To three important campaigns… In BC to ensure the election of a lot more Green MLA’s on October 24…

In Toronto Centre, to support Green candidate Annamie Paul in the October 26 by-election (to replace former Liberal MP Bill Morneau).

And on-line, for Greens across Canada, we are now voting for the next leader!

If you are a GPC member, check your emails. Yesterday, you should have received an email with this subject line: GPC Leadership Contest 2020 / Course à la chefferie du PVC 2020

That email links to your personal ballot and individual password to allow you to vote. This is a close contest with eight candidates.  They are offering radically different visions for the party. Please do NOT sit this one out!  Every vote will count and every Green should vote.

Please remind your friends. Voting ends on October 3. If your membership has lapsed, you can renew and get your ballot by October 2.

To improve chances of a good Sunday morning, here is some surprising and promising news on the climate front.

At the UN General Assembly last week, Xi Jinping, president of the Peoples Republic of China, announced a significant improvement to its climate goal. Up until now, under Paris, China had committed to making sure its emissions would peak and start declining by 2030.  Now, China has committed to being carbon neutral by 2060.

China is currently the world’s largest polluter, although that does not mean it is primarily responsible for the climate crisis.  The emissions from many decades are still exerting a warming force in the atmosphere, so the United States, formerly the world’s largest polluter, and other industrialized countries bear a large burden of responsibility.

This announcement is being greeted as huge news. According to Climate Action Tracker, the target, if met, should reduce the expected increase in global average temperatures by 0.2-0.3C.  That is not enough to hold global average temperature to no more than 1.5 degrees, but it is very significant.

What has Canada done? Well, our emissions are still climbing.  While most of Europe is well below 1990 levels, as much as 40% below 1990 levels, Canada’s emissions went up again in the last year for which we have records- 2018. We are now 21% above 1990 levels.

This week’s Speech from the Throne (SFT) again committed to carbon neutrality by 2050, without setting a steep target for 2030.  We will never get to carbon neutrality by 2050 with our current weak target. The SFT pledges to “immediately bring forward a plan to exceed Canada’s 2030 climate goal.”

This is very vague. Bear in mind, Canada’s 2030 goal – 30% below 2005 levels by 2030 – is the one left behind by Harper, representing the third time he weakened the target.  It is appalling that in 2020, we still have a Stephen Harper climate target. So, is “exceeding” our climate goal 32% or what is needed – 60%.

And “immediately”?  I know it is only four days later, but what I hear Minister Wilkinson talk about is sometime before the end of the year.

Many commentators pressed the notion that it was too early to really attack the climate crisis in the SFT as we were still not out of the woods on COVID. At the Union of BC Municipalities meeting, Margaret Atwood joined by zoom.  When asked what she thought of the idea that the pandemic had pushed climate to the back burner, she retorted, “I don’t know about you, but my stove has two front burners.”

There is a LOT to absorb from the SFT.  Many previous commitments were recycled- living up to UNDRIP, acting on safe drinking water in indigenous communities, tree planting, and reforms of the Canadian Environmental Protection Act. Guaranteed Livable Income was disappointingly not included. There were promises for pharmacare, but looking like a very slow process to get there. Some nice surprises, like a commitment to more local food security, and national standards for long term care homes.  Some exciting ideas around public housing and a few mentions to almost every issue you can think of!  I am including a link to the whole text. https://www.canada.ca/en/privy-council/campaigns/speech-throne/2020/stronger-resilient-canada.html

We are now debating it in Parliament – both in person and at a distance. I am very happy to report that all parties finally got together and agreed that we can vote from our ridings and not crowd into the House of Commons. In fact, with both Paul Manly and me in Ottawa this week, only one of us is allowed in the House at a time.  Good reason to get home and start campaigning for our wonderful BC Green leader Sonia Furstenau and all the great candidates.

Please do click the links below to see what the Green Caucus was able to contribute in the three days we sat in the House this week.

