Preliminary Recommendations for Recovery and Budget Actions in 2020-2021

Published by: David Suzuki Foundation and partners
Partners: Green Budget Coalition

Climate solutions, Biodiversity green and just recovery, chemicals and toxins, conservation, economics, energy, greenhouse gas emissions, policy and regulation, Indigenous protected and conserved areas

For 2020-21, the Green Budget Coalition is featuring the following four transformative investment opportunities with the potential to create new jobs and accelerate progress in addressing the climate and biodiversity crises:

1. Stimulus investments to boost clean transportation industries — creating jobs while reducing Canada’s leading source of emissions.
2. Building-retrofit jobs — investments to reduce emissions.
3. Nature-based climate solutions.
4. Conservation and Protected Areas, including Indigenous Protected Areas and Guardian programs.

This document further outlines many complementary recommendations with the potential to create jobs and advance long-term environmental sustainability, including:

• Further transformative large-scale investments in renewable and decentralized energy, transit, restoration and natural infrastructure.
• Smaller job-intensive investments including existing Great Lakes programs, wildlife collision-mitigation infrastructure, and supporting reduced reliance on single-use plastic and expansion of the circular economy.
• Renewing and improving existing foundational programs such as environmental enforcement, the Chemicals Management Plan, Pest Management Regulatory Agency, fisheries and oceans management, international climate finance, regional-scale governance and First Nations water infrastructure.
• New initiatives to support sustainable agriculture, fresh water, Canadian Water Agency, and environmental data and science.

Implementing these Green Budget Coalition recommendations would lead to transformative progress in advancing a healthier, safer future for Canadians from coast to coast to coast.