VIDEO: Happy Earth Day! Watch Joe Oliver fib to Peter Mansbridge about greenhouse gas emissions!

Finance Minister Joe Oliver is the government’s numbers guy, but they don’t add up on climate change.  

After tabling a 518-page budget on Tuesday that failed to mention “climate change” even once, CBC’s Peter Mansbridge asked Oliver about the omission. He dodged the question by citing the government’s new Public Transit Fund as a way of helping achieve “our reduction in greenhouse gas emissions.”

Except Oliver got his numbers wrong. Watch him tell Mansbridge the transportation sector accounts for 60% of Canada’s GHG. He was only off by 37%:

So is 60 the new 23? 

Nope. Environment Canada itself pegs transportation’s emissions at 23%.

And the government’s big emissions reduction plan? Well, that won’t even kick in until 2019-20

The government’s $1 billion Public Transit Fund isn’t fully operational until 2019-20 (it launches in 2017 with a modest $250 million). So Oliver’s GGE reduction strategy relies on funding that largely won’t be available for four more years — and then only for cities open to public-private partnerships (P3s)?

Oh, and Canada’s existing measures will have little effect on curbing missions by 2020.

Courtesy of a 2014 report by Canada’s own environment commissioner:

Did we mentioned that one of Canada’s leading environmental organization, Environmental Defence, was denied a spot at Finance Canada’s stakeholders’ budget lockup? The group has been critical of the government’s record on fighting climate change.

 Photo: YouTube