Activist ex-cabinet minister Guilbeault leaves complicated legacy

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OTTAWA — The man who would become one of Canada’s most polarizing cabinet ministers spent a rainy 2001 summer afternoon in handcuffs.

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Two Greenpeace activists, 24-year-old British citizen Christopher Holden and 32-year-old Steven Guilbeault from Quebec — both clad in orange jumpsuits — would eventually plead guilty to public mischief after scaling 350 metres up the CN Tower to hang a 15-square-metre banner accusing former U.S. President George W. Bush and Canada of being “climate killers.”

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That stunt cost the CN Tower $50,000, the court heard, and required staff to block off a large portion of the observation deck while the men were rescued.

Handed a conditional discharge, ordered to pay $3,000 in restitution, perform 100 hours of community service and a year probation, Guilbeault patted himself on the back for the stunt, telling reporters the climb raised public awareness about climate change and directly influenced then-prime minister Jean Chretien to ratify the Kyoto accords.

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Shuffled out of the environment portfolio earlier this year, Guilbeault resigned from cabinet on Thursday just hours after Prime Minister Mark Carney signed a memorandum of understanding with Alberta to secure federal approval to resume building pipelines to carry Alberta oil to port.

Trees, CN Tower and Premier Ralph Klein’s house — Guilbault climbed them all

While perhaps the most prolific stunt of his activism career, it wasn’t his first — climbing a tree behind his parents’ house at the age of five to prevent developers from cutting it down.

“I climbed and stayed there for hours and hours … they didn’t cut down that tree,” Guilbeault told Radio-Canada in a 2017 interview. “That was the beginning.”

In 1993, Guilbeault co-founded Équiterre before joining Greenpeace four years later, becoming head of the group’s Quebec branch in 2000.

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One year after the CN Tower stunt, Calgary police were called to the home of Alberta’s then-premier Ralph Klein after his terrified wife spotted men in orange jumpsuits arrive in a van and attempt to scale the walls.

Guilbeault was arrested climbing onto Klein’s roof, claiming it was a Greenpeace stunt installing fake solar panels on the premier’s house.

From a jail cell to the cabinet room

Four years into the Justin Trudeau administration, Guilbeault won the riding of Laurier—Sainte-Marie for the Liberals in the 2019, becoming environment minister in 2021. 

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Despite criticism for his extensive and sometimes criminal activism, Guilbeault became the face of Trudeau’s environmental policy, responsible for sweeping — and often contentious — policies that earned praise from supporters and derision from opponents.

In a rare show of ideological unity, both UCP and NDP politicians in Alberta criticized Guilbeault’s appointment — with then-NDP leader Rachel Notley agreeing with the UCP government’s description of him as a “radical environmentalist,” describing his anti-pipeline stance as “troubling.”

Legislation passed under Guilbeault’s purview as environment minister include the 2030 Emissions Reductions Plan, the Canadian Net-Zero Emissions Accountability Act, the single-use plastics ban, the federal carbon tax scheme, and Canada’s 2035 ban on internal combustion engine vehicles.

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A complicated legacy, especially out west

Blaise Boehmer, a former Alberta government political staffer, said much of his province had a singular reaction to Guilbeault’s resignation.

“The common refrain was ‘good riddance,” he told the Toronto Sun with a laugh, adding many in his circles commonly referred to Guilbeault as the “Green Jesus.”

“He’ll be remembered as the guy who really wanted to stick it to Alberta — he seemed to lack any care for the tens of thousands of jobs that are generated through the energy sector.”

Boehmer described him as “the perfect foil” for any Conservative politician wishing to score points in Alberta, and credited Guilbeault in part for Danielle Smith’s 2022 UCP leadership victory.

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Alex Brown, a director with the National Citizens Coalition, said any policy that angers Guilbeault, BC Premier David Eby and Green Party Leader Elizabeth May means a good day for Canada. 

“If we’re leaving Guilbeault’s orange jumpsuit back in Trudeau’s lost decade economically, that’s all highly encouraging — but as ever, we need to make sure the rubber meets the road,” he said. 

“Guilbeault can throw up his arms, melt down behind the scenes and may scale the Peace Tower, if past history is any indication of future behaviour, but we need to move beyond radical environmentalism that enriched only a select few, furbished countless de-growth NGOs, and only raised costs on working Canadians and contributed to an unprecedented period of zero economic growth.”

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Conservative strategist and partner at Shift Media Stephen Taylor said Guilbeault’s resignation should mark the beginning of the end of the era where the whims of fringe activists became public policy.

“For a decade, Canada has been in decline because Justin Trudeau obsessed over the approval of people who despise this country and its economic birthright,” he said, adding that while Carney seems to be on the right track, he holds many of the same views as Guilbeault.

“People don’t typically abandon their worldview in their sixties — are we really supposed to believe the Prime Minister has suddenly shed the radical fringe?”

bpassifiume@postmedia.com
X: @bryanpassifiume

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