Canada needs its own Green New Deal: it's time for Powershift

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Published on Thursday, 13 December 2018 12:14

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Next February, a group of inspiring climate organizers are bringing back Powershift, a weekend long summit for young people across Canada

Friends,

Last Friday, I joined a few dozen others on a cold Montreal morning to greet Justin Trudeau and Canada’s Premiers with a simple message: Canada needs its own Green New Deal.

I wish I could tell you that they got the message, but from everything I’ve heard about their meeting, we still have a lot of work to do. Instead of the kind of bold, visionary action we’re calling for in the Good Work Guarantee that thousands of people signed to support – an end to fossil fuel expansion,... a job guarantee for impacted workers and a transition to 100% renewable energy in partnership with Indigenous Peoples – our provincial leaders were talking about buying train cars so they can expand the tar sands.

That’s why I’m so excited that next February, a group of inspiring young climate organizers are bringing back Powershift. A weekend long summit for young people across Canada, Powershift is going to supercharge the climate movement in 2019, and you can help make that happen.

If you’re a young person, you can click here and register for PowerShift. I’ll be there, along with our 350 Canada team, and we’ll be working with young organizers from across Canada to launch the next phase of the push for a made-in-Canada Green New Deal.

If not, you can click here to support PowerShift and we’ll be in touch soon with more information about the plan to make the Good Work Guarantee a reality.

We know that the Good Work Guarantee is finding an echo all across the country. As COP24 wraps up, we see our political leaders once again fail to live up to their promises of fighting climate change and respecting Indigenous rights. It's time for Justin Trudeau to align Canada's policies with climate science and keep fossil fuels in the ground -- and it's up to us to make that happen. We've got a lot of work to do in 2019.

Canada needs a powerful and vibrant youth climate movement. If what’s happening right now in the United States is anything to go on, it might just be all of our best shot at seeing policy like a Green New Deal come to fruition. And Powershift is the best way for all of us to support that youth movement.

If you're a young person, will you register to attend Powershift this February in Ottawa?

Otherwise, will you consider supporting Powershift to build the momentum of the bold movement we know we need?

I hope you’ll help us make this the start of something big.

Onwards,

Katie

P.S. Right now, TransCanada is trying to evict the Unist'ot'en Camp, an Indigenous-led blockade stopping a massive fracking pipeline in Northern B.C. The pipeline company has asked for an injunction against the camp, which they could evict right in the middle of the holidays. We can’t let that stand. Click here and add you voice to the solidarity statement.

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