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This piece is mainly a thought experiment: what if Pierre Poilievre had been Canadian prime minister at the outset of the Second World War? Today, as another existential and civilizational threat barrels down upon us, what would Conservative leadership look and sound like? Poilievre’s Conservative Party is a far different beast than your grandparents’ Conservatives, and Poilievre is no Winston Churchill. Much ink has been spilled about Poilievre’s campaign to “axe the [carbon] tax.” But let there be no doubt: he’s not just gunning for carbon pricing. He’s going after the whole package – effectively every piece of climate policy won over the last 10 years. Poilievre is telling us who he is – a servant of the oil and gas industry.

The gas we burn in our homes and buildings is responsible for about 12% of British Columbia’s GHG emissions. Consequently, a key piece of climate emergency action is getting fossil gas – more commonly and misleadingly known as “natural” gas – out of buildings. The good news: British Columbians are ready to see our government take more decisive action to speed up progress on this file. Last November, a coalition of climate groups commissioned a province-wide poll of 1,000 British Columbians from Abacus Data on the subject of gas in buildings. The results are very heartening.

It seems NDP MP Charlie Angus has hit a nerve. Last week, heeding the call of the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment (CAPE), Angus tabled a private member’s bill in the House of Commons to prohibit fossil fuel advertising. The reaction to Angus’s bill from Big Oil’s political and media defenders has been swift and hysterical - a sure sign of the bill’s merit. Angus’s proposed law is already doing a great service — sparking a needed conversation about the role of fossil fuel companies in perpetuating the climate crisis and questioning the social licence we have extended to these nefarious corporations for far too long.

One of the biggest climate stories in Canada in 2024 might well prove to be a project that, so far at least, few in the country have heard of — Ksi Lisims LNG. Like the earlier-approved LNG Canada project in nearby Kitimat, Ksi Lisims has the potential to be a major carbon bomb. The “net zero” claim of the project proponents ignores the greenhouse gases that would be emitted when the LNG produced by Ksi Lisims reaches its destination and is burned, known as Scope 3 emissions. Ksi Lisims aims to produce 12 megatonnes a year of liquified gas, and amount of LNG that, when burned, produces approximately 32 megatonnes of GHGs. That is equivalent to more than half of British Columbia’s total annual emissions.

The Trudeau government’s recent decision to exempt home heating oil from the carbon tax will be remembered as one of the great boneheaded political moves of recent years. The carveout has thrown the federal government’s keystone climate policy of the past 10 years into turmoil. It now appears we are destined to spend the next federal election, quite likely next year’s BC election and possibly other forthcoming provincial elections re-prosecuting past climate fights. This is no way to win the battle of our lives. Tackling the climate crisis requires urgent forward momentum, not re-litigating the carbon tax debate. And the kicker is there are a multitude of other options to address the affordability crisis facing many.

Eager to see what Canadian public opinion makes of a climate corps, the Climate Emergency Unit (with which I work) commissioned a poll from Abacus Data. The results are now in, and they are very good news for all who wish to see a ramp-up in Canada’s climate transition. The headline finding: A majority of Canadians – across the country and political lines – support the idea of creating a Youth Climate Corps (YCC). The results are especially strong among those aged 18 to 35 (the cohort for whom the program is designed). The most heartening results came from a survey question that asked those 35 and under, “If a program like this existed, how likely are you to consider enrolling in a Youth Climate Corps for two years?” In short, hundreds of thousands of young people are ready to serve as we confront the climate emergency. Our governments should sign these folks up as quickly as possible.

Last month, the campaign for a Youth Climate Corps took a big leap forward when the Biden administration launched the American Climate Corps — a new jobs program that will see thousands of young people get training and employment in climate-related work, and a huge win for the youth-led Sunrise Moment in the US. Launching the American Climate Corps should be seen as a renewed attempt by Biden to make nice with the youth voting bloc upon whom his re-election may well hinge. Speaking of which: Memo to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau! The polls have you trailing badly among Gen Z and Millennial voters. Maybe it’s time to offer something exciting and hopeful to these folks. Sir, may I present the Youth Climate Corps.

Sometimes, in the eye of a storm, it can be hard to tell when the winds have shifted. Victories often don’t occur in a clear-cut timeline, nor can they always be pinpointed to a specific event. When we look back at this time, maybe — just maybe — the spring and summer of 2023 will be remembered as a pivot period. And this summer was also the first in which almost all Canadians experienced the emergency firsthand. Perhaps this collective experience — in which we all stared the crisis in the face and tasted the disruption to come — will signal a shift in the zeitgeist we’ve long awaited.

The federal government has tabled its long-awaited Sustainable Jobs Act (formerly to be known as Just Transition Act). In the face of the climate emergency and the imperative to give workers and communities confidence as we rapidly transition the economy, the bill is fundamentally incongruent with the task at hand, and ultimately of little consequence as drafted. Nothing about it communicates urgency.