We have still not decided on how we will vote on the SFT.  There is a lot to like in it, but is there enough on climate to support it?  As a caucus, we work by consensus. We may decide not to vote the same way. We are still considering how we best act in the interest of a habitable planet.

There is no risk of the government falling over the vote. Jagmeet Singh, without ever mentioning climate, has already signaled his caucus will vote confidence in Trudeau’s administration. That gives Trudeau all the votes he needs to remain in government.  And frankly, I am very relieved we will not be going into a federal election in a pandemic. John Horgan should be ashamed of himself. But, if he were capable of shame, he would be too shame-faced to go to the polls after pushing through Site C, and fracking and subsidies to LNG, and old growth logging and scuppering our chances for electoral reform and on and on.

Thank goodness BC voters have good options in voting for Green candidates! Go Sonia!

Love and peace –and remember to vote!

Elizabeth

Key Moments

• Elizabeth May pays tribute to the late John Turner, former Prime Minister of Canada
• Paul Manly: Would the leader of the NDP support a ban on fracking?

Question Period and Member’s Statements

• Elizabeth May: When will the government remove toxic fish factories from the ocean?
• Elizabeth May: Canada’s debt to GDP ratio is better than we think
• Elizabeth May: Pharmacare must remain a priority

Statements and Press Releases

• Greens encouraged by some aspects of Speech from the Throne but caution stronger climate action will be needed
• MP Atwin calls on federal government to respect Indigenous fishing rights
• Green support for the Speech from the Throne tied to flattening the climate curve and eliminating poverty

Press Conferences

• Green Party Presents its Throne Speech Expectations – September 23rd, 2020
• Green Party reacts to the Throne Speech – September 23rd, 2020

In Their Own Words​

• Elizabeth May – The Throne Speech Matters, Now More Than Ever (Policy Magazine)
• Paul Manly – Decriminalization will save lives

Petitions

E-petitions open for signature

• e-2827 Support an amendment to the Rome Statute (closes October 2)
• e-2615 Divest CPP from fossil fuel investments (closes October 3)
• e-2783 Declare a public health emergency due to overdose deaths in Canada (closes October 10)
• e-2794 Put a price on carbon (closes October 13)
• e-2797 Cancel prison agribusiness (closes October 13)
• e-2729 Accommodate environmental sensitivities (closes October 19)
• e-2776 Divest CPPIB from open-net pen aquaculture (closes 24 October)
• e-2667 Ensure the human rights of Palestinian children (closes November 3)
• e-2837 Eliminate commercial anchorages in the Southern Gulf Islands (closes November 14)
• e-2708 Hold Turkey accountable for human rights violations (closes November 26)
• e-2828 Reject the Roberts Bank Container Terminal 2 Project (closes December 2)
• e-2836 Implement a GLI for all Canadians (closes December 14)

The post Good Sunday Morning – September 27 appeared first on Elizabeth May.

The Green Party leadership race is now well underway with ten candidates. The first debate was co-hosted by former Green leaders, Jim Harris and me and sponsored by Fair Vote Canada, and included some French.

There will also be debates with a French broadcaster, details in the works. If you missed the English language debates on TVO, here are the links.

https://www.tvo.org/video/green-party-of-canada-leadership-debate-part-1

https://www.tvo.org/video/green-party-of-canada-leadership-debate-part-2

As a group, this is one strong field of diverse contenders. Veteran political debates host Steve Paikan moderated. Having decided ten was unwieldy, TVO split the debate into two groups of five. I really enjoyed Steve Paikan’s reflection on the very different leadership races – the Greens and the Conservatives. Paikan noted how vicious the Conservative front-runners were to each other, contrasted with the civility of Greens:

“The events might not have featured a lot of the fireworks of a typical leaders’ debate. But viewers were introduced to some serious, sober-minded people, all of them with a variety of interesting life experiences, who clearly understand the herculean task at hand — replacing a seasoned, iconic parliamentarian, in May, and leading the party to an electoral breakthrough that heretofore has eluded it.”

