VANCOUVER - There was a sense of deja vu when B.C. Premier Gordon Campbell pledged the province would adopt California's tough greenhouse gas emissions standards for motor vehicles.
It was part of a broad memorandum of understanding on climate change with the Golden State that Campbell signed during last month's visit here by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Politically, it was a home run.
Campbell hooked up to the star power of California's popular governor, put the province out front nationally on an issue that tops the global agenda and disarmed even his critics in the environmental movement.
To anyone whose political memory stretches back a few years, it had a familiar ring. A similar effort by British Columbia in the mid-1990s failed - there simply wasn't the clout of several provinces working together to force change on the auto industry.
And while Quebec is now also on board with the plan, Ontario isn't. Not much has changed.
In the mid-1990s, B.C.'s NDP government promised to adopt California's stringent auto emissions regulations to help address a growing smog problem in Vancouver and the Fraser Valley.
The proposed law would have required at least 10 per cent of all vehicles sold in British Columbia by 2005 to meet California's low-emission standards.
Automakers and dealers who didn't comply faced huge fines, said Moe Sihota, the NDP's then-environment minister.
Trouble is, it never happened.
When Sihota announced the new standards in 1995, the auto industry reacted quickly.
If the NDP insisted on rules that exceeded existing federal tailpipe standards, many vehicle models simply wouldn't be sold in the province, Mark Nantais, president of the Canadian Vehicle Manufacturers' Association, told the government.
It would also add hundreds of dollars to the sticker price of a new car, the association warned.
In the end, the government backed down, says Nantais, who still heads the lobby group that speaks for Canada's domestic automakers.
"What we came to an agreement on was we would provide some additional reporting on the smog-related performance of these (federally certified) vehicles to British Columbia," he says now.
"There was no change in the types of vehicles that we produced or brought into Canada. B.C. did not get any unique vehicles."
Sihota agrees there was pressure from the auto sector but that's not why the government backed off.
The B.C. plan was predicated on California moving ahead with its ambitious emissions targets and their adoption by several large northeastern states.
Technical limitations and legal action by automakers delayed both those things, he recalls.
"When they hiccuped, we alone couldn't do it because of market share," he says.
British Columbia also failed to win support from other provinces or the Liberal government in Ottawa, which Sihota hoped would force the industry to comply.
With only a fraction of the North American auto market, British Columbia by itself didn't have the leverage to force change.
"I expected them to come to the table only if the other provinces and/or the federal government got to where I wanted them, or alternatively if California and the New England states stuck to their guns," says Sihota, now a businessman and consultant.
Fast forward to today and it appears not much has changed except that instead of smog-related emissions, climate change is front and centre.
Schwarzenegger is promoting his ambitious policy to cut greenhouse-gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020 and 80 per cent below that by mid-century.
Motor-vehicle reduction targets - based on a 2002 law passed before he became governor, which takes effect in 2009 - call for a 30 per cent cut by 2016.
Eight other U.S. states have signed on and part of Schwarzenegger's domestic agenda for his Canadian tour was to recruit more governments to his plan.
British Columbia jumped aboard but Ontario, home of Canada's auto sector, declined. Quebec said last year it was willing to adopt California tailpipe standards.
The auto industry's response echoes its 1995 stance.
It's not prepared to build cars to distinct B.C. standards, which Nantais says would result in a severe reduction in model choice for consumers in the province.
"If we were forced to adopt California standards in Canada, we would have huge product curtailment," he adds.
"Upwards of some 97 per cent of our vehicles in the year 2012, for instance, would no longer meet the requirements, so in other words would not be offered for sale anymore in Canada."
British Columbians bought about 195,000 vehicles last year out of 1.66 million sold in Canada. It's the fourth-largest provincial market behind Ontario, Quebec and Alberta.
By contrast, Californians alone bought almost 1.8 million cars and light trucks in 2006.
The size of its market has meant automakers were willing to produce California-only models since the state began writing its own emission rules 40 years ago.
But Nantais notes automakers have been challenging California's newest standards in court since 2004.
Unlike smog-related pollutants that can be reduced or eliminated via the exhaust system's catalytic converter, carbon dioxide, the chief greenhouse gas, is a primary product of combustion, he says.
"We just don't have any technology to deal with that," Nantais says.
Reductions in CO2 come mainly through improvements in fuel efficiency, a more fundamental design challenge, he says.
Canadian automakers prefer the longstanding policy of harmonizing Canada's emissions standards with U.S. federal regulations.
They also signed an agreement with the Conservative government in 2005 to cut greenhouse-gas emissions a total of 5.3 megatonnes by 2010.
After that, Ottawa will regulate greenhouse gases through fuel-consumption legislation.
"We recognize the integrated nature of the North American market," says Transport Canada spokesman Robin Browne, adding it's important to keep Canada's auto industry strong and competitive.
The new standards would take effect for the 2011 model year after Ottawa consults with the industry, the provinces and other stakeholders, Browne says.
Browne would not comment on British Columbia's go-it-alone approach.
Environmentalists criticize the federal policy, especially the initial voluntary element, which they say hasn't worked in the past.
Ottawa should jump on the B.C. bandwagon to accelerate Canada's response to global warming, says Ian Bush, the David Suzuki Foundation's climate-change specialist.
Unlike 1995, the issue now is top of mind for the public, he says.
"Politically, I think there's a lot of support behind the B.C. government's move to enact cleaner standards for vehicle emissions," says Bush.
From seatbelts to catalytic converters, the auto industry has a history of resisting change before summoning the technical know-how to comply, he says.
"It's government's role to step in and push industry to make safer and cleaner products."
Sihota admits now his plan was a gamble. The government wasn't even sure it was constitutionally empowered to mandate tailpipe emissions.
"I think that was correct but we took the chance anyway to try to shame the rest of Canada or the federal government into introducing national standards," he says.
"So by sticking our neck out we were hoping others would join the parade."
They didn't, but Sihota hopes Campbell, his former political foe, doesn't back down in the face of industry opposition.
"If I was in Campbell's position I'd try to stare them down but more importantly I'd be putting a lot of pressure my provincial counterparts and the federal government," he says.