Most young people know — the climate crisis is coming for them. One way or another, on their terms or not, it's going to enlist them. It won't ask their permission. Best to take pre-emptive action on one’s own terms. A Youth Climate Corps (YCC) would represent an invitation to Canada’s youth to mobilize to confront today’s gravest threat: the climate emergency. It could be a new flagship public program and, funded at sufficient scale, would send an electrifying signal. It would indicate our governments are indeed entering genuine emergency mode and would communicate to young people that they are being called to join in a grand societal transformation.

Emergency responses need to look and sound and feel like emergency responses. Emergencies require that leaders tell the truth about the severity of the crisis and what is required to combat it — frequently, consistently and coherently. Yet, nothing about the climate communications we currently hear and see comes close to approximating such an invitation. The current official communications (or lack thereof) is producing a form of cognitive dissonance — is this an emergency or not? That confusion needs to end. We need a new, well-resourced climate communications agency — a Climate Emergency Information Board.

As Premier Eby settles into his new role, some important changes appear to be afoot, reflected in both the language being used and the people being appointed to key roles. Last week, this was most apparent with the unveiling of Eby’s new cabinet and in the mandate letters given to new ministers. This piece digs into the choices and mandate letters of cabinet members Josie Osborne, Bowinn Ma, Niki Sharma and Brenda Bailey.

On November 21, 2002, I was invited to be a witness before the House of Commons Standing Committee on Science and Research, as part of their study of “International Moonshot Programs.” Here’s my testimony…

I had a rather unique, and sometimes stressful, vantage point on the BC NDP leadership contest. Both Dave Eby and Anjali Appadurai are my longtime friends. I’ve known Dave since his early days with Pivot Legal in the Downtown Eastside. Our families have spent holiday time together and have shared in celebrating major life events. I’ve known and worked with Anjali for over 10 years, and we are currently colleagues at the Climate Emergency Unit. I am very fond of them both and want to share a little about what I admire about each of them. And I here I offer some thoughts about what should happen going forward.

On Sept 21, I was invited to testify before the House of Commons Standing Committee on Finance as part of the committee’s deliberations on fiscal federalism. In a rare opportunity, I had a full hour with the committee to share my idea for a new federal transfer and then had a spirited Q&A session with the parliamentarians. Here’s an edited version of what I shared.

Mandates. Hard to think of a more fraught word these days. And given the pushback against COVID mandates, here’s what’s got me nervous: as we finally get serious about the escalating climate crisis, one truth is abundantly clear — we are going to need climate mandates. One of the central markers is that the government “shifts from voluntary and incentive-based policies to mandatory measures.” The curse of our climate policies to date is that they are mired in a voluntary and incentive-based approach that assumes we can meet this crisis by cajoling enough households and businesses to decarbonize and electrify. This approach will condemn our children to a hellscape. We simply cannot incentivize our way to victory in this fight for our lives. The good news: in the main, most of us support mandates. We want to do right by our family, friends and neighbours.

Our deputy prime minister and federal minister of finance today, the Honourable Chrystia Freeland, is the highest profile and most powerful minister in the Trudeau cabinet. The Globe and Mail even dubbed her the “Minister of Everything,” a hat-tip to C.D. Howe’s extraordinary role in Canada’s Second World War cabinet. But pray tell, where is the Minister of Everything on the defining crisis of our time — the climate emergency? More than any other minister, Freeland holds the key levers to truly pivot us into climate emergency mode. If the finance minister really wanted to show us that she understands and is ready to lead on the climate emergency, what would she do? This piece offers a few suggestions.

I am a political optimist by nature. I keep wanting to believe our federal government has turned a corner — that it has seen the light on the climate emergency and is ready to shift into high gear. But reality – the federal government’s new Emissions Reduction Plan, the Bay du Nord approval, and Budget 2022 – keeps bursting my bubble.

Canada’s approach to climate is a hot mess of incoherence and contradictions, and it is fundamentally at odds with what the IPCC demands of us. Our country now has an updated emissions plan that will finally start to see our GHGs decline. But the pace and pitch are all wrong. Canada still needs a real climate emergency plan.

The federal Liberals and NDP have entered into a “supply-and-confidence agreement” (SACA). I am generally a fan of such agreements. Sadly, however, I am much less enthused about the contents of the deal just cemented. As I wrote after the election, “the NDP needs to send a clear message to the Trudeau government — no climate emergency plan, no deal.” Instead, what the NDP managed to secure in this agreement feels weak and vague, especially with respect to the climate crisis. Modelling more cross-party collaboration and co-operation in government is worthy. In re-electing a minority Parliament last fall, Canadians asked for that. But we face a climate emergency — that is the existential threat of our time that must be decisively tackled in the three-year life of this agreement. And this agreement does not spell out an emergency plan.

On Feb. 14, I was invited to testify before the House of Commons Standing Committee on Natural Resources as part of the committee’s study of a federal greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions cap for the oil and gas sector. We pride ourselves on being climate leaders, yet we have been highly resistant to tackling our role as global producers of fossil fuels. it is therefore very welcome that the governing party has finally recognized the need for a declining emissions cap on the oil and gas sector. But, in the absence of strong action from the federal government, the trends show little sign of abating. Here’s what I shared with the committee…