charges of back-tracking on its carbon policy.

At one bold stroke, the federal government would take the policy responsibility to go with the political responsibility it has for all practical purposes already assumed for its carbon and climate approach. The effect of hundreds of dollars in rebate cheques going into peoples’ pockets is the best, and frankly, only way at this juncture to ease carbon pricing into place for all Canadians.

The federal government’s legal authority to tax and distribute is widely agreed. By having an equal carbon floor price across the country, all jurisdictions are being treated the same. A uniform carbon price for the country takes root. Since the effect of the legal challenge from Saskatchewan and Ontario is to curtail federal action period on climate, it can be seen as a necessary but limited assertion of federal authority in this important field.

The effect of this would be to impose a carbon price on the following provinces: Alberta (if there is a change in government), Saskatchewan, Ontario, New Brunswick, PEI, and Newfoundland and Labrador. The floor carbon price is modest enough not to create significant economic differentials between provinces. The flat rate ensures the political impact is equally modest as consumers and businesses are not hit with rising fuel bills each year. And, it requires governments to look at more politically-acceptable non-pricing measures to close the Paris gap.

Ottawa has lost control of the climate narrative in the country. 2018 is not 2015 or 2016 in terms of its political authority and willingness of provinces to collaborate on climate. Only a bold move will suffice to salvage it. But to bite the bullet on climate, it must water its wine too. A revised national carbon floor price with full revenue recycling cheques back to individuals does just that.

It still features key elements of the current PCF: carbon pricing, output-based industrial pricing, revenues kept in each jurisdiction, a 2022 review, and provincial flexibility to do more.

Next year—an election year—is likely to determine whether Canada will act as one on climate or reanimate the fragmented approach of the recent past. If elections matter, this next one promises to be consequential.

This op-ed first appeared in Policy Magazine on August 24, 2018.

Recently, the Yorkshire Purchasing Organization (YPO) awarded a five-year contract of GBP 600 million to Amazon for the supply of an online one-stop shop for all public agencies in Yorkshire.

This digital marketplace from the retail powerhouse will provide everything from paper to medical supplies for Yorkshire’s education, social and emergency services. These vital public services will be able to purchase everything they need in one place, as opposed to the region’s previously complicated procurement system involving multiple suppliers.

YPO is thinking big about public procurement. Gillian Askew, YPO’s Head of Procurement, has said “good procurement… can be nothing short of transformational,” and I could not agree more. The news of a major purchasing body taking an innovative leap is cause for excitement.

An online one-stop shop is a great opportunity for sustainable procurement, something that typically requires a certain scale. For example, suppliers will sell and produce their goods in environmentally friendly ways if they know there is a demand. In the case of Amazon’s new digital marketplace for Yorkshire, that demand coalesces on the items every public agency in the region purchases. This is known as “bundling demand” and is one strategy for implementing sustainable public procurement, which is exactly what Amazon’s one-stop shop can do.

I deliberately say “can” because it only accomplishes this goal if we ask for environmental or social sustainability standards to be included. We do not know if any such aspects will be considered when Amazon sets up their marketplace, as the tender documents do not mention sustainability.

This missed sustainability opportunity could be remedied throughout the negotiation process. Another concern remains, however: Amazon was the only company to submit a valid expression of interest for the one-stop shop project for the Yorkshire community. Good public procurement is based on open and fair competition because only then can the best available solution be identified and selected.

YPO is moving forward against best practices by only considering Amazon’s bid, ignoring how open and fair competition is a core principle of public procurement. The fact that YPO complied with the procurement rules is no justification for circumventing this crucial principle. Competition in public procurement is essential to identifying innovative solutions that bring value for taxpayers.

It is a jump in the right direction when purchasing bodies experiment with innovative ways to transform public procurement. But awarding a GBP 600 million contract to a multinational company with no specifications on sustainability, and without considering another service provider, means this leap could fall flat on its face. Yorkshire’s communities deserve a better attempt at getting value for money for their taxes.

Recently, The Economist Intelligence Unit released its annual Global Liveability Index 2018 (GLI).

The index ranks 140 cities worldwide on factors such as social stability, culture and environment, healthcare, education and infrastructure. Vienna, Austria, topped this year’s list, surpassing 2017 leader Melbourne, Australia.

Lists such as the GLI cause a lot of buzz. They are a source of pride for citizens and present marketing opportunities for cities in top-ranking positions.

The true benefits from such an index cannot be realized, however, because the proprietary methodology and steep cost for the data used to calculate the rankings limit its usefulness for the communities on the list. The power of data lies in its ability to inform decision making and to enhance the accountability of decision-makers. When leaders and citizens access open, community-level data based on a broad range of well-being indicators, policies and decisions can be made in an informed manner.

When data is open, communities can make decisions that impact livability.

Almost three years ago, in September 2015, United Nations member states adopted a framework for addressing shared challenges. The 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and their 169 targets provide the global community, national governments and local actors alike a guide for action until 2030.

The SDGs address challenges that both rich and poor countries face, such as climate change, poverty and hunger, as well as the need to innovate for the jobs and workforce that will drive us forward in the 21st century. A key feature of the SDG framework is that it is measurable. Over two hundred indicators are used to track implementation and to provide information about where progress remains slow and where complementary, or competing, targets may exist.

While the primary responsibility for reporting of data to identify progress in achieving the SDGs is made at the national level, cities around the world are recognizing the value of tracking their own progress against the SDGs. This July, during the United Nations High-level Political Forum on Sustainable Development—where states convene annually to assess their progress on the SDGs—New York City stepped up as the first municipality to formally present their plan, and progress, in implementing the SDGs through a Voluntary Local Review.

Likewise, citizen groups and regional-level governments are recognizing the value of localizing the SDGs, including by collecting and using data to drive decision making. Winnipeg’s Community Indicator System, Peg, is the first of its kind in Canada to connect local indicators to the SDG framework and report transparently on the city’s progress. South of the border, a number of U.S. cities and states are also tracking progress, including Baltimore, San Jose and the State of Hawaii.

While the release of the annual GLI provides brief bragging rights for cities that have been ranked above their peers, open, local data is the best way to encourage real progress. As the social, environmental and economic issues that cities face become increasingly complex and urgent, open data enables more transparent, measured and targeted decisions that can push new innovations, with results that leave no one behind and have lasting impacts for citizens’ quality of life.