It has led me to think a lot about the differences between Greens in politics and other parties. I am trying (and maybe failing) to do a good job at succession. Most parties’ leadership transition ends up a bloodied battleground – the Chretien Martin wars, Mulroney to Kim Campbell, Mulcair to Singh. I hope to be re-elected and work alongside the next leader in parliament. Yet another reason why I will not be endorsing anyone. Good relations are essential. Historical examples of collaborative succession are hard to find. In fact, the only model I can recall was Alexa McDonough passing the torch to Jack Layton. Maybe something to do with women leaders? (Fingers crossed I can do it as well as Alexa!)

Increasingly, through this pandemic, it is the Green package of prescriptions that is gaining momentum and support. If you missed it have a look at this extraordinary letter from former Prime Minister Brian Mulroney published as a full page in yesterday’s Globe and Mail. In it he calls for an “Agenda for Canadian Greatness” and then lists much of what is in our plan “Reimagining our Future.” It’s not perfect mind you, (he mentions we need pipelines for prosperity), but who could have imagined Mulroney calling for “priority examination” of guaranteed livable income, full indigenous justice, responding to the “realities of climate change,” “a national commitment to the eradication of systemic racism and anti-semitism in Canada,” among other measures. I really liked his closing tag line “Incrementalism builds increments. Bold initiatives build nations.”

We really have no time for incrementalism in moving to climate solutions. As the head of the International Energy Agency noted this week, the decisions in the next six months will determine whether we hold to 1.5 degrees or not.

It is the post-pandemic stimulus spending by governments around the world that will determine if pollution levels “bounce back” in order to restart the economy.

Very encouraging news was the vote in Halifax to adopt a serious climate plan. 75% reductions by 2030! Congratulations to Green councilor and shadow cabinet member, Richard Zurawski. We are in a perilous place. The climate emergency is worsening, as the Arctic experiences unprecedented heat waves and the global concentration of greenhouse gases continues to rise, even as emission levels dropped due to the pandemic. It is these concentrations that really matter as once they go up, they do not drop down. Over the next 100 years at least, this new 417 ppm is now the floor. Amounts of pollution can rise and fall, but concentrations reflect all the work of natural systems, green leafy things pulling carbon out of the atmosphere. The “netted out” new concentration becomes a new “normal.”

With both the COVID and climate emergency, we are also in times of deep political risk. The threat of fascism has not been this high in decades. Last week, I lost a dear friend to COVID19, likely due to the horrors of the anti-indigenous and anti-science policies of Brazil’s horrific leader Jair Bolsonaro. Chief Paiakan of the Kayapo died of COVID19. We had become friends in years of struggle to protect the Amazon and stop the dam on the Xingu River. He had a huge impact on my life and of many friends who were inspired by Paiakan’s leadership.

South of the border, Trump is becoming increasingly unhinged. I felt the hair on the back of my neck rise as he declared, “If the Democrats gain power, then the rioters will be in charge and no one will be safe and no one will have control”; He is already warning that if he loses the election it can only have been due to electoral fraud. We have a very dangerous neighbour, as my friend Ziya Tong warns in the Toronto Star.

Perhaps the most encouraging thing we can hang onto was the assessment from John Ibbitson; that we now have a “unique competitive advantage of being the only major developed, English-speaking country that hasn’t gone crazy.”

And in that, we should all be grateful. Reach out – phone a friend, zoom into a webinar, share a sensible, science-based article, get together at six feet and recommit to a strong recovery that moves the world to justice, equity and survival.

Virtual hugs!

Elizabeth

This didn’t really fit in today’s letter, but like a kid who got a good report card, I wanted to be sure you saw this on the Green MP attendance record in pandemic parliament. We were the best; Conservatives the worst.  Way to go team! Thanks to Paul Manly and Jenica Atwin!

