OTTAWA - Thousands of Canadians are fleeing their homes while millions are breathing toxic air. For decades, scientists warned that warmer average temperatures would result in catastrophic weather events and fires that would threaten communities across Canada and the world, costing many lives.
Such warnings warranted preparation but governments did not listen. After 8 years in power, this so-called progressive government only just finalized its strategy. Like with most things the Liberal party promises to do or have an « action plan » for, it remains woefully insufficient and inadequate.
“ Is this the best the Liberals can do? No heat deaths by 2040?! " said Green Party Leader Elizabeth May. “ Heat deaths are the easiest to predict and the most preventable of all climate disasters. Critical and essential elements of adaptation to heat domes include cooling centers, urban trees and shared and access to water. We must bring back public water fountains. And we need back-up power for cooling centers. "
“ The Liberals continue to do what they do best and pass the buck down to future generations and future governments by delaying needed investments. They spend 30 billion on a pipeline for their Big Oil friends but have a hard time finding more than 1.6 billion over 5 years to protect us from the coming storms? They’re not serious, “said Jonathan Pedneault, Deputy Leader.
Contrary to the NDP-backed Liberal government, the Green Party would immediately cancel the TMX pipeline and all new oil exploration projects that benefit rich Big Oil investors abroad and redirect the money and workforce into immediate, needed adaptation projects to protect our critical infrastructure from coast to coast to coast. We saw in recent weeks that the particle-carrying smoke from forest fires caused outages on the Hydro high-voltage lines in Québec, resulting in thousands of homes losing access to electricity in the province. Massive investments are needed today to protect our cities, homes and lives from what is currently upon us and what we all know is coming our way.
"We need to act immediately and extensively on both climate adaptation and mitigation fronts. The path laid forward by the Trudeau government is not only unethical in its lack of response, it lacks any credible scientific support and is limited, as it is primarily based on technology-based solutions rather than incorporating nature-based solutions. The lack of action and resulting delays are a disservice and injustice not only to Canadians, but to the poor and vulnerable countries in the global South at large," said Dr. Farrukh A. Chishtie, the Green Party of Canada's Environment and Climate Change Shadow Cabinet co-critic.
“ We could have applauded the Guilbeault plan as appropriate and visionary in 2005 or 2010. Sadly, the strategy Guilbeault presented today is only worthy of the lame duck government the Trudeau cabinet is turning into ever more each day. It betrays the aspirations of the many young people who put their faith into the Liberals in past elections,“ Pedneault concluded.
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