Amazingly enough, my time line for pandemic tells me this is week 11 in lock down. The days have blurred together, but with parliamentary committees meeting virtually every week day, at least weekends have begun to feel different. I still work through Saturday and Sunday, but mostly in zoom meetings with constituents and on projects I can no longer juggle during the week. I am covering three standing committees (Finance, Procedure and House Affairs and Government Operations), plus the virtual parliament Special COVID committee. Most days I have the feeling of being imprisoned by zoom. I feel as though the mandatory headset with high quality mic to protect the ears of our House translators is starting to grow into my skull. It is an odd old world, but at least we are able to do good work.

We did get some good news from the world outside of COVID19 – and yes the world is still there. Both rays of sunshine came from court decisions long in the making.

First up, on May 13, the Ontario courts reversed the Ford government’s cancellation of a previously approved wind energy project. The Nation Rise wind facility, 40 km south of Ottawa, was two thirds built, promising electricity at 7 cents a kwh. Ontario Environment Minister Jeff Yurek cancelled the project with a bogus claim about damage to bats. The court slammed him. “This is a case where the minister’s decision is not reasonable and does not deserve deference… This decision does not meet the requirements of transparency, justification and intelligibility.”

The proponents have committed to continuing to build and get the plant to completion. The Greens’ wonderful leader in Ontario, Mike Schreiner said, “It’s good to know that the premier’s political vendetta against clean energy does not supersede the rule of law.”

As a side note, what is happening to Doug Ford? This week he attacked the greed of “vicious landlords.”

“You know what drives me crazy? I can’t stand these vicious landlords. They are. You’ve got to protect the little guy all the time. They’re struggling. I just wish they could hang in there for a couple of months. It’s not the end of the world. To all the big landlords out there — have a heart.”

Of course, he has not acted on rent relief: Sign the GPO petition.

Doug Ford has been disastrous to so many aspects of Ontario, and especially the strong climate policy put in place by previous environment ministers, including the new Green candidate for leadership, former minister Glen Murray.

Is it possible this new version of Doug Ford who denounces “yahoos” and “vicious landlords” will have a similar Road to Damascus conversion to protect climate? The post-pandemic world may look very different.

The other great news came from the Supreme Court of Canada, turning down an appeal against the government’s third rejection of the Taseko Prosperity mine. This is a massive win for the Tsilhqot’in First Nation.

In this 12 year fight, it was federal environmental assessment law (pre-CEAA 2012) that led to former Conservative environment minister, the late Jim Prentice, to reject the mine at Fish Lake in 2010. Reviewing it again in 2014, Harper’s last environment minister Leona Aglukkaq also turned down the mine. But the BC government allowed exploration work to proceed anyway. This should be the end of it, but as Chief Joe Alphonse, Tsilhqot’in National Government chairman, said, “I never count these (Taseko) guys out. … These guys would try to pump oxygen into a dead horse.”

So, great news! But never take our eyes off protecting this Tsilhqot’in Territory!

More good news! The Green Party federal council election results are official. A great group of new council members will start work soon, along with new executive director Prateek Awasthi. I think you’ll love this article about his background from The Indian Express.

All this and a leadership race. Even in lock-down, Greens are busy and active and out to save the world.

Have a great day if you can take tomorrow off. If you have time, please sign all the petitions below!

Love,

Elizabeth

Green press releases:

• Greens stress post-COVID-19 recovery stimulus most effective when developed with climate in mind
• Green MPs condemn Israeli plan to annex more Palestinian land

Articles and letters I wrote this week, after attacks over “oil is dead.”

• Elizabeth May responds to John Ivison: The oilsands are not worth investing in (National Post)
• Elizabeth May: Yes, Oil is dead. Just read the writing on the wall. (National Observer)
• Elizabeth May Letter to the Editor, May 14 (Times Colonist)

Petitions

• e-2509 Top Up Wages for Essential Workers (closes May 22)
• e-2389 Reduce Water Pollution by Microplastics (closes May 22)
• 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-2416 Mandatory Labelling of Food Containing GMOs (closes July 4)
• 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)

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

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A mixed week (March 29, 2020)

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For example, he says I have been on the political scene for almost a decade. Which is true if you think seven years as leader of the Green Party is almost 10 years. And I have been an MP for less than two years. If we are thinking in centuries, it is a rounding error. But in terms of Canadian political reality, it’s just wrong.

Even more bizarre is his assertion that “part of the reason she’s even famous in the first place is because she once sat on some UN environment committee chaired by Maurice Strong.” Well, it wasn’t a UN Committee; it was the Earth Charter Commission and included a number of former prime ministers, presidents, and thought leaders from around the world.

It was co-chaired by Maurice Strong and Mikhail Gorbachev. I was appointed to it in 1997, when I had been a prominent part of Canada’s environmental movement for more than two decades. I did not “win” the Order of Canada as McCullough would have it. I was honoured to be named an Officer of the Order of Canada for decades of work. It is not something one “wins.”

