Stop the Biofuels Regulations in Canada!

July/August 2010: All our fuel could soon contain a required level of biofuels if the new "Renewable Fuels Regulations" go ahead. But Environment Canada doesn't even know what the ecological footprint will be! They are currently doing a study and have not released the results. The regulations are going ahead unless the Minister of the Environment decides otherwise...

The official public comment period is over but you can still take action:

Click here to send an instant email to the Minister of the Environment to ask for more study first!

• Read "Biofuels Backfire: hasty approach will impact environment, food production" from Common Ground magazine, July 2010 by Lucy Sharratt
• Read the government's own "regulatory impact statement"
• Development & Peace says the regulations "make no sense whatsoever".

Summary

The highly controversial Bill C-33, An Act to amend the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, was passed in June 2008 in the midst of the new food crisis. The Bill allows the federal government to develop and implement regulations requiring 5% average renewable content in gasoline by 2010 as well as require 2% average renewable content in diesel and heating oil by 2012.

The Canadian government is now rushing in these "Renewable Fuels Regulations" to require biofuels in our gas but there are new reports all the time about serious environmental and economic problems with biofuels - including a study on the ecological footprint of Canada's biofuels industry commissioned by Environment Canada that is not yet released!

What's Wrong with Biofuels Regulations in Canada?

The federal government is hiding a new reporton the ecological footprint of Canada's biofuels industry, before the regulation gets passed. Earlier this year Environment Canada awarded a contract to conduct an environmental assessment and baseline of Canada’s biofuel industry. Wouldn’t it make sense to wait until after the report is completed before adopting the regulations ?

There are many new studies and the verdict on biofuels is not looking good:

• The promised economic benefit to farmers will not be seen. The government’s own "regulatory impact statement" now reveals that farmers will not benefit from the production of grains used to make the biofuels. The statement says more corn will be imported from the US to meet the biofuels regulation in eastern Canada!
• The impact statement also shows that consumers will bear most of the costs associated with the biofuel expansion - to a total of $2 billion. This is because the ethanol-blended gas has a lower energy content so consumers will need to buy more fuel! The statement also says: “Assuming all industry costs are passed on to the consumer, regional average cost over 25 years range from 7 cents in Ontario to a relatively higher impact of 30 cents in Quebec and the Atlantic provinces”.
• The promise that air quality would get better and thus improve the health of Canadians also didn’t pan out as a recent 2009 Health Canada report concluded that “there are no substantial differences in predicted health effects between use of conventional use (gasoline) and E10 (ethanol-blended gasoline).”
• The Federal Government still says the new biofuels mandate will be good for the environment, even though their own research indicates no statistical difference in Greenhouse Gas Emissions at the tailpipe between vehicles using ethanol and vehicles not using ethanol. <http://www.cbc.ca/canada/manitoba/story/2007/03/30/ethanol-emissions.html>

When the Senate passed Bill C-33, it also suggested that, “any new information that is available prior to regulations being proposed is taken into consideration before such regulations are promulgated.” See here for details on what the Senate said.

Click here to download a background document from Food Secure Canada.

So why is Canada still implementing a costly biofuel mandate that will subsidize Suncor Energy, Greenfields Ethanol and Husky Oil?

Take Action

• Click here to write an instant letter to the Minister of the Environment.

• You can also write to the members of the House of Commons Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development to request that the regulations be halted and brought back to Committee for further study:

• Bob Mills: mills.b@parl.gc.ca
• Bernard Bigras: bigras.b@parl.gc.ca
• Geoff Regan: regan.g@parl.gc.ca
• Mike Allen: allen.m@parl.gc.ca
• Nathan Cullen: cullen.n@parl.gc.ca
• Luc Harvey: Harvey.l@parl.gc.ca
• Marcel Lussier: Lussier.M@parl.gc.ca
• David J. McGuinty : mcguinty.d@parl.gc.ca
• Anthony Rota: rota.a@parl.gc.ca
• Francis Scarpaleggia: scarpaleggia.f@parl.gc.ca
• Maurice Vellacott: vellacott.m@parl.gc.ca
• Mark Warawa: warawa.m@parl.gc.ca

To see details about these MPs, check http://www.parl.gc.ca

Global Conflict Over Agrofuels

The corporate "agrofuels" gold-rush has ignited a major global conflict. Find out why...

Click here to hear Pat Mooney on biofuels

At the World Forum on Food Sovereignty, held in Mali in Africa, we and other delegates discussed how capital has manipulated terminology by adding the prefix “bio”, which signifies life, to renewable plant-based fuels. This is ridiculous, because all living things are “bio”. We could call ourselves bio-people, bio-John Smith, bio-soya, etc. Companies use the prefix “bio” to encourage the public to see their products as a good thing, as politically correct. So, at the international level, Vía Campesina has agreed to use more accurate terminology. These fuels and energy are produced from agricultural crops and so the correct terms are agrofuels and agro-energy. - João Pedro Stedile is one of the leaders of the Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra (MST), Brazil’s Landless Movement

Click here to read how agrofuels is pushing destructive GM soy monocropping in Latin America.

Agrofuels and GE Trees

Biotechnology corporations are seriously promoting genetically engineered trees and new GE crops for use as biofuels (agrofuels). The Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO) Pacific Rim Summit on Industrial Biotechnology and Bioenergy September 10-12, 2008 Vancouver, British Columbia was all about genetic engineering and new technologies for biofuels - including, and explicitly, GE trees. The conference included the session “Cellulosic Ethanol from Softwoods Around the World” and the presentation “Biotechnology in Purpose-Grown Trees to Make Bioenergy Production" by ArborGen, the leading company researching GE trees.

This link with agrofuels was a major reason why the bid by African governments to establish an international moratorium on GE tree plantings was defeated at the United Natioin 2008.

“Fast growing, purpose-grown trees are an ideal feedstock platform for second generation bioenergy production…Producing renewable energy from purpose-grown trees is the latest step in the evolution of trees’ long and fruitful history and critical to meeting global bioenergy development needs.”
– from summary to BIO Conference presentation "Biotechnology in Purpose-Grown Trees to Make Bioenergy Production" in the session "New Feedstocks for Biofuels", a presentation from Barbara Wells of ArborGen.

Click here for more information on GE trees.