Carney’s ecocidal agenda offers short-term gain for long-term pain

Posted on by Dr. Trevor Hancock

Focusing on energy, trade, critical minerals, transport and data projects has already brought us to the brink of the ecological precipice.

Dr. Trevor Hancock

22 September 2026

698 words

Everyone is applauding Mark Carney for standing up for Canada in the face of Donald Trump’s assault on us. And of course we need to do that. But Carney’s strategy – doubling down on “a series of nation-building projects in energy, in trade, critical minerals, transport, data, and beyond”, as he noted in an April 2026 address – is simply an acceleration of ‘business-as-usual’, a model of resource extraction and industrial development firmly rooted in 19th and 20th century thinking about the economy and nature.

However, it is ‘business-as-usual’ over the past century that has brought us to the brink of the ecological precipice. The latest Planetary Health Check report, just out this week, confirms we have already crossed planetary boundaries for seven of nine vital natural systems and the trends for all seven are headed in the wrong direction.

So the last thing we need is an approach that says we can keep growing our economy, our use of resources, our creation of pollution and wastes and our impacts on the Earth’s natural systems within the finite system that is our planet.

That is an approach that led Kenneth Boulding, a former President of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, as far back as 1973, to remark to the US Senate that “Anyone who believes exponential growth can go on forever in a finite world is either a madman or an economist”. Well, our Prime Minister is an economist.

So it is disturbing to see the consistent pattern of environmental ‘ignore-ance’ in the Carney government’s agenda. The Throne Speech 15 months ago, titled “Building Canada Strong: A bold, ambitious plan for our future”, made no reference at all to sustainable development. It mentioned the environment only once, in a throw-away line about “upholding Canada’s world-leading environmental standards” – which the government has since been systematically undermining.

We have seen the government roll back action on climate change by getting rid of the consumer carbon tax and the EV sales mandate, while at the same time supporting increased tar sands and LNG extraction and promising public funding (i.e. subsidies) for new pipelines. Carney has said he wants Canada to be an energy superpower in both conventional and alternative energy, but as Dr. Courtney Howard, Chair of the Global Climate and Health Alliance, remarked in her opening plenary talk at the Victoria Forum last month, it’s not enough to be an energy superpower, we should be a GOOD energy superpower, and doubling down on fossil fuels is the wrong approach.

Meanwhile the government is proposing to relax other environmental safeguards in the interest of major projects of national importance. Noting “the Building Canada Strong Act amends five federal laws, including the Impact Assessment Act, Species at Risk Act, and Fisheries Act”, Lisa Gue, national policy manager at the David Suzuki Foundation, said this past week: “Ottawa’s move to streamline regulations is code for steamrolling nature protections.”

So yet again I point to the deep truth underlying the 2014 statement from the World Wide Fund for Nature statement – a deep truth Carney and his supporters either do not, cannot or will not understand: “Ecosystems sustain societies that create economies. It does not work any other way round.” So sadly, but also disastrously, Carney’s real legacy will not be a stronger Canada but a dangerously weakened Canadian and global ecological system. Fundamentally, the government’s approach is ecocidal.

In 2021 a panel of legal experts from around the world defined ecocide as “unlawful or wanton acts committed with knowledge that there is a substantial likelihood of severe and widespread or long-term damage to the environment being caused by those acts”. Who can doubt that the wanton and deliberate act of expanding fossil fuel use, or any of the other policies that contribute to further transgression of planetary boundaries, is ecocidal.

The Carney government needs to re-think its entire approach to building a Canada fit for the 21st century. We need a Canada that – in the interests of current young people and future generations – pivots to put the planet ahead of economic growth, that commits to living within planetary boundaries and to equitably sharing our already immense wealth.

© Trevor Hancock, 2026

thancock@uvic.ca

Dr. Trevor Hancock is a retired professor and senior scholar at the

University of Victoria’s School of Public Health and Social Policy

Fossil fuel expansion is ecocide – A crime against nature and humanity

Posted on by Dr. Trevor Hancock

The expansionary actions of the fossil-fuel industry, governments and private and public-sector investors, in Canada and around the world, amount to ecocide. While not yet technically a crime, their actions are morally unacceptable.

