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Federal Green Party Leader Elizabeth May is calling on the country’s top politicians to form an inner cabinet designed specifically to battle the climate emergency.

While May first proposed the idea last year, this week she penned an open letter to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer, New Democrat Leader Jagmeet Singh and Yves-François Blanchet, leader of the Bloc Québécois.

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In the letter dated Sept. 3, she urged the leaders to establish a cross-party climate emergency cabinet because the crisis represents “the greatest existential threat” in human history.

“We face an enemy, which, if we fail to defeat it, will end life on Earth as we know it,” May states.

Cross-party cabinets are rare in government and have usually been established during extreme moments in history, such as in times of war.

During the Second World War in 1940, for example, Winston Churchill created a wartime inner cabinet made up of representatives from all the sitting parties. It initially began as five members, but was later expanded to eight, and included members from all five parties represented in Parliament. The coalition was dissolved in 1945 when Germany was defeated.