“To see all these young folks from all around the world working together in a shared way, with shared objectives and passion,” he says today, “it really shaped the course of my life.”

Another turning point for Guilbeault unfolded this spring in Ottawa, as the well-known and controversial former environment minister took a bow from federal politics, marking a clear split from the Mark Carney government on environmental and energy policies.

On May 27, Guilbeault, 56, announced his retirement as a member of Parliament, a few months after resigning from Carney’s cabinet. It capped off a heady and influential four years at the helm of one of the most sensitive government portfolios in the country. He served as minister of environment and climate change from 2021 to 2025, with stints as minister of heritage, minister of Canadian identity and culture and minister responsible for official languages before and after.

Upon his announcement, environmental groups heralded his integrity and work, with the David Suzuki Foundation celebrating his “vital contribution to the fight against climate change” and Environmental Defence calling on more MPs to “publicly reject the government’s assault on climate, nature and Canada’s economic and social future.”

“If I had to do it all again, I would,” Guilbeault says of his political career, on a recent morning bike commute from his home in Montreal. “I would fight for the same policies.”

For the first time in recent memory, he has “no plans” – aside from going on a voyage to the Arctic with the non-profit Students on Ice, alongside 40 Canadian youth. He is staying on as MP for a few more weeks to complete projects in his urban Montreal riding of Laurier–Sainte-Marie, such as a youth theatre and a new hub for the 2SLGBTQIA+ community.

“I have greatly enjoyed politics. It’s very demanding,” he says, acknowledging the stark challenges from growing populism, online hate and the harmful effects of social media. “The political arena . . . has become more difficult, but it’s also incredibly rewarding.”

At its annual gala on June 24, 2026, Corporate Knights recognized Guilbeault with its Award of Distinction, an honour that has previously gone to Ken Dryden, Tom Mulcair, Kathy Bardswick and Vicky Sharpe, among others.

Politics with conviction

Guilbeault’s list of achievements is long. Born in rural Quebec, he co-founded Équiterre, an acclaimed Quebec-based non-profit environmental and sustainable agricultural organization in 1993 (originally known as Action for Solidarity, Equality, Environment and Development). He worked as an environmental activist for many years, notably with Greenpeace, and engaged in direct actions designed to strike a nerve and raise awareness. In 2001, he scaled the CN Tower with fellow Greenpeace activist Chris Holden to unfurl a banner that read “Canada and Bush – climate killers” as a way to criticize a lack of government action on the Kyoto Protocol. He was subsequently arrested and convicted of mischief.

It was that brand of conviction that drew the attention of Justin Trudeau, who recruited him to his Liberal ranks. In a recent podcast with political strategist David Herle, Guilbeault described how the then-prime minister introduced his environment minister to former U.S. president Joe Biden – as a “real activist” who had been arrested four times. Trudeau, he said, was looking for someone who would bring a “jolt” to the environment file. And in many ways, that’s what Guilbeault did.

As a Liberal, he has been steadfast in his convictions, defending and expanding the Trudeau policy of carbon pricing, publishing Canada’s Clean Electricity Regulations, draft regulations capping oil and gas pollution, single-use plastic prohibitions, and 2035 emissions targets. He was a leading voice brokering the landmark Kunming-Montreal global biodiversity agreement in which 196 countries agreed to restore at least 30% of degraded terrestrial, inland-water, and coastal and marine ecosystems.

“We’ve shown that using public policy you can have an impact. For the first time in our history, emissions were going down while the economy was going up,” he says.

Navigating criticism

But Guilbeault was a target for the Conservative Party – which linked some of his policies to his “radical” past – and particularly for Canadians furious over carbon pricing. “There are things I would do differently,” he says. “I think we were very slow to respond to the anti-carbon-tax campaign from the Conservatives.”

He also navigated fierce criticism from environmentalists when he approved the Bay du Nord deep-sea offshore oil project off the coast of Newfoundland in 2022, which the government said met strict environmental standards but which environmentalists said exposed “Canada’s climate hypocrisy.” Modelling showed that Canada was making progress but falling short of hitting its 2030 emissions targets while Guilbeault was environment minister, and it has slipped further behind under the current government.

