The push for a Green New Deal (GND) that’s become a big topic of political discussion in the US has come north. At the beginning of May 2019, the Pact for a GND was launched publicly in Canada. It was endorsed by a range of organizations and prominent individuals. Behind the scenes, staff from a number of major NGOs including Greenpeace and Leadnow are playing key roles in the initiative.
“No Is Not Enough” is not a new theme for Naomi Klein. I remember vividly reading an article that quoted Naomi in the Nation magazine in October 2011 at the height of the Occupy movement. She stressed the need then for resistance to the economic system of corporate greed causing inequality, the 99% vs 1%, saying “no”, but also the need for creating alternative institutions on a local level as models for a larger vision of a system we want for a sustainable, just, democratic and more equal society, saying “yes”.
We already know that Christy Clark wants to export Alberta’s dirty oil. Now it seems her supporters want to import Alberta’s toxic politics.
Jim Shepard, the premier’s former economic adviser and architect of a million-dollar blast of anti-NDP attack ads in 2013, published a piece last week called, “B.C. should be concerned about NDP Leap Manifesto.” It could have been cut and pasted directly from the Wildrose party playbook.
Ian Angus and John Riddell argue that using the Leap Manifesto as the basis for building a new socialist movement in Canada must include confronting the climate crisis and the power of Big Oil.
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.
