Recent highlights from the Council of Canadians
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- Published on Sunday, 29 November -0001 16:00
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Corporate Capture vs. Democracy
Corporate capture is out of control in Canada and there are few places where that’s more clear than in Doug Ford’s Ontario. Most recently, the Ford government’s omnibus Bill 23 opens up protected Greenbelt land for projects by key donor companies; dramatically changes planning norms; undermines environmental regulations and building standards; abolishes rights of tenants facing renoviction; strips Conservation Authorities of their role in watershed protection; and removes or reduces development charges that help pay for municipal infrastructure.
It’s a bill that was built for corporate profiteers to continue making obscene profits off the destruction of the environment and the exploitation of lower income people.
Read more about the bill and its opponents
Carbon capture captures the attention of lawmakers, but very little carbon
Carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS) has been giving fossil fuel emitters the veneer of sustainability for half a century. But despite the fanfare around such projects, they do very little actual carbon capture (some CCUS facilities capture less than half of the carbon they’re meant to trap). Instead, these facilities capture public funding and misdirect energy that could be used to propel us towards a just transition away from fossil fuels.
Not only does CCUS fail to effectively and reliably remove CO2 from the atmosphere, the majority of CO2 “captured” by such facilities is used to produce more CO2 emitting products. Almost all existing CCUS projects are tied to a practice called “enhanced oil recovery” or EOR. EOR requires CO2 to be injected into depleted oil reservoirs to boost production, essentially breathing new life into near-dead reservoirs. EOR results in more oil being produced and burned, and more CO2 pumped into the atmosphere.
When it comes to CCUS, we’re the ones who are getting trapped – locked into a fossil fuel future while plans for a just transition are backbenched in favour of ineffective technologies.
Read our blog on CCUS
Pharmacare can’t wait until 2023
With the Liberal-NDP supply-and-confidence deal poised to bring about pharmacare legislation, Big Pharma has come out swinging, arguing that pharmacare would be a radical change with possibly unforeseen consequences. They don’t want the sweeping reforms that would ensure that no Canadian goes without essential medicines, and they’re lobbying the federal government hard to ensure that whatever pharmacare legislation is tabled is as favourable to their corporate interests as possible.
But we know that pharmacare legislation – the kind of comprehensive, radical legislation that will make sure that no one has to decide between paying the bills or buying groceries and getting their medication – will profoundly change this country for the better. Canadians already pay the most for prescription drugs amongst comparable countries with public medicare, and as a result, we have the highest rate of cost-related non-adherence among the same group. And with the cost of living sky-rocketing due to inflation and corporate greed, more people are going to find themselves in the impossible situation of having to choose between their medicine, and everything else.
The legislation that is needed must be radical and comprehensive, and it has to happen now. Join us in taking action to call on the federal government to accelerate the implementation of pharmacare legislation. Send a letter to your Member of Parliament, Health Minister Duclos and Prime Minister Trudeau.
Take Action
In the wake of historic storm Fiona, Canada still failing to take climate crisis seriously
Hurricane Fiona, which ravaged Canada’s east coast in September, was a historic storm in almost every way. The deepest low-pressure storm ever recorded in Canada, with the highest water levels, made worse by heavy rains. Some went without power for days, some lost homes, and others were left without income.
Despite Fiona making it clear that the climate crisis is not something to come, but rather something we are now living with, the Canadian government continues to champion fossil fuel projects that make the problem worse. One of those projects, Equinor’s Bay du Nord project, has begun drilling off the coast of Newfoundland in the wake of Fiona.
In giving the project the green light, even while people in Atlantic Canada are in the process of recovering from Fiona, begs the questions: what will it take for the federal government to listen to scientists, the IPCC, and the majority of Canadians who want swift and decisive action on climate change?
Read more about the project and the need for a just transition
Council of Canadians supports CUPE workers in Ontario
CUPE education workers in Ontario threatened to strike last month if the province wouldn’t meet them with a fair deal. Their proposed strike action was met with draconian back-to-work legislation, the so-called “Keeping Kids in School Act.” The legislation, which violated the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and threatened the rights of workers across the country, elicited enough outrage – and threats of solidarity strikes – that the Ford government quickly walked it back, repealing the act on November 14th. A tentative deal has now been struck between education workers and the provincial government, with ratification votes ongoing until December 5th.
Regardless of whether workers accept the deal – which some, including Laura Walton, president of CUPE’s Ontario School Board Council of Unions, have expressed dissatisfaction with – CUPE-OSBCU workers’ willingness to resist callous, exploitative legislation to win a fair deal is inspiring. But workers and unions shouldn’t have to risk massive fines just to get a fair deal. The fact that the Ford government was so willing to legislate education workers back on the job, despite the fact that these workers are among the most poorly compensated in the education system, shows the contempt the government holds for working people, who are struggling more than ever against stagnant wages, rising inflation, and the exorbitant cost of housing. Workers deserve well-paying jobs, but the federal and provincial governments must also demonstrate more willingness to address the sky-rocketing cost of living that is seeing more individuals and families turn to food banks, and even end up unhoused.
Read our solidarity statement
Canada passed a law that it would abide by UNDRIP – so why isn’t that happening?
On June 21, 2021, the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act received Royal Assent and immediately came into force. That means that, according to Canadian law, the Canadian government must ensure that all its laws be in compliance with the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP), including that no laws or Acts that impact Indigenous peoples or their territories be amended or passed without the free, prior, and informed consent of Indigenous people.
Despite this, the federal government continues to propose changes to legislation and push forward on projects without obtaining the free, prior, and informed consent of impacted Indigenous people. This includes the ongoing drilling underneath the Wedzin Kwa, a sacred river in Wet’suwet’en territory, and it includes the ongoing development of the Athabasca tar sands and their tailings ponds.
In October and November, the Edmonton chapter of the Council of Canadians, in partnership with Keepers of the Water, held a three-part symposium series about the harms the tailings ponds do to the environment and to the Indigenous people and communities nearby. The second symposium addressed free, prior, and informed consent as it relates to UNDRIP.
Watch the recording of Tailings: Past, Present, and FutureMembership Builds Our Movement
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