Every party’s platform slogan speaks to the future they want you to believe only they can bring you. Liberals say, “Forward. For Everyone”. The NDP are “Ready for Better”. The Greens call on us to “Be Daring”.  Conservatives want to “Secure the Future”. Putting slogans aside, most of us are now deeply aware that securing our future is critically tied to the actions we take to reduce climate change over the next ten years.  At the crux of it lies the fate of the oil and gas sector, and the Conservatives remain in dangerous denial of that fact.

Trying to find a silver lining in the current COVID crisis is not easy, but there is a growing realization around the world that the place to look is in the transition to a greener economy.

Though it’s difficult to measure these things, we may well be witnessing the most widespread rollbacks of environmental protections in Canadian history.

The federal government has just announced a new program to expand loans to struggling non financial corporations – the Large Employer Emergency Financing Facility. It’s role  deserves serious debate.

Canada’s corporate bailouts need to cut out tax dodgers and profiteers, and show long-term commitments are attached to the money.

One of the by-products of the global COVID 19 pandemic is that all of a sudden people are paying attention to where things are actually manufactured. On Monday morning April 13, the lead headline on the CBC website was “Canada building its own PPE supply chain…in China”.  As the Toronto Star noted in its April 7, Editorial – “Canada Needs a New Industrial Policy”, when Canada is left scrambling for medical equipment, relying on goods that are manufactured halfway around the world “doesn’t seem like such a good idea anymore”.

Many Canadians have, with good reason, embraced the idea of a Green New Deal. Supporters of the idea rightly say that dealing with the global climate crisis cannot be separated from the pursuit of social and economic justice. They emphasize that, with strong government leadership, a rapid transition away from the old carbon economy can generate many good new jobs in areas like renewable energy and energy conservation such that no workers need be left behind.

The movement for a “Green New Deal” has taken off in the US and Canada. The idea takes inspiration from the American post-war economic mobilization and creation of a welfare state. The Green New Deal calls on us to solve the climate crisis and provide economic security, through a big, ambitious, and multifaceted policy approach.

An idea has been developing. Perhaps three of the biggest threats to our societies – environmental destruction, public austerity and economic inequality – stem from a single problem: a rapacious economic model that assumes everything, including people, is a resource to be consumed. Until there’s no more.

As Canada warms twice the rate as the rest of the world, it is in our interest to play a leading role on the global stage to facilitate greater collective action to address climate change. ^[1]