The Pact for a Green New Deal
On May 6th, a coalition of over 60 organizations across Canada launched the Pact for a Green New Deal to push for more ambitious climate action ahead of the coming elections. Scientists, artists, youth, indigenous leaders and people across Canada have signed on, and we invite you as an individual to sign on to this broad call to develop a plan to meet the science of climate change, see the full implementation of UNDRIP, FPIC and the TRC recommendations, and fix our broken economic and social systems.
Why do we need this now?
Arctic permafrost is melting, as forests, towns, and Indigenous territories are burning up in wildfires. Climate change, pollution and environmental destruction have exacerbated systemic injustices. And states of emergency - declared for once-in-a-century floods - are becoming common. Meanwhile, millions of people around the world already face displacement and starvation.
To make matters worse, this isn’t the only crisis we face. The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, the right to Free, Prior and Informed Consent, and the recommendations of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission have not been implemented. Economic inequality, precarious work, a housing crisis, and rising racism all threaten our communities and social fabric.
The best climate science tells us that we have less than 11 years to cut our emissions in half. To do that will require broad scale changes and more leadership from our political leaders.
This transformation is both a matter of survival and a once-in-a-century opportunity to meet the science, respect Indigenous rights and meet the calls of justice by ensuring we act on multiple crises at the same time. We can make our future safe and make the present better, right now, for all of us but only if we urge our politicians to raise their ambition and begin acting today.
What can you do?
We need our politicians to be hearing about the GND from every corner of the country — that’s where you come in.
1. Sign the Pact for a Green New Deal
2. Spread the word with this graphic.
3. Attend a local town hall on the Green New Deal between May 18 - May 26th. Find out about a town hall near you here.
Or sign up to host a town hall! If you sign up to host a town hall, you’ll be contacted by a member of the coalition team to help you get set up for it. There is a host toolkit, training demo and other resources available to help you use this time to gather input from your community to help shape what goes in (and what stays out) of a Green New Deal for Canada. The coalition is targeting the week of May 20 for town halls because that’s the final recess week for this session of Parliament (the last session before the election) and MPs should be in their home ridings and could be invited to attend the town halls.