Dr. Trevor Hancock

11 September 2026

694 words

Published in The Hill Times 24 September 2026

While I strongly support Mark Carney’s efforts to distance us from Trump and the USA, his support for the fossil fuel industry and fossil fuel expansion as part of that strategy cannot be accepted. It will harm Canadians and others around the world, now and in the future, by undermining the natural systems that are the most fundamental determinants of our wellbeing. This constitutes ecocide.

The Stop Ecocide campaign was founded in 2017 with a mission to establish ecocide as an international crime, alongside the four other international crimes judged at the International Criminal Court: Crimes against humanity, war crimes, genocide and crimes of aggression. So far four countries have supported the proposal and eight countries in Europe and South America are considering including it in their domestic law.

In November 2020 the Stop Ecocide Foundation convened an independent expert panel to define ecocide. In its June 2021 report, the Panel defined ecocide as “unlawful or wanton acts committed with knowledge that there is a substantial likelihood of severe and either widespread or long-term damage to the environment being caused by those acts.”

By ‘wanton’ they mean “reckless disregard for damage which would be clearly excessive in relation to the social and economic benefits anticipated”, while ‘severe’, ‘widespread’ and ‘long-term’ speak for themselves.

Which brings us to two reports on climate change released in early September – one from the UN Environment Program (UNEP) and one from the Government of Canada. They make it plain that our collective failure to rein in greenhouse gas emissions is already resulting in severe, widespread and long-term harm to the environment and thus to people – and it’s only going to get worse.

The UNEP report notes “global temperature rise is set to cross 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels, likely within the next few years.” In other words, we have already lost the battle to keep global temperature increase below 1.5°C. In a press release the UNEP adds “The most optimistic scenario will see temperature rise peak at 1.8°C above pre-industrial levels . . .  Most other scenarios predict higher peaks.” UNEP Executive Director Inger Anderson stated “There are no good outcomes if we remain above 1.5°C.”

Here in Canada, the government’s own just-released report states with high confidence that “In the near term, Canada will continue warming at close to twice the global rate . . .. On average over this 20-year period, Canada is projected to be 2.7°C (1.8–3.6°C) warmer”. Over the long term, “under current global climate policies . . . Climate change in Canada will intensify through the century . . .  In 2081-2100, average warming across Canada relative to 1850–1900 is projected to reach 5.0°C (3.8–6.6°C).”

Among the consequences of higher temperatures the UNEP report lists are “Intensified extreme weather, ecosystem loss, and submersion of Small Island Developing States (SIDS) and low-lying coastal cities.” The report anticipates “Severe damage to human health, food security, water supplies, nature, cities, infrastructure and economies.”

Extreme heat in Europe alone has been estimated to have killed anywhere from 20,000 to 35,000 people this year. On July 31st the World Health Organization reported: “Between 2000–2019 studies show approximately 489,000 heat-related deaths occur each year, with 45 percent of these in Asia and 36 percent in Europe.”

We have already seen the dramatic effects of extreme heat, wildfires, storms, floods and droughts across Canada this year, and it’s only going to get worse. If this doesn’t constitute severe, widespread and long-term harm to the environment and to people, I don’t know what does.

So in the face of clear evidence of current harm and the substantial likelihood of growing harm in the future, the prudent thing to do would be to reduce fossil fuel use as rapidly and as soon as possible. To fail to do so, and indeed to support fossil fuel expansion through continuing subsidies, weakening of regulations and ongoing private and public investment amounts to reckless disregard.  

Clearly the expansionary actions of the fossil fuel industry, governments and private and public sector investors, in Canada and around the world, amount to ecocide. While not yet technically a crime, their actions are morally unacceptable.

