Tell your MP to support Motion M-1
A made-in-Canada Green New Deal
A plan to tackle the climate crisis, create millions of jobs and invest in our communities.
Climate change has escalated into a global climate emergency; the world is on pace to warm nearly 4 degrees Celsius by 2100. We are already living through catastrophic climate events. and extreme weather events are growing with increasingly severe impacts, including floods, forest fires, rising temperatures, killer heat-waves, massive storms, sea level rise and disruption to marine and land ecosystems.
In the face of the accelerating climate emergency, it has never been more urgent that Canada transition to a low-carbon clean energy economy to meet the scale and urgency of the climate crisis, while ensuring that all Indigenous Peoples and Canadians benefit from the substantial public investments a low-carbon economy requires, like energy efficiency retrofits, affordable housing, renewable energy, infrastructure, public transit, pharmacare, dental care, childcare and eliminating student debt and tuition fees.
We cannot keep putting off action on the climate crisis.
Canada must address this climatic emergency with the ambition and urgency required, on behalf of present and future generations. The next 10 years are the ones that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports say are crucial if we want to have any hope of avoiding the most severe impacts of climate change.
Canada is not a climate leader. But we could be.
We need a just transition and real climate action and a made-in-Canada Green New Deal. That is why immediately following the last federal election, I re-introduced my Motion M-1 for a Green New Deal for Canada, in order to help us respond to the climate crisis. It remains the first and only legislative initiative before the House of Commons.
Motion M-1, Green New Deal, calls on Canada to take bold & rapid action to adopt socially equitable climate action to tackle the climate emergency and address worsening socio-economic & racial inequalities at the same time; while ending fossil fuel subsidies, closing offshore tax havens, and supporting workers impacted by the transition and creating well-paying, unionized jobs in the shift to a clean and renewable energy economy.
The motion is inspired by and in solidarity with Indigenous people, civil society actors in eco-social movements in Canada and Québec. M-1 was based on different models worldwide including in the U.K., the U.S., France, South Korea and in Europe. Lawmakers in countries around the world are currently looking into introducing similar legislation.
The federal government can model change by becoming a trail-blazer and adopting Motion M-1 in Canada’s Parliament.
The "Green New Deal goals" would be accomplished through a 10-year national mobilization that will require among other goals outlined in M-1:
- fully implementing the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP), obtaining the free, prior, and informed consent of Indigenous Peoples for all decisions that affect First Nations, Inuit and Métis peoples and their traditional territories;
- honouring all treaties and agreements with First Nations, Inuit and Métis peoples, and protecting and enforcing the sovereignty and land rights of Indigenous Peoples;
- to take bold & rapid action to tackle the climate emergency and address worsening socio-economic & racial inequalities at the same time;
- to promote justice and equity by stopping current, preventing future, and repairing historic oppression of frontline and vulnerable communities;
- to support workers impacted by the transition in the shift to a clean and renewable energy economy;
- investing in sustainable farming and land-use practices that increase soil health, and by building a more sustainable food system that ensures universal access to healthy food;
- ensuring that public lands, forests, waters, and oceans are protected, and that eminent domain is not abused;
- providing Indigenous Peoples and all Canadians with high-quality health care, affordable, safe, and adequate housing, economic security, and access to clean water, clean air, healthy and affordable food, and nature.
Watch the virtual Town Hall on a Green New Deal