The political economy of road freight decarbonization: policy implications for governing Canada’s roads

Abstract

This thesis argues that decarbonizing road freight requires studying and reforming the social dynamics of goods movement. Road freight and decarbonization are currently decoupled in both academic literature and professional practice. As road freight is a major employer of Canadians and one of the nation’s most significant sources of carbon emissions, it is imperative to get decarbonization right. Getting decarbonization right means paying attention to how government actors collaborate with each other and engage Canadians in managing road freight. Canada’s current transport governance landscape is fragmented by the allocation of responsibilities and powers distributed across municipal, provincial, and federal actors. The lack of a clear mission-oriented mandate to decarbonize road freight across governments risks the failure of Canada to meet its climate targets. To study the social dynamics of road freight, this thesis establishes the baseline conditions of road freight governance in Central and Eastern Canada by using a systems-oriented mixedmethods approach. Road freight is treated as one subsystem of Canada’s larger transportation system. This approach includes semi-structured interviews with public sector planning and engineering staff in Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia, and a cross-sectional study of resident opinions of government efforts, tools, and collaboration between agencies. These interviews and surveys find that both professionals and the general public want to see more effective collaboration between all levels of government, and that more work is needed on climate change in Central and Eastern Canada. In identifying the baseline conditions of road freight governance this thesis argues that decarbonization and road freight are treated as distinct, have little overlap with each other in professional practice, are poorly prioritized by politicians, are not addressed with the right mix of tools, and are poorly understood by residents and public staff. In addressing the challenges and opportunities raised by public staff and Canadian residents, this thesis concludes by proposing an alternative governance structure for road freight. Oriented towards embedding decarbonization into road freight planning, this proposed governance structure includes a revised taxonomy of powers, responsibilities, and capacities for government actors, the private sector, and residents. We propose new tools and governing bodies that can help improve engagement between government actors and between Canadian government agencies and residents.

Date	20 Jan 2025
Original language	American English
Awarding Institution	École de technologie supérieure
Supervisor	Gabriel J. Assaf (Supervisor)