Good Sunday Morning! The day after our Solstice and National Indigenous Peoples Day.
The last week has been one of fending off the blows of what felt like Shakespearean tragedy – dodging the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. Although really, technology has advanced. It felt less like old fashioned slings and arrows and more like being run over by a bulldozer. I am still pulling myself up from the deep ruts created as it ran me down, the track marks down the backs of those of us who stood against Bill C-5.
Before turning to that atrocity, I want to touch on other events. As ever, I write you this Sunday letter hoping to provide deeper content and context on events than we now find on mainstream media . . . plus, as you well know, my own heartfelt reflections.
With that in mind, I start today’s letter sharing those lesser-known legacies of my friend the Honourable Marc Garneau. It seemed the media coverage never got past the enormous achievement of being an astronaut, but there was so much more.
His funeral was Wednesday June 18. It was a small, “invitation-only” service at an Anglican church in Westmount. Saint Mathias is the church where I have occasionally worshipped when in Montreal. Just across the street from Saint Matthias Anglican is the synagogue of Congregation Shaar Hashomayim where Leonard Cohen’s father and grandfather had been pillars and where Leonard Cohen had his Bar Mitzvah.. More recently, Congregation Shaar Hashomayim’s Cantor collaborated with Cohen on his last album “You want it darker.” This is a hard country not to love!
I was very honoured and touched that Marc’s family asked me to attend. Travelling to Montreal on Wednesday added to the already very tricky logistics of the week, but there was no chance I would not accept. Only three other current MPs were invited- Anna Gainey Liberal MP for Westmount who won Marc’s seat in the by-election created when he unexpectedly resigned, Former Immigration Minister Marc Miller, and current Finance Minister Francois Phillippe Champagne. The service was kept so private that there were empty seats. I sat with an old friend whom I had not seen for years, former MP Marlene Jennings. When I was at Sierra Club she helped with numerous (unsuccessful) private members bills to stop use of toxic pesticides for cosmetic purposes.
I had never before met Marc’s family, but they knew their dad and I had done a lot of work together. As House leader for the Liberals after the 2011 election, Marc Garneau and I tried to stop the worst of Harper’s assault on environmental laws. It was in 2011 that Harper, thanks to the surprise “Orange crush” in Quebec, won his only majority, reducing the Liberals to the status of third party in the House, with the NDP as Official Opposition. And it was in 2011 that the voters in Saanich-Gulf Islands did the unexpected, defeating a Harper Cabinet minister to elect me. Marc decided the Liberals would support my 432 amendments to try to stop Bill C-38, the spring 2012 omnibus budget bill that destroyed 70 pieces of (mostly) environmental legislation. When Marc told the media the Liberals were supporting my work, he could just as easily have taken all my amendments and introduced them as if it was the work of the Liberal Party. I would never have objected. It was incredibly generous of him to support the Green Party publicly. At that point I had not been able to get the NDP House Leader Nathan Cullen to return my phone calls. After Marc’s press announcement, Nathan told the media he was “reaching out” to me and then announced the NDP would also back my amendments. It was the most effective opposition party collaboration throughout Harper’s government..
After the 2015 election and a Liberal majority, I worked with Marc, then Minister of Transportation, to repair the Navigable Waters Protection Act. Harper’s fall 2012 omnibus budget bill, C-45, and its attack on navigable waters and Indigenous rights triggered the “Idle no More! movement” To fix the bill to (nearly) its pre-Harper strength, Marc had to overcome the obstruction of his own department, but he did it! Sadly, I was unable to fix the anchorages issue – that constant threat to our Salish Sea waters — before Garneau was shuffled out of Transport to Foreign Affairs. After the 2021 election, Justin Trudeau removed Garneau from Cabinet. He resigned as MP in 2023.
But Marc stayed involved in good causes. At the reception, a nothing fancy, typical-basement church hall gathering, his kids told me that one of his last acts was to co-sign a letter (with Louise Arbour and Lloyd Axworthy) defending the Land Mines treaty. His son told me that, from his hospital bed, Marc read the letter aloud to him to be sure it was clear.
“We must learn from the vision and courage of those who have gone before, and we must think of the hopes and aspirations of those who will inherit the world we leave behind.” – Marc Garneau
God bless him and give comfort to his family who grieve the loss of a remarkable man, too soon at 76 years old. His illness was recent and his passing and suffering mercifully short, but still. I wish I had followed up on my whispered promise as he left the house his last day, that I would stay in touch.
