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All the core planks of Canada’s climate policy are now gone, save one – a package of “clean economy investment tax credits.” Yet as this piece explains, the program is massively undersubscribed, exposing a policy that simply can’t meet the task at hand. The problem with federal clean economy tax credits isn’t merely the slow speed of approvals, it’s that the low application rate reveals a broken model. Only $1.6 billion in claims have been submitted! This despite a total budget allocation of $93 billion for the period 2022 to 2034. This package of ITCs is supposed to be the centerpiece of the federal government’s climate spending program. What is revealed by this pitiful take-up rate is a model that is simply not fit for purpose.

I was gratified to have this piece appear as my first ever column in The Guardian. It seems to have struck a nerve. For much of its publication day, it was the 2nd most-read opinion piece on the Guardian’s website. I figured it was time more of our international friends understood that Prime Minister Carney, is not the climate champ many thought he was, and it was important they heard some hard truths about how things are going here in Canada. Read on...

Those of you who follow my work have probably heard me say before that a key barrier holding back genuine climate emergency action – or, in truth, action at speed and scale to confront any number of crises we face – is a ubiquitous failure of imagination. This plagues political leaders, but it is just as often true of civil society leaders and organizations within our own movements. Our curse is that our sense of possibility is contained by what we know. In this piece, I offer three strategies to expand our sense of policy imagination, all involving storytelling at some level.

There is, in theory, nothing wrong with the idea of a sovereign wealth fund. Indeed, the logic behind such a fund is quite sound. The problem is that, in practice, the Carney government appears to be proposing a mirror reversal of what is generally understood as the guiding premise for these funds, both in how it is capitalized and in what it invests. This piece includes some interesting historical background on sovereign wealth funds in Alberta and Norway. It proposes better options for how to finance a state investment fund like this. And offers a hopeful insight from the great Bill McKibben.

Real climate action requires shifting from voluntary and incentive-based policies to enforceable, near-term mandates. The Carney government states its approach “is based on driving investment, not on prohibitions.” If so, it’s a strategy doomed to fail. Prohibitions and mandates work. The curse, however, of the regulatory mandates we have seen thus far is that the target dates for implementation are frequently 10-plus years in the future, making them politically fanciful. And now, federal and provincial governments are retreating from even these illusory decrees. In contrast, we've seen great success with near-term mandates, such as Vancouver's 2020 decision to prohibit fossil fuel heating in new homes. The bottom line: in an emergency, we can't hope for change. We have to make change happen.

With Prime Minister Carney having secured his coveted majority, and a federal election likely years away, now may seem an odd time to issue this appeal. But I beg to differ: here's my call to climate justice champions run for office. Whatever the jurisdiction, it’s vital that there are robust squads of true climate justice champions within the caucuses of multiple parties — people who genuinely get the emergencies we face and will insist on bold action. With our world on fire, we need to elect more political firefighters. Find, recruit and support your local climate justice champion. Send them this article as a way of saying, “I believe in you.” And if you can’t find one, be one.

This piece examines how to prevent the fossil fuels corporations from making a killing on the illegal Iran war, and put the revenues to better use. We've seen this movie before and know how it goes. As with the COVID pandemic and Russia's invasion of Ukraine, a bunch of corporations will seize on the excuse of supply chain disruptions to make out like bandits, first and foremost among them the oil and gas companies. War profiteering is always the way, unless policy puts a stop to it.  

We have lost a giant, and a hero to countless social justice activists across Canada and around the world. In this piece, I share my thoughts and memories about the passing of Stephen Lewis (and include links to some of his speeches).

I did some digging into what's holding up a final investment decision for Ksi Lisims LNG - potentially Canada's next major 'carbon bomb.' Turns out, the American owners of the proposed project are hoping for public investment from the Canadian government. Read on for the state of play.

The horror now unfolding in the wake of the US and Israel’s attack on Iran reminds us of a central truth – oil & gas are a poison. A poison to our climate and environment. A poison to our health. A distortion to our economy and a barrier to our independence. These fossil fuels are the lifeblood of modern-day tyrannies (witness those in Iran and Russia), and a poison to our politics, democracy and peace. Oil is death. The day cannot come soon enough when we are liberated from this scourge.

In this post, I lay out why I think Avi Lewis should be the next NDP leader. Yes, I’m completely biased. Avi is my brother-in-law. But even if he was not, I’d still be all in. I am completely convinced that Avi is exactly the person we need for this role right now – not just for the NDP, but for building an audacious, powerful and even joyful counter-movement to the ascendant far right (and a federal Liberal party chasing after them). This post also offers some fun NDP convention history.

Prime Minister Mark Carney's promise to start building — and his promise at Davos to "build our strength at home" — would do well to draw on the example of former Canadian cabinet minister C.D. Howe, under whose guidance Canada established 28 new Crown corporations to expedite the mass production of military equipment during the Second World War. This piece outlines what isn’t working in the government’s current approach to economic independence, and offers up a list of proposed new generation Crown corps.

The 2025 federal budget committed $40 million over two years toward a YCC. For the hundreds of young activists and their allies (including many supportive members of Parliament) who have pressed hard for this idea, the news comes as a welcome relief and should be seen as a win, especially in the context of a budget that decreases overall program spending and represents a significant retreat on climate — an abdication of the larger fight of our lives. But the win should not be overstated. This piece is our take on the announcement.

In a recent interview in iPolitics, David Suzuki stated “it’s too late” – that we have lost the fight against climate change. In this piece, Seth speaks to the reality of certain losses and the fact that all of us who work on climate have long walked a razor’s edge between hope and despair; the last few months (or years) in particular have made it near impossible to keep one’s balance. But he would put the current predicament differently. The climate fight is not something we either win or lose. As the saying goes, it functions as a “matter of degrees.” The awkwardness of the current period is that, for the next many years, we are going to experience both losses and wins simultaneously.

For years, the climate movement has been calling on the federal government to spend 2% of GDP on climate infrastructure and action - to “spend what it takes to win.” But to no avail. Instead, total federal government spending on climate action clocks in at just under 0.7% of GDP. Tragically, if we had spent the last decade spending 2% cent of GDP a year on a just climate transition, our society would be unrecognizable in all the ways we aspire. And yet, with disorienting ease, our new prime minister has announced that Canada’s military spending will hit 2% of GDP this year, and will reach a stratospheric 5% within 10 years. But there is now little doubt that the gravest security and civilizational threat we face is from the climate crisis itself – a threat multiplier at every level. Why must it be so bloody hard to spend what it takes to confront the real emergency?

The eulogies for the federal NDP have come fast and furious since the April 28 election. But we will not stand up to the US by becoming more like the US, least of all by replicating their two-party system. And as the new Carney-led government takes shape, it is quickly becoming apparent that Carney will govern to the right of the Trudeau Liberals, which potentially opens up political terrain for a revived NDP. But only if the NDP chooses to robustly claim it.

Drawing upon Canada’s experiences in world wars and the pandemic, this piece explores how to sustain social solidarity in a time of crisis, and argues that societal mobilizations require fair taxation and shared sacrifice. Why, in the face of Trump’s declaration of economic war, are our leaders failing to institute what is normally understood to be a foundational price of war, namely, tax increases on corporations and upper-income people? This piece proposes a few taxes that would do just that.

I know many progressives are wrestling with the thorny issue of strategic voting, given the historic importance of this federal election. Like many, I strongly dislike our current first-past-the-post electoral system. I dearly wish we had a form of proportional representation that would liberate people to vote their values. But until that happens, this is the system we have, and we are forced to make the best of it. Given that, this piece offers four tips for how to vote strategically, but wisely.

While we are witnessing new-found resolve and solidarity in the face of Trump’s attack on our economy and sovereignty, the concrete policy responses to date feel incongruous with the threat we face. Too often, leaders grasp for well-worn default options – austerity, tax cuts, expedited fossil fuel extraction – responses plagued by a failure of imagination and vision. Instead, times of emergency should be viewed as a rare opportunity to leap into the new. We should be seizing on this moment to delink our economy from the US and from fossil fuels. This piece outlines what a bunch of those more imaginative and audacious policy responses could be.

While I am among those delighted to see the federal polls tightening, I remain nervous. Carney’s climate plan, in particular, risks handing fodder to Poilievre while failing to captivate the climate-anxious voter. Carney’s record indicates that he “gets” climate. His climate plan, however, doubles down on an approach that has failed to meaningfully bend the curve on our carbon pollution. There is a heavy emphasis on “incentives” to encourage households and business to do the right thing, along with a deep and abiding faith in market-based solutions. It won’t work. And politically, his focus on esoteric and technocratic policy reinforced the Conservative critique that the Liberal approach to climate is elitist.