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Former prime minister Brian Mulroney is urging Canadian political leaders to take ambitious steps on fighting climate change, even if those steps are deeply unpopular with your own voter base.

“Change of any kind requires risk, political risk,” Mulroney said in prepared remarks for a Tuesday night speech in Toronto, where he was accepting an environmental leadership award from charitable organization Pollution Probe.

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“Those who aspire to national leadership must craft an agenda that responds to the hopes and aspirations of all Canadians. Small, divisive agendas make for a small, divided country. It is not enough to simply please ‘the base,’ ” he said.

“As difficult as the process may be to arrest and to mitigate the effects of global warming, the work cannot be left to the next fellow. The stakes are too high, the risks to our planet and the human species too grave.”