Federal budget scramble leaves Canadian negotiators rudderless at UN climate summit

Nov. 19, 2026

The federal budget survived another critical confidence vote, but the timing is preventing Canadian officials from participating in key international climate negotiations now going down to the wire in Brazil.

MPs must be in Canada to vote electronically, so Environment and Climate Change Minister Julie Dabrusin and Minister of Canadian Identity and Culture Steven Guilbeault, effectively the country’s nature minister, flew back from COP30 last Friday to cast their votes in favour of the federal budget.

The federal budget passed thanks to a handful of Conservative and NDP MPs abstaining from a vote on Monday — only the Liberals and Green Party voted in support of the budget. On Tuesday, another confidence motion to implement parts of the budget passed on division, meaning there was not a formal vote but opposition parties wanted their dissent noted.

Green Party Leader Elizabeth May — who has attended 15 UN climate conferences (COPs) and three on biodiversity — said it's important for ministers to be on the ground, particularly in the second week when negotiators require political support to overcome hurdles. 

Canada still has negotiators on the ground in Belém, but they don't have the power to make decisions on behalf of the federal government, May said. 

“Only a political member of a government — only a minister — can say, ‘Yeah, Canada stands with this language. Canada is going to sign on to this accord,’” May said.

That’s a major problem, because negotiations virtually always come to a head in the homestretch. Many countries do not agree on anything until everything is agreed, as a way to use all possible elements of the agreement as bargaining chips. With no political leadership on the ground actively involved in negotiations, the negotiators do not have as much flexibility which is often required to agree on anything ambitious. 

The chaos and confidence votes on the federal budget forced ministers to leave critical international climate negotiations a week early, right as negotiations are going down to the wire.  BlueSky

Eddy Pérez, former senior international affairs advisor to Guilbeault, said Canadian negotiators should have political direction.

“You’re less agile,” when it comes to overcoming roadblocks that frequently occur in the homestretch of negotiations, he said in an interview with Canada’s National Observer. “It weakens Canada’s ability … to respond.”

At previous summits, Canada has shifted position at the last minute because a minister was present. For example, three years ago at COP27, countries were negotiating whether to agree to phase-down fossil fuels, and Canada’s position was that it couldn’t support that language due to provinces having jurisdiction over natural resources — until the position flipped in the last hours — and Canada supported reducing “unabated” fossil fuels. That year, it was too little, too late, and no consensus was reached among world governments. But it became a building block, and the following year in Dubai, countries agreed to transition away from coal, oil and gas. 

The Dubai agreement has set the stage for negotiations this year, where many of Canada’s allies and host country Brazil, are pushing for a global fossil fuel transition plan that recognizes it’s not enough to agree to phase-out fossil fuels without agreeing on a plan for how to equitably do it. 

As of Tuesday, 82 countries are backing a fossil fuel phase-out roadmap. 

Canada has yet to take a position on whether it supports a fossil fuel transition plan, or what tweaks in the proposal would be required to support it. But without political leaders on the ground to shape negotiations, the opportunity to land such an agreement is shrinking.

Dabrusin’s office did not return a request for comment by deadline. 

No leadership on climate, say opposition MPs

Before a cabinet meeting on Tuesday morning, Guilbeault said he will not be returning to Belém for the final few days of negotiations.

Guilbeault and Dabrusin were needed for the second confidence vote on Tuesday to implement parts of the budget, Guilbeault said. 

“Unfortunately, it would be better to be there, but circumstances made it impossible for us,” Guilbeault said.

May says MPs should be able to vote electronically while out of the country to avoid situations like this. 

Not having federal ministers present for the second week of negotiations — at the same time as Budget 2026 promised a new LNG subsidy and possibility of abandoning the oil and gas emissions cap — “sends a really bad signal to other countries,” said NDP MP Alexandre Boulerice. 