The strangest thing about the blog is the assumption that the Green Party and I are the same. As though the Green Party, incorporated in 1983, simply wouldn’t exist if I had never been born. McCullough even insults the entire party, and me for good measure, by suggesting the Green Party of Canada is a personal “vanity vehicle.”

I am the ninth leader of the Green Party of Canada. Former Leader Jim Harris did an amazing job of getting the party better known. In both 2004 and 2006, he led a full slate of 308 candidates in the federal elections. We continue to be a party operating from coast to coast, and ran in over 300 ridings in both 2008 and 2011.

After the 2006 election, I joined the Green Party for the first time and resigned after 17 years as Executive Director of the Sierra Club of Canada. McCullough is quite wrong to assert that I find Stephen Harper “personally frightening.” I have never said any such thing. He is not the least bit personally frightening. It’s his policies that are frightening, My concern for what would become of decades of environmental law and policy under his rule is what caused me to leave the Sierra Club to run for the hotly contested leadership of the Green Party in 2006.

We need a Green Party in Canada precisely because none of the other parties are consistent in raising the spectre of the climate crisis, nor in advancing solutions to avert its most serious threats. Nor do other parties pay any attention to the way in which Harper’s administration is dismantling the respected Canadian civil service and policy-making within it.

Contrary to McCullough’s uninformed rant, Green principles actually reject the leader-as-boss model of other parties. Our governance is based on a national elected council. Under our Constitution, the powers conveyed by the Elections Act to every party leader to approve candidate nominations are constrained by insisting that three quarters of Council approve any decision to refuse a nomination.

We will have more MPs and when we do, Canadians will see what happens when a party respects Westminster Parliamentary democracy and does not whip votes or insist on mindless solidarity on every vote and issue.

More and more Canadians are shifting their allegiance from the old line parties to the principled and viable Green Party of Canada. Our policies are available in Vision Green on our website. We have a full platform for economic well-being and making a transition to a low carbon society, with social justice and accountability.

Canadian Democracy is healthier for us being part of it. No mystery there.

Originally printed in the Huffington Post.

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11:00 a.m. – Elizabeth May will participate in a press conference with Jane Sterk, Leader of the Green Party of BC and Adriane Carr, Vancouver’s first Green Party City Councilor, on International Women’s Day to outline their current priorities to support women’s equity and leadership.

East of Main Café
223 East Georgia Street
Vancouver, BC

NOTES:

• Green Party of Canada’s release for International Women’s Day.
• The three Green leaders will be will be joined by Carrie Serwetnyk, the first woman inductee into the Canadian Soccer Hall of Fame and founder of Why the Women’s World Cup Matters.

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The amendments I put forward are substantive, detailed, precise. They go toward creating balance of probability considerations for a minister to consider. They go toward providing more criteria around the minister’s discretion.

Nowhere could anyone read my amendments and think that the goal was to keep dangerous foreign criminals in Canada. Also, the assertion, which I am sure she did not write herself but came from the PMO in some talking point, that people on this side of the House do not care about victims, is deeply offensive.

[TtIT60fJ0og]

Roxanne James: Mr. Speaker, I apologize to the member opposite if I missed the Green Party in my speech. Unfortunately, as the member knows, the Green Party does not have official status in this House, having only one seat, and is not actually a member of the immigration committee.

Having said that, I would like to point out that this particular legislation actually goes to three different directions. It makes it easier for the government to remove dangerous foreign criminals. It makes it harder for those who pose a risk to Canada to enter Canada. Importantly, a point which is left out of a lot of the questions asked by the opposition, including the party of the one person in the corner, is it actually removes the barriers for genuine visitors who want to come to Canada and expedites that process. That is important also to note.

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We believe RAIPON’s closure by Russia is retaliation for the Association’s opposition to oil and gas development off the Yamal Peninsula in northwest Siberia.

RAIPON represents 41 indigenous peoples in the Russian North and has status as Permanent Participant in the Arctic Council. In Wednesday’s high-level Arctic Council meeting in Haparanda, northern Sweden, the desk under the RAIPON flag remained empty.

The Arctic Council has always been a positive model for multilateral discussions inclusive of indigenous peoples. It is not acceptable that the Russian Indigenous Peoples have been expelled in this way and we must do our utmost to support their inclusion back into the Arctic Council.

We appeal to our respective Foreign and Northern Affairs Ministers, and in particular to Minister Leona Aglukkaq, upcoming Canadian Chair of the Arctic Council, to call upon the Russian government to stop administrative and political pressure and interference into self-governance of indigenous peoples of the North and to encourage a cooperative and mutually respectful dialogue between RAIPON and the Russian Ministry of Justice to resolve this situation.