© Trevor Hancock, 2026

thancock@uvic.ca

Dr. Trevor Hancock is a retired professor and senior scholar at the

University of Victoria’s School of Public Health and Social Policy

The Victoria Forum: Seeking virtuous solutions

Posted on by Dr. Trevor Hancock

·      Published as “Trust, justice and well-being key themes at Victoria Forum”

“Trust is eroding, injustice persists and the world is under mounting strain from economic disruption, climate change and their impacts on health.”

Dr. Trevor Hancock

1 September 2026

700 words

Last week I discussed the wicked problems of the polycrisis and the need to work together to find virtuous solutions rooted in the public good, where virtuous means “behaving in a very good and moral way” (Oxford Dictionaries). How then should our society behave morally with respect to the inter-connected ecological, social, political, economic and ultimately ethical challenges we face? 

This was the underlying question behind this year’s Victoria Forum. The main themes were trust, justice and wellbeing because “trust is eroding, injustice persists and the world is under mounting strain from economic disruption, climate change and their impacts on health.”

In considering this underlying question it is worth looking back at an article in the Times Colonist last year by Saul Klein, former Dean of the Business School at UVic and Executive Director of the Victoria Forum, and Arti Freeman, President and CEO of Definity Foundation. They wrote:

“For a long time, we believed that our systems just needed fixing, that they were broken or outdated. But we’ve come to realize something more unsettling.

These systems are not broken. Their negative outcomes are not bugs. They are features of the way they were designed. And they are producing exactly what they were incentivized to produce — environmental degradation, exclusion, concentration of wealth, and structural inequality.”

So how do we create instead a societal system that incentivizes environmental restoration and regeneration, inclusiveness, a fair sharing of wealth, greater social and political equity and other key aspects of a society committed to a sustainable, just and healthy future? That was a theme addressed by Senator Rosa Galvez in a ‘white paper’ she is soon to release calling for ‘a new North Star’ to guide Canadian society, based on long-term wellbeing for all within planetary limits.

There is a close relationship between these ideas and traditional Indigenous knowledge and values, which was the focus of the opening plenary session – appropriately held at the Songhees Wellness Centre – on Truth and Reconciliation in Canada and globally.  Indeed, Indigenous knowledge and values – from respect for Mother Earth to thinking ahead for seven generations, and much else – was a constant theme throughout the Forum.

The concept of ‘goodness’ kept cropping up. In his plenary talk, Dr. James Orbinski, a leader of Doctors Without Borders and now Master of Massey College at the University of Toronto, urged us to “make the good choice, the choice of life in all its beauty”, adding that we should plant seeds for the good future, for the global public good.

Dr. Courtney Howard, Chair of the Global Climate and Health Alliance, commented that Canada should not just be an energy superpower but a GOOD energy superpower, while Bessma Momani, Professor of Political Science at the University of Waterloo added that we must work for and create the public good.

In her remarks in a plenary on creating the conditions for future economies, Arti Freeman suggested the common thread is to centre people and planet and question the values that drive our choices. This means creating what is variously called a wellbeing, social or purpose-driven economy.

Unsurprisingly, in the face of deepening polarization and declining trust in institutions, including government, one plenary and a number of workshops addressed the question of whether our democratic infrastructure is still fit for the twenty-first century and how to deepen democracy by building “more resilient, participatory, and adaptive democratic systems”, including how best to use social media and AI.

Although the Forum was focused on large Canadian and global challenges, there was also a strong focus on local solutions, including local engagement and participation and ‘community wealth building’ that addresses the improvement not just of the economy but of local social and environmental conditions, all of which contribute to the wellbeing of people.

All of these themes, and more, were taken up in the 49 parallel sessions spread over the two days, covering topics from justice for Indigenous and other people to the social purpose economy to democratic renewal. In the end, I was left with a sense of hope. Yes, we face wicked problems, but at all levels from the global to the local people are seeking, finding and implementing virtuous solutions.

© Trevor Hancock, 2026

thancock@uvic.ca

Dr. Trevor Hancock is a retired professor and senior scholar at the

University of Victoria’s School of Public Health and Social Policy