“Our policies are going backward, the minister is not there, and oil and gas lobbyists are in the official Canadian delegation: Nothing there shows any kind of leadership on the climate front, when, in fact, the planet is burning and other countries are doing much better than us,” he said. The federal NDP did not send any MPs to COP30 this year.

Bloc Québécois MP Patrick Bonin highlighted a recent report by Canada’s environment commissioner that found Canada is on track to miss its 2030 climate targets. The budget did not present any clear plan or funding to directly reduce planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions to offset things such as removing the consumer carbon price and pausing the zero-emission vehicle sales mandate, Bonin said.

In a statement, Caroline Brouillette, executive director of Climate Action Network Canada, who is at COP30, said federal ministers have brought little to the table to demonstrate the country is committed to climate change.

“The best that can be said of Canada’s presence at COP so far is that it’s not as actively harmful as Prime Minister Carney’s major projects agenda back home,” she said.

Canada’s pro-fossil fuel stance is being noticed. On Tuesday, the country was named the “fossil of the day” — a satirical award given to countries seen to be “doing the most to achieve the least,” as decided by international civil society. 

When Stephen Harper was prime minister, Canada won the so-called "colossal fossil” five years in a row (given to the country that sabotaged the climate talks more than any other that year), and scored a “lifetime achievement award.” 

The latest dig may not have any formal bearing on the negotiations, but because it is the first time the country has received the “award” in more than 10 years, it's suggestive of how Canada’s influence has fallen in multilateral institutions compared to the Trudeau era, Pérez said. 

“The fossil is a symptom of the structural decline in Canada's influence on climate action around the world,” he said. “Canada has been an agile, diplomatic player on climate negotiations across multiple issues, but what is happening is people are seeing a country that is not as present and relevant.”

“Therefore there is a perception of a disconnect between a country that could play a bigger role and decides not to.”

In recent years, Canada’s influence was on the rise, after hosting a biodiversity summit that secured a global nature protection treaty, and then environment and climate change minister Guilbeault was tapped multiple years in a row by COP presidencies to help bridge differences between countries to help land agreements. 

On Monday, Carney won the support of May, the lone Green MP, to help pass a budget confidence vote by saying the government “will respect our Paris commitments for climate change,” and is “determined to achieve them.”

Boulerice dismissed Carney’s comment as political theatre designed to give May an opportunity to vote in favour of the budget. 

“She got absolutely nothing,” Boulerice said. “It's pathetic when you say, ‘I got a big victory because the prime minister said that he will respect something that Canada has already signed.’”

May, on the other hand, feels she “got something important” with Carney’s commitment to respect the Paris Agreement targets, and said she’ll be on the government “like white on rice” to push for a pathway to reduce national greenhouse gas emissions to make up for the loss of climate policies like the consumer carbon price. She said Dabrusin, Guilbeault, other ministers and other Liberal MPs are on board and want to see Canada meet its targets.

“Maybe today wasn't enough. Maybe I'm a fool. I'll leave that for history to decide. But I did what I thought was right,” May said of her decision to support the budget on Monday.

Canada has taken some “unprecedented steps back” in the past six months since Carney’s election, and as a result, should be shy to go on the international scene where rich, developed countries are expected to be ambitious, Bonin said. He attended COP30 from Nov. 10 to 15.  

“Countries need more than empty words … they need proper action supported by key measures and a real certainty that Canada would be on track,” Bonin said. “This is not what we're seeing.”

Conservative shadow critic for environment and climate change Ellis Ross also took a shot at Carney, writing in an email to Canada’s National Observer, “As for the COP absence, this government is double speaking on their climate action goals regardless of what Prime Minister Carney promised Elizabeth May from the Green Party.”

Natasha Bulowski & John Woodside / Local Journalism Initiative / Canada’s National Observer

[Top photo:IPrime Minister Mark Carney speaks to reporters before chairing a cabinet meeting on Nov. 18, 2025. Photo by: Natasha Bulowski / Canada's National Observer]