Guilbeault has made no secret of his view that the Carney government is headed in the wrong direction on climate policies. He first resigned from cabinet last year in protest of a memorandum of understanding Carney signed with Alberta that paves the way for a new oil pipeline to the B.C. coast. Environmental groups have criticized the MOU for key concessions to the oil-producing province that lower federal targets for the price on carbon. “We need an effective carbon-pricing system,” Guilbeault says. “With the agreement we’ve signed with Alberta, we’ve just delayed by 10 years the implementation of carbon pricing.”

He understands the pressure of tariffs from the United States and the wider shifting geopolitical landscape, but some fundamentals will not change, he says: “We can try to ignore climate change, [but] climate change won’t ignore us. We’ll likely have the mother of all El Niños coming up in the coming months, wreaking havoc in North America [and] around the world. We’re seeing Pakistan with more than 59°C daytime temperatures.”

Climate change has already displaced tens of thousands of Canadians, he points out – a far greater toll than other geopolitical challenges. “Unfortunately, you don’t hear anyone in the government talk about this.”

He says the tools are in place for better action, such as the national adaptation strategy that maps out what needs to be done for Canadians to be better prepared for climate change. “Where are we with the implementation of that?” he asks.

A ‘radical pragmatist’

Mark Calzavara, a prominent environmental campaigner in Canada, says he understands why Guilbeault decided to quit. The pair have known each other for decades, hatching numerous Greenpeace campaigns, including one that saw Guilbeault climb onto a massive piece of bitumen-refining equipment during a freezing Alberta winter, to stall it from being driven from Edmonton to the oil sands. “Nobody was calling in on our side,” Calzavara recalls of the talk-show interviews Guilbeault did at the time. “They were all ‘I hope you guys get shot, or somebody should take you out.’ Steven was remarkable, under difficult conditions, to talk to people and meet them where they’re at.”

While Guilbeault “did as good or better a job as anyone” as environment minister, Calzavara says that his tenure shows the limits of what is possible within the political system. “The power is so centralized in the prime minister’s office, and if the prime minister is not a fan of the ideas you’re promoting, you go backwards.”

For his part, Guilbeault still holds on to a descriptor offered by a friend many years ago that he is “a radical pragmatist.”

Still, the Conservatives continued their criticism as he exited the political arena. During Guilbeault’s departure announcement in the House of Commons in May, Conservative Calgary MP Shuvaloy Majumdar offered a restrained nod to his “deep convictions” while stressing that “his policies caused so much hardship for so many families across this country.”

Bloc Québécois Patrick Bonin, MP for the riding of Repentigny, called him “by far the best environment minister that this country has ever known” during that same farewell session. And Guilbeault’s friend Elizabeth May, former leader of the Green Party, said it was an honour to work with him. “Courage should be respected, regardless of views,” she said in Parliament, her voice cracking. “What we are dealing with is a crisis.”

Of that, there should be little doubt. But like any effective politician, Guilbeault chooses to focus on the positives and the progress that has been made, and on a record of activism and improbabilities that can inspire hope.

“If [you] told 25-year-old Steven Guilbeault who was at COP1 in Berlin,” he says, having reached his destination and parked his bike, that “one day he would be environment minister of a G7 country, working with others to achieve all those things, I’m not sure he would have believed you.”

Natalie Alcoba is a Buenos Aires-based journalist and senior editor at Corporate Knights.

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At a forum on sustainable finance in Ottawa this week, a parade of speakers, including Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault, warned that Canada is falling behind global competitors in the race to attract the investment needed to fuel the transition to a net-zero economy. “Canada is playing catch-up,” he acknowledged. “We need more clarity and more direction.”

In remarks to the forum, Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland promised a greater push from Ottawa to align the country’s financial system with sustainability goals, including action on climate change. Freeland indicated she would be moving on two key planks in a proposed sustainable finance framework: a taxonomy that guides what types of investments are deemed to be aligned with Canada’s net-zero commitments and greater clarity for corporations on disclosure rules for climate-related financial risks.

Freeland was attending the Sustainable Finance Forum, which was organized by Liberal MP Ryan Turnbull and featured a half dozen of her cabinet colleagues.