This weekly newsletter is published by Elizabeth’s EDA in Saanich-Gulf Islands. You can sign up for it here.

The post Good Sunday Morning – June 28 appeared first on Elizabeth May.

We have hit the three months mark of living in pandemic land.  I don’t know about you, but I am sick of it.  But we know it is not over.

We have to be careful.

As Greens, we called for a coordinated national response months ago. We are the only party that called for the federal government to trigger the measures for a Public Welfare Emergency under the Emergencies Act.

Recently, Professor Amir Attaran, professor of both law and epidemiology, called for the same thing in Macleans.

And although they differ on some aspects of their pandemic analysis, Ontario’s former health minister Eric Hoskins agrees we have an appalling lack of information: “decision-makers are just reading tea leaves while blindfolded.”

As Canadians, as ever, we congratulate ourselves for how well we are doing (on any issue) fill in the blank.

Amir Attaran asks us to look at other wealthy countries. When we look globally, our numbers and our response are not that good.  Compare us to Australia, with its 25 million people.  Only 100 people have died in Australia of COVID-19.  With 33 million people, we have had 8,000 deaths and that number is climbing.

Like Canada, Australia has complex federalism. As in Canada, public health in Australia is primarily not the federal government’s responsibility. So the public health officers from every state and territory in Australia, along with the national public health officer and other officials, formed a national committee that determined a national response.  We still have provinces not delivering key data to the federal government.  And it is being sent by fax machines. Worse, the Public Health Agency of Canada agreed to allow provinces to suppress data that those governments might find embarrassing.

Attaran finds our response poor, even compared with far poorer countries: “Our progress on ‘bending the curve’ is halting and unimpressive compared to Europe and Asia. Our testing is so broken down that it lags behind Rwanda’s and Ethiopia’s. Our epidemiological data is so inadequate that even if we wanted to conduct the endgame well, often we cannot. Places like Toronto and Quebec are reopening too soon, risking to sicken—and kill—people needlessly, while the Maritimes and Prairies are reopening too slowly, strangling the economy.”

Canada is lagging in testing and tracing. We do not have reliable data to guide us.  Dr. Attaran thinks we still have time to get ahead of these failures and avoid a worse, second wave.  As Attaran points out, by far most of the cases continuing to be diagnosed in Canada are in Ontario, Quebec and Alberta.  Our federal-provincial tensions are getting in the way of public health. I will keep calling for the Emergency Act to be invoked.

Meanwhile, this was a week in which Canadians demanded answers from the RCMP. Yet another indigenous man was killed by police in New Brunswick.  The family of Chantel Moore, who was killed last week by Edmundston NB police, continues to demand answers. The killing of a physically petite, 26 year old indigenous woman by an armed RCMP officer, who reportedly shot her five times, requires answers. And justice.

At a Thursday press conference in Ottawa, when asked about systemic racism within the RCMP, I noted that I know many very competent and wonderful members of the RCMP, but that “The RCMP is a racist institution.”

Greens Launch Reimagining Our Future: Reconnected, Renewed, Resilient

By the way, the purpose of that press conference was to launch our post-pandemic vision document: Reimagining Our Future.

Please share it widely. Read it and engage.  And also a strong note that this is NOT replacing Mission: Possible, the platform or Vision Green.  We are fully committed, for example, to democratic reform and eliminating fossil fuel subsidies. These key issues remain front and centre for Greens.

And this week, Greens also hit a milestone: the full list of candidates who wish to run for the federal leadership was released.  Ten candidates from nearly every part of Canada – Maritimes, Quebec, Ontario, British Columbia and the Northwest Territories – are in contention.  Five lawyers, a brilliant scientist, an emergency room doctor who is also a climate campaigner, urban planner and former Minister of Environment, and entrepreneurs are in the running.

Please be sure to encourage friends and family to join the party before September to be able to vote. The election is one member/one vote/on-line and by preferential ballot voting.  Debates are coming up soon, so watch the Green Party website for details.  Or sign up for email alerts of new developments.

