Latest from National Observer
National Observer
a day ago
- Politics
- National Observer
Alberta premier demands apology from Jasper for critical report on devastating wildfires
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith demanded Friday the fire-stricken town of Jasper apologize and retract a report criticizing her government for its role in last summer's devastating blaze. Smith, speaking at an unrelated press conference in Edmonton, instead blamed the federal government for failing in the fire response by not asking sooner for provincial help and for not clearing out dead trees that provided fuel for the flames. 'This report come as a shot out of the blue. It's unfair, it's untrue and I would like them to withdraw it,' Smith said, adding she was disappointed the report "politicizes" what it at the same time considers an otherwise successful wildfire response. 'I would ask for an apology from the city (town of Jasper) as a result,' Smith continued. 'We want to work collaboratively with our municipal and federal partners, but pointing fingers at others when they should be looking at what they can do to improve their own response would have been a far better outcome.' Smith also criticized the report for not accurately conveying Alberta's contributions to the ordeal, including, she said, timely deployment of firefighters and equipment and $181 million worth of support in disaster recovery funding. The town, in a statement, said it wouldn't comment on whether it planned to issue an apology or retract the report as per Smith's demands. Alberta Premier Danielle Smith demanded Friday the fire-stricken town of Jasper apologize and retract a report criticizing her government for its role in last summer's devastating blaze. The statement instead said the town was grateful for her government's support during the response and in the rebuilding process, adding, 'We hope this report contributes meaningfully to the shared knowledge that strengthens emergency preparedness across Alberta.' The report, released Thursday, was commissioned by the town and reflects a survey of more than 300 firefighters and other front-line staff who battled the blaze, which destroyed a third of buildings in the town located in the federally run Jasper National Park. Feedback was also gathered through a one-day workshop with 68 attendees, including some from government agencies. The report says Smith's United Conservative Party government complicated the response by regularly requesting information and by attempting to make decisions despite not having jurisdiction. "While Alberta Wildfire actively supported firefighting operations and participated in the (Incident Management Team), jurisdictional overlap with the province created political challenges that disrupted the focus of incident commanders leading to time spent managing inquiries and issues instead of directing the wildfire response and re-entry," the report reads. Earlier Friday, in a social media post, Smith had said the report and media coverage of it appeared "politically motivated." At her news conference, she said her government had no involvement in the lead-up to the fire hitting the town and as such the report should've made no mention of the province. Smith said for future fires, she'd like to see Parks Canada be quicker to ask for help. "If you look at some of the wrecks that we've had in this province, a lot of them have started in federal parks because of their poor forest management and because of uncontrolled burns that have gone out of control," she said. "What I would like is for Parks Canada to swallow its ego maybe a bit and work with us on a mutual aid agreement so that we can move to unified command faster." In Ottawa, federal Public Safety Minister Eleanor Olszewski, asked by reporters to respond to Smith's remarks, said, "I don't think it's helpful for me to discuss those comments." Olszewski said she was reviewing the report and planned to be in the town next week for the one-year anniversary of the fire. Alberta Opposition NDP Leader Naheed Nenshi said in a statement Smith's response to the report puts politics above people's lives. "Rather than accepting responsibility and promising to do better, they do what they always do: lash out at any criticism, insult others and refuse to accept any blame for the mistakes they have made," Nenshi said. Bill Given, Jasper's chief administrator, said in an interview before Smith's news conference that the report wasn't to lay blame. It should be considered a chapter in an overall look at the fire response — a chapter that focuses solely on municipal improvements, he said. "We were specifically asking, 'How can (the town) improve?' And in order to find out how you can improve, you look for gaps, you look at overlaps, you look for weaknesses, and then you go to address them." Smith said she didn't think the report did a good enough job of accomplishing what Given said it was meant to do. "We all have to look at what we have done in the past and how we can improve. And I don't think that Parks Canada and The town of Jasper have done an adequate job of that," Smith said. "I hope they go back to the drawing board."
