Love Canada's Motion to Declare a Climate Emergency



Thank you to everyone who sent WDHT Love to Canada’s Parliament. Together we helped changed history.



On June 17 Canada declared a national climate emergency. We are not done yet. We are updating our campaign. Found out why and what comes next. Note that we are not adding anything new. We had previously also asked for help to enshrine climate targets under national law. We are just contextualizing it.



Background:

On Thursday, May 17, a motion was introduced in the House of Commons for Canada to declare a climate emergency. If passed, it would have the House formally declare that Canada “is in a national climate emergency which requires, as a response, that Canada commit to meeting its national emissions target under the Paris Agreement and to making deeper reductions in line with … objective of holding global warming below two degrees Celsius and pursuing efforts to keep global warming below 1.5 degrees Celsius.”



The last week of the 42nd Parliament:

It was like something out of Alice in Wonderland.

• On June 17 Canada declared a national climate emergency. Of note, the Scheer Conservatives opposed the motion.

• On June 18, for the second time, the Trudeau Liberals approved the Trans Mountain pipeline.

• On June 20, the Scheer Conservatives revealed their woefully inadequate and widely criticized plans for the climate crisis. Former PC PM Kim Campbell called the plans “a sop.”

• After much wrangling by Conservative Senators and massive lobbying by oil companies, important bills to protect the water, air, climate and soil became the law of the land. These bills replaced the environmental laws shredded by the Harper Conservatives in 2012 in Bill C38.

• The next day, Premier Jason Kenney, United Conservative Party of Alberta leader and former Harper Cabinet Minister, filed a challenge to Bills 69 and 48.

• On the last day of the 42nd Parliament of Canada, June 21, which is also Canada’s National Indigenous People’s Day, a sad for democracy and reconciliation happened. Conservative Senators filibustered and killed NDP MP Romeo Saganash’s private member’s Bill 262 to enshrine U.N.D.R.I.P. under national law. This also would have helped protect the land, air, water and climate because the Indigenous People of our country would have a lot more say on natural resource projects on their land – as they should.



We don't have time for these partisan games anymore.



Help enshrine Canada’s GHG targets under national law:

Because we have a declared a climate emergency, we are closer to having science-based, and legally binding greenhouse-gas targets enshrined under national law.



Going forward, Canada, and all countries should have a transparent process for reporting GHG emissions and cross-party cooperation. Specifically, Canada should use the United Kingdom’s Climate Change Act (2008) as a model, which was the recommendation of the Environmental Commissioner of Ontario in: Climate Action in Ontario: What’s Next?. In March 2019, the UK's greenhouse gas emissions hit their lowest levels in almost a century.



About Citizens’ Climate Lobby (CCL) Canada:

CCL Canada is grassroots, nonpartisan and volunteer-run. We want everyone to treat the climate crisis as a non-partisan issue.



History Note:

In May 2010, the NDP Bill C311, democratically passed in the House of Commons. In November 2010, Bill C311 was killed in the senate by Conservative Senators. It would have enshrined Canada’s international climate targets under the national law. This allowed for the Harper Conservative to pull Canada out of the Kyoto Protocol. Canada was the only signatory to the Kyoto Protocol to do so. Our first campaign in 2010 at CCL Canada was to support this bill. Never did we imagine a bill passed in the House of Commons would be killed in the Senate.



Democracy is the solution to the climate crisis.



Please agree to our campaign.



By agreeing with our campaign, as we gain support for it at We Don’t Have Time, they will share our progress with Minister McKenna, and the environment critics for the opposition members in the House of Commons via Twitter.

twitter.com/cathmckenna

twitter.com/honedfast

twitter.com/alexboulerice

twitter.com/ElizabethMay