For now, have a great Sunday.  I can hardly wait, as by next Sunday, I will be home again and back in self-isolation with my view of the Salish Sea!

Love,

Elizabeth

E-petitions open for signature

• e-2525 Eliminate fossil fuel subsidies (closes June 15)
• e-2447 Open competition for research funding (closes June 23)
• e-2450 Legalize the transportation of CBD products across the Canadian border (closes June 26)
• e-2624 Include long-term care in the public health system (closes July 3)
• e-2416 Mandatory labelling of food containing GMOs (closes July 4)
• e-2655 Extend work permit timit limit for international students (closes July 10)
• e-2471 Grant the RCMP Funding for Body Cameras (closes July 16)
• e-2534 Amend the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act (closes August 14)
• e-2565 Request that Israel immediately lift the blockade on Gaza (closes September 4)
• e-2583 Implement a Guaranteed Livable Income (closes 19 August)
• e-2615 Divest CPP from fossil fuel investments (closes October 3)

The post Good Sunday Morning – June 14 appeared first on Elizabeth May.

What started in 2015 as an update to share the news from the canvassing team became a very informative weekly newsletter. It is time to bring it back!

With the support of my local Electoral District Association in Saanich-Gulf Islands, we are re-launching Good Sunday Morning.
I do not have a lot of time on my hands as the Member of Parliament for Saanich-Gulf Islands, but now that I have stepped down as party leader, I have a bit more. And I love writing… so here we go!

The timing is good. Greens are getting used to the idea that, after 13 years it is time to elect a new leader. I am excited about the leadership race and convention in Charlottetown in October 2020. By writing you every week, I hope I will provide re-assuring continuity. In other words, I am not going anywhere. Or as, I put it to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Friday of last week, “as former leader, I promise to be just as annoying.”

I laughed and he laughed. That was my hope. We have far too little good will and laughter in political life. We need to be able to laugh at ourselves, in particular. I do not think that Trudeau actually finds me annoying. But I am relentless in pressing him to do the right thing. As Mark Twain once said, “Few things are harder to put up with than the annoyance of a good example.” So maybe I am annoying.

In this election, we set a good example. We did not run any attack ads. We did not put out campaign material lying about other parties or leaders. We never have. We ran a carbon neutral campaign, as we always do. We took ground travel as much as possible with volunteers and their electric vehicles, commercial flights in economy, trains as much as possible, buses and ferries. We tracked our carbon and will offset (we know this is far from perfect, but it was a 40 day campaign and Canada is a big country). Unlike all the other parties, we did not have a campaign plane… and, unlike the Liberals, we had no back up campaign plane for the one we didn’t have.

Just as in Parliament, where Greens never heckle, we ran our campaign on the high road.

And now we have a minority parliament where maybe, just maybe, we can make progress.

I will keep you posted every Sunday morning. I will try to share, as Thomas did, fascinating articles that enlighten.

Here is a bit of what is coming up:

I will be in Ottawa on November 27th to celebrate as Paul Manly and Jenica Atwin take the oath to become Members of Parliament. I will have the deep honour of being sworn in for the third time!

Parliament opens on December 5th with the Speech from the Throne and the election of the Speaker (in case you had not heard, despite rumours, I am not running for Speaker).

On December 7th, I am off to Madrid for the climate negotiations at COP25. I am so pleased that other Greens – great candidates from the 2019 campaign – my husband John Kidder, Claire Kelly, Tim Thompson and Amita Kuttner have found the funds to attend as well. We have secured credentials for them through the Palestinian delegation. Canada has added me to our national delegation, but only me.

I will have more news to share before the Christmas break!

So have a wonderful Sunday. Until next week!

Elizabeth

This weekly blog is published by Elizabeth’s EDA in Saanich-Gulf Islands. You can sign up for it here.

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