National Observer
a day ago
- Politics
- National Observer
High risk of more wildfires for Canada in August
The 2025 wildfire season is already one of the worst on record for Canada, federal officials said Friday, and there is a high risk that more fires will break out in August. More than 55,000 square kilometres of land has burned so far this year, an area roughly the size of Nova Scotia. That is more than double the 10-year average of the area burned by mid-July. There were 561 fires burning as of Friday morning, including 69 that were considered out of control. The Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre says almost 3,300 fires have been recorded this year so far. The record was set in 2023, when more than 6,000 fires burned more than 150,000 square km of land — an area larger than all three Maritime provinces put together. That devastating season, where wildfires raged from Newfoundland to B.C. for months on end, sparked significant public pressure for the federal government to create a new kind of disaster response agency. Former emergency management ministers Bill Blair and Harjit Sajjan both mulled the idea of such an agency during their time in office, with both ministers acknowledging the strain natural disasters have put on the Canadian Armed Forces and the provinces and territories. The government said it was looking to the United States Federal Emergency Management Agency and Australia's National Emergency Management Agency as potential examples. The 2025 wildfire season is already one of the worst on record for Canada, federal officials said Friday, and there is a high risk that more fires will break out in August. Final decisions on that front still have not been made. During a Friday afternoon briefing with several of her cabinet colleagues, Emergency Management Minister Eleanor Olszewski said her department will be making changes to how it responds to wildfire seasons, which are becoming longer and more severe. "We think that the formation of such an agency could have a very positive impact on our ability to co-ordinate how we respond to national disasters across the country," Olszewski said. That could mean having regional water bombers to respond more quickly to fires in areas that have fewer resources, she said, or leaning on a "humanitarian task force" to ensure people can be deployed where they're needed. Matthew Godsoe, a senior director of the government operations centre at Public Safety Canada, said natural disasters are outpacing the capacity of the country's emergency management system. "In that current context, maintaining the status quo is equivalent to doing less," he told reporters at a technical briefing Friday, adding that all levels of government and individual Canadians must work together "to slow or stop this nearly exponential growth in disaster losses that we're experiencing as a country." The federal government has been called in to provide help five times this wildfire season, including last week, when the Armed Forces and the Red Cross helped to evacuate more than 2,800 people from Garden Hill First Nation in Manitoba. Olszewski said she expects to have an update on a federal emergency agency in the fall. In the meantime, communities in high-risk areas are bracing for things to get worse in the next two months, which are typically the most active months of the fire season. Saskatchewan has already seen one of the worst fire seasons ever in terms of the total area burned, and a record number of people have been forced out of their homes in that province. Indigenous Services Minister Mandy Gull-Masty said 39,000 people have been forced to evacuate from 66 First Nations, mostly on the Prairies, calling the fire season unprecedented. "It is, I hope, not the new reality that we have to live with, but I'm asking myself what this looks like," she said. Gull-Masty said the government's goal at the end of the wildfire season is to "come together, debrief, reflect, and put tools in place for the next possible time that this occurs." Officials said the fire risk typically rises throughout August as temperatures get hotter, and they are predicting higher than normal temperatures for most of the country next month. "This is consistent with climate change projections, which show that the next five years will be warmer than (we) are used to," said Sébastien Chouinard, the director of operations at the Canadian Meteorological Centre. August is also slated to bring below-normal rainfall levels for the Prairies, B.C. and the Maritimes. More than 530 firefighters from Australia, New Zealand, Costa Rica, Mexico and the U.S. are in Canada to help. Natural Resources Minister Tim Hodgson said his department is setting aside $11.7 million over four years to create the Wildfire Resilience Consortium of Canada, an agency he said will "connect domestic, international governments, the private sector, wildfire scientists and experts and affected communities to share knowledge, science and technology so we can fight fires better."
National Observer
a day ago
- Business
- National Observer
At North America's only graphite mine, big battery dreams face a global crush
As the home of North America's only operating graphite mine and a score of projects queued for development, Canada should be in pole position in the race to capitalize on the vast deposits of a mineral vital to the energy transition. Yet the 35-year-old open pit mine in Lac des Îles, Que., is struggling. Mine owner Northern Graphite has historically sold its product—a dark-grey, naturally occurring form of carbon—to a range of US industrial customers that use it in everything from steelmaking and manufacturing lubricants to pencils and racing bike frames. But it has yet to ship a single ounce of graphite to clean economy customers: the makers of lithium-ion batteries for electric vehicles and grid-linked energy storage. In May, the company said it needed to immediately raise $10 million to expand its operation or face the possibility of shutting down by year's end. 'We have over $300 million in assets, but our market cap is $11 million,' Northern Graphite CEO Hugues Jacquemin told Canada's National Observer last week, discussing the value of the company's shares on the stock market. 'This tells you how precarious a situation we are in in the current market,' he said, speaking during a visit to the mine, located 150 kilometres northwest of Montreal, by a European delegation working on hatching a new strategic industrial partnerships with Canada. 