Elizabeth May, Leader of the Green Party of Canada

Hanna E. Marcussen, Harald A. Nissen, Spokespersons for the Norwegian Greens

Ville Niinistö, Leader of Finland’s Green League

Alexey Kozlov, Chairman, Green Alternative Russia

Jill Stein, Presidential candidate 2012 for the Green Party of the United States

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“This award is a well-deserved recognition for Lorraine’s distinguished career of more than twenty-five years as an advocate for environmental health and social justice both in the media and in non-governmental organizations,” said May.

Lorraine Rekmans is the Green Party Critic for aboriginal affairs and was the Greens’ candidate in the riding of Algoma-Manitoulin-Kapuskasing in 2008 and 2011.

“Her influence and extensive experience in forestry and uranium mining issues is known internationally, as is her work as an advocate for Indigenous rights,” added May.

The Rosalie Bertell Award is given for outstanding service in the field of environmental health by the International Institute of Concern for Public Health.

“We are doubly honoured that one of our leading Green party candidates has been honoured in the name of the late Rosalie Bertell. I worked and was inspired by Rosalie Bertell over decades on issues from nuclear power to the Sydney Tar Ponds to militarism. She is missed, ” concluded Elisabeth May.

Ms. Rekmans co-edited This is My Homeland, which is a testimony of the impacts of uranium mining on the lives of the indigenous people at Serpent River First Nation. Ms. Rekmans was part of a women’s group that intervened in the first environmental assessment of a uranium mine in Canada when the uranium mines at Elliot Lake, Ontario, were decommissioned in the mid-1990s.

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While Green party leaders called for all political parties in Canada to come out against the Kinder Morgan pipeline expansion project on Wednesday, a representative from the company took issue with their facts.

Federal Green Party MP Elizabeth May, BC Green Party leader Jane Sterk and Vancouver City Councillor and federal Green Party deputy leader Adriane Carr joined first nations leaders to state their opposition to the company’s plan to expand their capcity for transporting oil from Alberta to Metro Vancouver and beyond.

“We would end up with as many as 300 to 360 super tankers a year trying to get out from under the Second Narrows, under Railway Bridge and under Lions Gate Bridge,” May said.

View the full original article >>

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Elizabeth May, Member of Parliament for Saanich-Gulf Islands and Leader of the Green Party of Canada, Jane Sterk, Leader of the Green Party of British Columbia, and Adriane Carr, Vancouver City Councillor with the Green Party of Vancouver and Deputy Leader of the Green Party of Canada all joined forces today to say “No” to Texas-based Kinder Morgan’s project of twinning the Trans Mountain Pipeline between Edmonton and Burnaby, taking its capacity from 300,000 barrels of diluted bitumen per day to 850,000 barrels per day.

“Kinder Morgan wants to nearly triple the capacity of the pipeline. This is an environmental threat not only because consuming all this oil will aggravate climate change, but also because the risks of oil spills are unacceptably high. More than 100,000 litres of light crude oil was spilled at Kinder Morgan’s terminal in Abbotsford, BC, last January.

“The first round of Kinder Morgan expansion allowed off-shore buyers with tankers to out-bid the last remaining lower mainland refinery at Burnaby. We are so eager to ship out unrefined bitumen, at great environmental risk, that we are ignoring the fact that the local economy is also short-changed,” added May.

“This is an ‘old economy’ project,” said Jane Sterk, Leader of the Green Party of British Columbia. “We don’t need more supertanker traffic in the Vancouver Harbour. What we need is to build a new renewable-energy-based economy that will create good jobs, protect our environment and establish greater long-term energy security. ”

“As a Vancouver Councillor, I have been proactive in ensuring that the City of Vancouver has taken a leadership role in opposing Kinder Morgan’s pipeline expansion”, added Adriane Carr. “Our city needs parties at the provincial and federal levels, where the decision on Kinder Morgan’s plans will be made, to step up to the plate. Only the Green Party has done so, declaring its opposition to Kinder Morgan’s plans at all three political levels. I hope this moves the NDP and the Liberals, both of which are waffling, to join us in saying ‘No’ to all the pipeline and tanker projects that threaten our economy andenvironment.”

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Representatives of federal, provincial and municipal Green parties voiced their collective opposition today (September 12) to plans to twin the Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain Pipeline between Edmonton and Burnaby.

“This proposal would dramatically increase the number of super tankers carrying bitumen diluent—it would expand the size of tankers leaving the port of Vancouver and we would end up with as many as 300 to 360 super tankers a year, trying to get out through the Second Narrows Bridge, under the railway bridge, and under Lion’s Gate Bridge,” said Elizabeth May, the MP for Saanich-Gulf Islands and Leader of the Green Party of Canada, at a news conference in downtown Vancouver.

“These are areas with significant tidal influences,” she added. “The precision of movement of these super tankers would have to be 100 percent perfect every day of the year for us to avoid a serious accident that could foul our waterways, our beaches and our shorelines from the Lower Mainland to the Gulf Islands.”

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