Green Fuel for the Election
On the 27th of September, Canada experienced its largest climate strike to date. With more than 100,000 children, youth and adults on the streets advocating for a global emergency that is continuously being overlooked in Vancouver alone, this strike comes at a critical time with the 43rd Canadian federal election nearing. The climate strike, and the buildup of activism, anger, and concern behind it, finds its place in election campaigning by signaling to politicians what Canadians care about, and what kind of policy choices they’re looking for from the next leader of Canada.
We have seen the role of strikes in steering politics before, and we continue to see the same today with the variety of environmental promises made by party leaders leading up to the 43rd election.
The second industrial revolution in Canada experienced one of the most influential strikes in Canadian history, the Winnipeg general strike of 1919, where workers rallied for better working conditions and wages. This strike, although called off because of massive bloodshed, reverberated a sense of demand for change. 30 years later, worker’s unions were recognized. Unions allowed workers to negotiate better wages with their employers, becoming a powerful advancement for the living standards of the workers. Although climate policies have been in place since 1992, leaders have started to prioritize them now as a result of increasing public concern for the environment. Both these strikes advocated for institutional changes in favor of their cause, whether in the form of negotiating for better wages or environmentally friendly policy. This strike, therefore, pushes for more focus on climate policies and the results of today’s wave of environmentalism can be seen in the behaviour and platforms of Canadian party leaders.
The Liberal Party plans to cut down corporate taxes for businesses that develop zero-emission products. This incentivizes the innovation of products that are more environmentally friendly and can also promote those products to be more affordable, due to the businesses’ new lower costs of production. This initiative is a path towards reaching the net-zero emissions by 2050 proposal.
The New Democratic Party (NDP) and the Green Party are tackling the same issue by pushing for Canada to pass an environmental bill of rights. This bill, that has already been passed in 110 countries and the province of Ontario, would make a healthy environment the responsibility of the government by legally recognizing it as a right of all citizens. It has the power to hold the government accountable for ecologically unbalanced and unhealthy environments. The bill also allows residents to obtain environmental information and engage in decisions that impact their environment.
In contrast to the centre-left parties, the Conservative Party, led by Andrew Scheer, has its hopes set on building a National Energy Corridor. This is a transport system for oil, gas, hydroelectricity, and telecommunications that connects all of the nation’s provinces. The corridor should reduce environmental impacts, although Scheer has not specified what that is, and promises to create well-paying jobs and increase certainty for investors.
The momentum that fueled climate strikes across the country expressed what Canadians believe a government should be focusing on through their policy, and in response, we’ve seen a larger focus on environmental promises in federal party platforms than ever before. On the 21st of October, it will be up to Canadians to decide which leader they believe in and whether the environment dictates the popular vote to the extent that Canada has led federal leaders to believe.