The other event that occupied media this week was the bizarre gathering of world “leaders” in Alberta for the G-7. Rather than write another too-long letter, I want to share a piece from Policy magazine, by an old friend I greatly admire, retired diplomat and now Senator, Peter Boehm. He remains a consummate diplomat, still I found this piece revealing:
https://www.policymagazine.ca/policy-qa-former-g7-sherpa-peter-boehms-kananaskis-de-brief/
And now to the Big Beautiful Bulldozer bill, C-5. In our attempt to thwart Trump, I had not imagined Mark Carney would choose to emulate his tactics. Nor had I imagined that a minority Liberal government would ignore the other more left-leaning parties, Greens (or rather me solo again), the NDP and Bloc MPs to forge a new alliance with the Conservatives.
I organized a hasty press conference for Monday morning June 16, inviting as many experts and allies as we could – deep thanks, as ever, to my chief of staff Debra Eindiguer and to the few remaining Green Party staff helping with press and communications – Laurie MacMillan, Marlene Wells and Mercedes Bacon-Traplin. Here is the CPAC video of the presser in its entirety.
By Friday, as expected C-5 had passed the House and is off to the Senate where the bulldozer will ramp up again.
We had some small wins. First we were first out the gate to warn others of what was coming! And amazingly, thanks to environmental lawyers who sent us suggested amendments and the amazing work of my parliamentary legislative director, Steve Parkinson, who works solo, I have no staff to help him besides me! He managed to file before deadline over 20 substantive amendments to the committee and to Report stage. One actually passed, to require more information to be shared about projects designated “national interest projects.” Despite travel to Marc’s funeral and then to speak at the Friends of Nature AGM – a commitment made months before we knew we would have had an election, a new government and anything like the week we just had, Adding to the chaotic logistics, I had promised Cate that, since I would be in Nova Scotia for FON anyway, I would drive her with her partner and baby Lily to Cape Breton to meet our Margaree family!
Small win, I still managed to be in the House for debate and on line virtually at every opportunity– to defend my amendments at committee (in the dark on hotspot, by the side of the highway at midnight from Port Hood, Cape Breton! Described by Politico as my “Blair Witch Project” moment!) . . . and give several speeches denouncing the excesses of the bill (from more secure and MP-appropriate locations – although in many different locations over the 4 days!
I am still so shocked – Imagine that Carney would invoke the powers invented by Henry the 8th to override inconvenient acts of parliament! Do we need a Canadian #No Kings movement?? Still, at every turn, Liberals said this was in the mandate they received from the voters!
Not such a small win, a number of good amendments were adopted at committee making the bill slightly better. See this excellent detailed explainer from the National Observer: https://www.nationalobserver.com/2025/06/20/news/opposition-parties-curtail-special-powers-carneys-bill-c-5?nih=1FVRWKTQQrfvcXYPs2OGLMmCqnyhTvtS6XuaC6nut64&utm_source=National+Observer&utm_campaign=bd4bcc665e-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2025_06_20_02_03&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_cacd0f141f-bd4bcc665e-277449810
Despite some improvements, all MPs in the NDP and Bloc Quebecois joined me in opposing the new Liberal-Conservative coalition legislation. And a big BRAVO and kudos to Toronto Liberal MP (briefly in Carney’s cabinet and never to be seen in its ranks again) the Honourable Nathaniel Erskine-Smith – the lone Liberal to vote against C-5. Honourable in title and character!
For now, deep breaths of gratitude as I set out this morning on one of my favourite VIA rail routes – the “Ocean.” Halifax to Ontario.
Thanks to long summer nights I am looking forward to the late June evening as the train winds along the Baie de Chaleur in the Gaspe. It gives me a strong incentive to stay awake long enough to drink it in and be grateful to this most precious planet.
Until now, and my next letter June 28th! If you are in the Toronto area, join me and Ontario Green leader Mike Schreiner to walk in Toronto Pride June 29th!!
Never give up! Never lose hope! Somehow we will win.
Love and pray for peace (knowing I have not said enough about Israel and Iran and the assault on Gaza…more later!)
Love,
Elizabeth
Saanich-Gulf Islands Greens
https://www.sgigreenparty.ca/