“What is it about activists that they can’t even be optimistic for one day after a whole decade?” The disgust and disappointment on my 16-year-old’s face was heartbreaking as he surfed my Facebook page the morning after the Canadian election. I could only shake my head sadly and agree with him. Wouldn’t it be great to be fuelled by hope instead of fear as the late Jack Layton urged us in his letter to the nation? For just a minute could we critics not take a deep breath and focus on all the things that we know will now change?

My sons have never known a Canada that was not under Stephen Harper’s thumb. For the last decade they have listened to their parents shock and outrage over the weakening of our environmental laws, the lack of transparency, the erosion of democracy, the muzzling of scientists, the attack on environmental groups, the disregard for Canada’s constitution. Along the way we tried to keep hope alive. We painted a picture for them of a Canada that valued evidence-based policy. A Canada that led on the world stage to create critical international agreements like the Montreal Protocol. We talked about how lucky we are to live in a democracy and how important it was for us to participate, to organize and to vote.

Together we watched the election results come in from coast to coast and I watched the hope and optimism on my son’s face as he listened to Justin Trudeau’s acceptance speech. “Sunny ways!” We all yelled, half-hysterical. “To the end of the Harper era!” We cheered as we raised a glass in jubilant toast.

Our exuberance made the next morning’s conversation all that more painful. “Is he really no different?” (That’s what many of my fellow environmental activists claim.) “Why can’t people ever be hopeful?”

Why not indeed.

Let’s be clear — the Liberal Party platform on climate change currently lacks strong emissions reductions targets at a critical moment in history when it is clear that the United Nations Climate Change Conference discussions are undergoing a dramatic cultural shift. For the first time in over a decade we are seeing a race to the top on climate policy. Countries are committing to aggressive targets and, like China with the announcement of their cap and trade system, they are putting in place real policies to meet those targets. Canada will have to scramble to catch up after a decade of federal inaction.

But to allow our doubts to cloud out hope would be a mistake. Rather, we should take guidance from the Liberal campaign slogan: “hope and hard work.” In the coming months we will need a lot of both. Not just from our new government but also from ourselves. This government at the very least represents possibility — possibility that will go unfulfilled if we give ourselves over to despair rather than push the government toward something better. For our children and our health and the health of our communities, let’s allow ourselves to hope.

Over the past week I have forced myself not to fall into the pit of cynicism and to take a moment every day to think of one thing that I care about that will change under this new government. It has had the effect of weights being lifted off my shoulders. It will take a while to trust my government again. But for my children I will try.

So far, prime minister-designate Justin Trudeau is making it easy for us. We aren’t getting platitudes and spin devoid of real promises. Within minutes we were getting renewed commitments to a new voting system, an inquiry into the missing and murdered Aboriginal women and an invitation to Green Party leader Elizabeth May and every premier to attend the Paris Climate Summit as part of a team. We even got a day-after press conference where our prime minister-designate reversed a 10-year tradition and, believe it or not, answered questions.

The coming months will not be easy as we begin to establish a new relationship with Ottawa and the international community but I am hopeful that we now have a government that will govern for all of Canadians’ best interests and not simply for one sector. I am hopeful that we now have a government that will choose science over politics, clean, safe energy systems over business as usual and perhaps even people over polluters.

Tzeporah Berman is an environmental activist, an adjunct professor of Environmental Studies at York University author of This Crazy Time: Living Our Environmental Challenge, published by Knopf Canada and the mother of two boys. A version of this piece appeared in Alternatives Journal.

Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading...

Read more about: