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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. 

With special treatment for oil and gas, Trump is telling us where he is vulnerable, and who his people are. Trump is the fossil fuel industry’s man in the White House. Which is precisely why Canada should quickly impose an export tax on the industry. And it’s why the push for more and expedited oil and gas pipelines, east and west, in order to boost shipments to Europe and Asia, is exactly the wrong call. LNG and pipeline expansion is being driven by investors who are close allies and donors of Trump. This is no time to reward them!

It wasn’t easy, and it was uncomfortably close. But late November, the gas industry’s effort to re-introduce fossil fuel heating in new homes and buildings in Vancouver was mercifully defeated. Turns out, mobilization – even against powerful vested interests – can still win the day. This piece details that mobilization, the industry efforts to roll-back climate progress, and draws lessons for future fights.

This piece is a little different – an appeal to fellow Canadian climate movement friends and colleagues. As we return from another hot and smoke-filled summer of unnatural disasters, let us admit that we are in our own form of denial. Perhaps it is time to concede that, in the face of an escalating catastrophe, we are stuck in a rinse-and-repeat cycle that is simply not working. We urgently need to shift gears or we are done. But take heart! It is far too early to throw in the towel or to let defeatism take root. The next federal election is just over a year away. So much depends on our ability to shift the terrain over the next 12 months. But as the saying goes, that is a lifetime in politics. A Conservative majority can absolutely still be avoided. So, what’s the alternative to the default we know? This piece offers a few thoughts.

Canada’s main residential suppliers of fossil gas remain unrelenting in their bloody-nailed determination to expand our reliance on their planet-burning, climate chaos-inducing product. In my home province of British Columbia, the residential gas supplier is FortisBC. This piece explores two recent examples of the private monopoly’s refusal to take no for an answer. The first is underway in Vancouver. In hundreds of talks across the country, I have told the story of the City of Vancouver’s decision to lead the country in prohibiting new buildings from using fossil fuels for heating. Dating from 2020, this bold policy stood out as an early beacon of genuine climate emergency action. But now, in a particularly cowardly manner, the city’s ABC majority has moved to reverse this policy, and Fortis’s fingerprints are all over it. Second, Fortis has introduced an outragous new rebate that seeks to make it uneconomic not to stay hooked up to gas.

For years, "progressive" governments (federal & provincial) have said we need to go slow on climate to avoid a right-wing backlash. How'd that work out for us? Today we have the worst of both worlds – milquetoast climate policy AND a right-wing backlash! Incrementalism is no match for the crises we face. As the government seeks a reset ahead of the fall 2025 election, it desperately needs to shake things up. The Liberals need to reinvigorate the terrain with exciting ideas that can, finally, change the dreadful script that has characterized the last two years. On the climate front it’s time to stop being so damn boring and invite the fight with the fossil fuel industry and its political servants.

The frequency of climate news and the language employed should align with the gravity of what we confront. Sometimes, the CBC is exactly the public broadcaster we need it to be in an emergency (witness year one of COVID coverage or wildfire reporting). In times like this, we’re reminded why having a media organization that can prioritize clear, factual and compassionate communication over profit is so important to a healthy democracy. And it makes political calls to “defund the CBC” ring especially hollow. But in the face of the most profound crisis we confront — the climate emergency — we have yet to see the CBC be that public broadcaster. This piece shares results from a CEU/SFU report – Quiet Alarm – into the CBC climate reporting, reminds readers of the CBC’s role in the Second World War, and lays out what it would look and sound like for the CBC to be a genuine climate emergency broadcaster.

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.