In follow-up to Wilderness Committee's STELLAR recent publication, 'Nature Can't Afford the Banker' (Building A Nature-First Economy) written by campaigner Eric Reder, I used their special tool here WildernessCommittee-BankOnNature to write the letter (below) sent to these recipients:
- Julie Dabrusin (Minister of Environment and Climate Change), Toronto-Danforth, Liberal
- Mark Carney (Prime Minister), Nepean, Liberal
- Pierre Poilievre (Leader, Conservative Party of Canada)
- Don Davies (MP), Vancouver Kingsway, NDP
- Marc Dalton (MP), Pitt Meadows-Maple Ridge, Conservative
Feel free to use that link to send your own personalized letter! It's been shown that when govt officials receive 20 or more letters on a certain issue, they take notice - so don't underestimate the power of your actions, no matter how small they seem: they have the potential to make a diff..
Here's my letter ~
As a born-and-bred BCer I'm deeply dismayed by recent policy developments brought by PM Carney & the federal govt., characterized by glaring omissions of biodiversity loss (Species at Risk), climate & eco-related considerations. Like a slap in the face, the message stings: that nature care & stewardship are not important to Canada's federal govt - contrary to what we were led to believe.
How myopic does it get, with Earth's web of life literally staggering on the precipice of human-caused demise? As a major culprit Canada cannot afford to ignore this global crisis any longer!
A gutting example here in Ridge of this backward slide on Climate sticks out like an open wound, just up the road: a devastating clearcut of a vast swathe of forest along Dewdney Trunk Rd that's left this community reeling over the loss of that endemic ecosystem's assets, & dreading the resultant impacts of looming 'fire season' heat events. Compounded by this year's record-low snowpack levels.
Such worrying scenarios, escalating across the nation, signal the untimeliness of your retreat on biodiversity & ecosystem protections - falsely in the name of economic growth & affordability. As the [Conservative] World Economic Forum's recently-published Annual Global Risks Report clearly states, the next decade's biggest economic threats are biodiversity loss & climate change! This backs what Science has stressed for years: there is no economic argument for excluding nature in any govt decisions going forward.
While countless Canadians struggle to get by, PM Carney's nescient focus on costly "nation-building" projects that double down on fossil-fuel reliance, belying his own previously-published views, offers scant relief for most Canadians while highlighting a gaping disconnect between our climate-affected reality & the federal govt's new priorities - at the cost of rolling back hard-won eco-protections & indigenous commitments! That is unacceptable.
The costs of climate change are already driving up our bills, through climate-disaster clean-ups like the Hwy 3 washouts costing million$ from public taxes. Yet your govt continues to pour money & energy into fossil-fuel-run projects that only promise to make the problems worse.
Fun fact: we've already found proven ways to protect Canada's natural habitats, that reduce emissions & make life actually affordable in this cost-of-living crisis! And they don't include building O&G-run 'data centers' requiring massive amounts of water (amid BC's ongoing drought emergency!!???), employing few people & entailing a scary list of unknowns - besides being arms of USA's resource-grabbing hegemony aligned with billionaire-owned media/tech giants, with potential consequences that undermine our very democracy! Canadians of all walks of life are unanimously rejecting A.I. data centres - with good reason: forcing their egregious climate-wrecking effects across the country is a flagrant waste of taxpayer's money!
Please: respect the values Canadians hold dear - including (overwhelmingly) nature protection & climate action (eg. by upgrading homes with heat pumps, building new homes with sustainable materials & renewable power, expanding public transportation+++) - i.e. much-needed measures that support society sustainably AND economically, while aligning with our emissions-reduction commitments.
Therefore I implore your govt to:
- Immediately remove the Impact Assessment exemption from the Build Canada Act;
- Grow both nature & climate budget expenditures to at least two per cent of GDP annually;
- Enforce the Species at Risk Act in all jurisdictions across Canada;
- Establish tests that rate cumulative & downstream emissions for every Major Project;
- Plan to meet our international emissions-reduction commitments
- Strengthen Impacts Assessments & waste regulations for ALL mining projects in Canada.
Without healthy nature's priceless benefits, "Canada Strong" will remain unattainable due to our over-reliance on Agricultural exports, over-harvested forests, rejection of Science-advised solutions, & USA's unneeded imports - i.e. products of ramped-up pollution, chemicals, contamination, ecocide, fast-foods, junk TV... ETC. Canada CAN be strong by countering those failed excesses - with quality, locally-made, sustainable production values & future-forward TRANSITION into the clean, green future we CAN achieve - because we've already proven as much.
THAT is where our taxpayers' money should be invested, guaranteeing quality jobs in renewables / organic regenerative agriculture / clean public transport / eco-tourism +++ sectors for a healthy thriving economy that lasts. Agreed we've been led astray by convenience/ corporate monopolies/ excess greed & materialism pushing Nature to the limits of her finite resources - esp. here in wealthy colonial Canada. But we've LEARNED that if we don't restrain last-century unlimited-growth economics, we will subvert our own success.
We've seen what arrogance & greed can do to a nation - & that is NOT what Canada's about!
Leaving legacies of thriving Nature - & circular economies - represent real Science-led prosperity - as opposed to cowering in the face of oppressive billionaire-owned 'Big-Tech' grifts bringing nothing but more inequality & unaffordability!? We must protect what we have left in our priceless biodiversity, forests, grasslands & waters (eg. bring back pollinators: ban neocotinoids!) THOSE are sources of lasting, self-regenerating value - & will prove even more so in coming decades.
Time to listen to Nature's wise directives instead of recklessly destroying what remains - eg. Canada's last 4% remaining 'Lungs of the Earth' - for financial gain of a few wealthy corporations/ individuals: that's like demolishing Europe's great castles to make road base, or destroying the great pyramids for the price of their stones: MAKES NO SENSE - economically or otherwise. All govts are tasked with the responsibility of ensuring liveability of our world for future generations, & Canada's leadership is no exception.
Please live up to your democratically-elected/ promised duties, as a leader all Canadians can support.
& see film Darkest Hour to know what makes a TRUE leader/ decent human! (No A.I. needed)
Thank you very much.
[SaRah (Saz) ChesTeRman]
Before & after shots of Maple Ridge recent clearcut:
BEFORE:
AFTER:
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