The finance minister, in particular, has come under criticism for her slow response to recommendations that would establish a “transition taxonomy” – essentially, a menu of climate-friendly investments – as well as details of promised tax credits that would spur private funding for clean energy investments.

In remarks, Freeland acknowledged the critical importance of climate action, not only to reduce greenhouse gas emissions but also to allow Canada to compete in the zero-carbon economy of the future. “Climate action is about saving the planet, of course,” she said. Moreover, she added, having a climate plan is “synonymous with having an economic plan; it is synonymous with having a jobs plan.”

The minister commended the work of the Sustainable Finance Action Council (SFAC), a body comprising the country’s largest banks, pension funds and insurance companies that has recommended that Canadian corporations be required to disclose their climate-related risks and have a transition plan for addressing them.

SFAC also recommended nearly a year ago that Ottawa establish a “transition taxonomy,” which would lay out the types of investments considered to be consistent with Canada’s international climate commitments. International investors are increasingly looking to such taxonomies to guide capital decisions and help meet their own commitments to reduce the carbon intensity of their portfolios.

“The taxonomy is really critical because it is a tool for how we can allocate capital to activities and have credibility that the activities are sustainable,” said Andrea Moffat, senior director with Addenda Capital Inc., a Canadian investment manager.

SFAC suggested that investment in new fossil fuel infrastructure would lay outside that scope, though spending to reduce emissions from existing oil and gas production would be included.

The minister promised action on those recommendations “later this month” – likely a reference to her fall economic statement, which she is expected to deliver as early as next week.

Freeland vows to focus on fiscal responsibility as Conservative MPs and some economists blame the government’s rising spending for fuelling a higher cost of living for Canadians. Providing greater clarity and regulatory incentives for sustainable finance would be a way to drive private-sector investment in climate action without increasing federal spending.

Natural Resources Minister Jonathan Wilkinson told the conference that there is wide agreement that governments alone cannot provide all the investment required to meet Canada’s target of net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. “The volume of the capital needed will require a major, major role on the part of the private sector,” he said.

Guilbeault noted that the United States is moving aggressively with guidance for investors, both through the U.S. Treasury Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission, which regulates capital markets.

“We are interested in sustainability not because we are environmentalists, but because we are capitalists and fiduciaries to our clients.”

Who said that? Larry Fink, the CEO of Blackrock pic.twitter.com/74a7wJCyLl

— Steven Guilbeault (@s_guilbeault) November 2, 2023

Indeed, international analysts have rated Canada poorly when it comes to sustainable finance policies and regulations. German-based consortium Climate Action Tracker rates Canada’s climate-finance policies as “highly insufficient” – essentially a D grade.

Key jurisdictions, including the European Union, the United Kingdom, Australia, Japan and China, are moving forward with taxonomies that will guide green investment decisions and help avoid greenwashing.

On disclosure, the EU has established rules that require companies to lay out not only the risks they face from climate change but how they will manage the transition in their own businesses. That includes the percentage of revenue that a firm derives from green sources and the percentage of its capital expenditures that is aimed at low-carbon projects. Some 1,300 Canadian companies that do business in the EU or with major EU companies will have to comply, according to one estimate.

The goal is to drive investment in energy efficiency, electrification, expanded clean power grids, and other transition technologies – including carbon removal – that will allow the world to avert the catastrophic impacts of climate change. At the same time, all countries must increase investment in resilience in order to adapt to extreme heat waves, floods, fires and drought that are already happening and will worsen.

For greenhouse gas reductions alone, the scale of capital required is enormous. Corporate Knights has calculated that investments in climate solutions from all sectors should be in the region of $126 billion annually between 2023 and 2030 to meet Canada’s international climate commitments.

The good news: the world is seeing exponential growth in spending on solutions, Corporate Knights research director Ralph Torrie told the forum. However, it is tough to keep up with the growing urgency of the climate crisis.

Torrie noted that the required investments are less than what the federal government spent on COVID response per year and would be equivalent to roughly 6% of gross domestic product (a third of that from government and two-thirds from the private sector). They would also drive economic growth and lower energy costs for businesses and consumers.

“We all need to remember this is an emergency,” Torrie said. “We need to respond to it as an emergency.”

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