O Canada! We Stand on Guard For Thee -- July 1st

O Canada!  We Stand on Guard For Thee

It’s July 1^st and we celebrate our country’s birthday.  It’s a good time to reflect on what it means to be a Canadian – especially in times of great change; and especially in times like these when we face dilemmas like climate change.

What will Canada be like in twenty or fifty years?  What difference will it make if we just stay with the status quo, and continue building our economy based on mining and fossil fuels, as we have done for two centuries—or if we do as ClimateFast asks and work to make the transition toward renewable energy?  Prime Minister Harper says that no country will make a change if it means a slowing economy or loss of jobs.  He believes he is defending Canada’s best interests by hanging on to fossil fuels as the foundation of who we are.  I respectfully disagree.

I believe that if we stay the present course, we will be writing the death warrant of Canada as a significant nation in the world.  We’ll be hanging on to the past instead of moving into the future. 

I believe that we must explore and take risks, to discover the underpinnings of a new economy for Canada in the twenty-first century.  I see a future based on renewable energy of many different types.  I see a future based on the innovation of our people to design smart, interactive networks, and to create new models of energy storage and delivery.  I also see a future based on new relationships between our workplaces and our communities, where employers—job creators—are accountable not only to their stock holders, but also to their workers, their communities that resource them, and to the earth that sustains us all.

In this system it would not be possible for a company to determine its own self-interest as based only on a financial bottom line for a few people.  The financial and social well-being of all of us would have to be considered.  We would work through competing interests using good science, open dialogue, and mutual respect.  We would practice democracy in our families and become good at building consensus, so that we could translate those skills into good decision-making in our schools, workplaces, communities, and governments.

Let’s dream big for Canada and let’s put our life energy into making it happen.

Will you support our ClimateFirst on the First of the Month campaign? 

Will you commit to writing one letter a month on or around the first of the month. 

Will you invite your friends and family to join you?

If we can organize 12 people in every riding in Canada to get together and write one letter around the first of the month, it will make the difference. 

Together we will generate the political will to

·      End all fossil fuel subsidies

·      Put a price on carbon

·      Focus priorities on a transition to renewable energy.

Write your letter today, and send us a copy by e-mail please.