Author and environmentalist Naomi Klein published a feature article in the Globe and Mail‘s edition of Saturday, Sept 24 in which she defends against its detractors the Leap Manifesto issued in Canada in April 2016. Her unique argument in this essay explains that Canada’s “founding economic myth” has been that of the ‘good’ created by the vast pillaging of the country’s natural resources following the arrival of settlers from Europe.
As many Canadians celebrated Thanksgiving, Idle No More demonstrators gathered in Yonge-Dundas Square on Monday said they have "little to be thankful for" and urged Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to keep his election promises to protect Indigenous rights and the environment.
Becky Big Canoe, co-founder of Water is Life: Coalition for Water Justice, said while Trudeau has vowed to support Indigenous people across the country, he's already reneging on some election promises.
Indigenous leaders and activists who oppose pipelines and other natural resource development projects, such as the proposed Pacific NorthWest LNG project recently approved by the federal government, say they are not being heard by the federal government.
Grand Chief Stewart Phillip, who is president of the Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs, said there is a distinct difference between listening, and hearing, and that the federal government is failing at the latter when it comes to the concerns of indigenous people.
Wed., Oct. 5, 2016 - Justin Trudeau has abandoned the illusion that logic alone will persuade all provinces to get onside with fighting climate change. That’s the upside of his pledge to have Ottawa impose a national carbon price.
The downside is that the price he set is too low to be effective.
In announcing Ottawa’s unilateral decision on Monday, Trudeau signalled that, on the climate change file at least, his quixotic attempts to achieve federal-provincial consensus have come to an end.
It’s easy to make virtuous statements when you’re not even the official opposition.
“The Great Bear Rainforest is no place for a pipeline,” Justin Trudeau tweeted in 2013. Now that the Liberal leader is prime minister, apparently the GBR is just the place to slap down an LNG pipeline.
The fresh new face Canada showed the world at the Paris COP21 climate meetings held out hope for many Canadian climate activists that a national course change was in the works.
In its less than a decade in power, the Harper government extinguished multiple important Canadian environmental laws, muzzled climate scientists, harassed environmental NGOs, created "anti-terrorism" legislation that targets First Nations and other pipeline activists, and generally introduced regressive and reactionary social policy while promoting Canada as the world's new petro-state.