'China has been driving down prices in a very explicit strategy to deter Western investment in the critical mineral supply chains — and it has been working,' says Bentley Allan, lead author on a recent Transition Accelerator critical minerals report. Graphite is high on Ottawa's priority list of 34 critical minerals — a group of metal, minerals and rare earth elements key to energy transition and defence technologies — as it seeks to reindustrialize Canada's mining sector while pivoting away from an overreliance on trade with the US in the wake of the Trump administration's tariffs and annexation threats. Prospects could hardly appear more bullish. The global market for natural graphite, such as is hauled out of Lac des Îles, and synthetic versions derived from polluting coking coal, stood at US$30 billion ($41 billion) last year, according to Precedence Research. That figure is forecast to more than double to US$65 billion by 2034. Macquarie, an investment advisory group, in a recent market outlook calculated that six million tonnes a year of graphite alone would be needed globally for EV and electricity grid batteries by the end of this decade. For perspective, Northern Graphite's mine produces 10-15,000 tonnes of graphite ore a year and is ramping up to 25,000 tonnes. 'We need to scale this mine to be much bigger than it is and start building new mines,' Jacquemin said. 'We need to develop the industrial supply chain that will take these raw materials and turn them into a finished product and then to market.' But the company — and wider Canadian graphite mining sector — faces a formidable challenge: China. The Asian superpower monopolizes the global market for so-called 'black lead,' producing and processing nearly 80 per cent of total supply. This gives Beijing the ability to control prices at will and with it, affords it huge geopolitical influence on countries that are in desperate need of the material — including the US, which yesterday levied anti-dumping duties of 93.5% on imports of Chinese graphite. Chinese market manipulation and slowing growth in sales for EVs in North America made 2024 'a year to forget', said GraphiteHub, a market research site, noting that global trade tensions and international efforts to break China's chokehold on graphite — such as the high-level critical mineral 'action plan' agreed at the recent G7 summit — would be narratives to watch. 'Broader geopolitical context' Commercializing Canada's graphite resource — along with that of other critical minerals such as lithium, cobalt, nickel and rare earth metals central to the emerging clean economy — is an extraordinary challenge at a time of uncertainty over international trade, politics and financing, sector observers say. 'The broader context for graphite, like so many critical minerals, is now geopolitical,' said Bentley Allan, lead author on a new report on critical minerals from the Transition Accelerator, a Canadian think tank. 'China has been driving down prices in a very explicit strategy to deter Western investment in the critical mineral supply chains — and it has been working,' he told Canada's National Observer. After hitting highs of $1,000-plus a tonne in early 2023, graphite's price chart has since looked like a worrying EKG monitor, dropping to lows close to $400/tonne at the end of 2024. 'We have been talking about critical minerals for years and there has been a loss of investor confidence because it hasn't translated into an economically viable price,' Jacquenin said. Allan believes Ottawa could foil Beijing's tactics by employing a pricing mechanism like a so-called Contract for Difference, which has a 'floor' and 'ceiling' for critical minerals mined in Canada. This way, he said, the government could provide price certainty for investors, covering the difference if market prices fall below the band and sharing any profit above it. Canada's been talking about critical minerals for years and there has been a loss of investor confidence because it hasn't translated into an economically viable price. 'Otherwise, graphite is not going to move forward in Canada,' said Allan, an associate professor at Johns Hopkins University's Sustainable Energy Institute in the US. A pricing policy is currently not part of Canada's critical minerals strategy launched in 2022 with $3.8 billion in federal support for exploration, processing, manufacturing, and recycling of these key metals and minerals, and another $1.5 billion for mine-related infrastructure aimed at giving projects an early boost. Only a handful of critical mineral projects have progressed meaningfully since, with early-stage mine developments in British Columbia, Manitoba, Ontario and Quebec. 'The government's strategy aims to build a resilient, sustainable sector that delivers results across the country and furnishes Canada's economy and national security,' Marie Martin, a spokesperson for Natural Resources Canada, told Canada's National Observer. She said miners can use 'a range of tools including tax incentives, funding programs and other financing mechanisms' to get projects into production. But the economics of a mine hinge heavily on 'downstream' customers — a battery or EV maker, in the case of graphite — to secure the supply they need through offtake agreements with the mine operator, said Chris Williams, an analyst with Adamas Intelligence, a market intelligence company. Downstream buyers in North America and Europe are 'not committing in sufficient numbers' to support new graphite projects, he said, adding that the Canadian government will most likely have to bridge the funding gap to develop a critical mineral ecosystem — from mining through processing to recycling — here that can help the West curb its dependency on Chinese graphite. 'China's strategy of supporting loss-leading mining operations creates a competitive barrier around its more valuable midstream supply chain, a model that the West would benefit from emulating,' Williams said. Northern Graphite's Lac des Îles graphite mine may be the only one producing product today, but another 10 projects are in early development in Quebec stretching along a mineral-rich southwest-to-northeast axis starting near Notre Dame de Pontmain, 140 kilometres north of Ottawa. Capturing the graphite 'corridor' Moving a mine from discovery to production can take on average 17.9 years in Canada, compared to 15.7 years globally, 14.5 years in Australia and 13 years in the US, S&P Global Market Intelligence, a research firm, said in 2023. 'If permitting was streamlined to be less red tape heavy, we could get moving very fast,' Jacquemin said. The industry has long laid blame for slow-rolling regulatory processes for the time it takes to open a new mine, but market factors and financing can impact a project as well. Prime Minister Mark Carney's Liberal government has pushed through legislation empowering his cabinet to override regulations, guidelines and laws to speed up energy, mining and infrastructure projects. A new Major Projects Office is being set up with the aim of fast-tracking 'national interest projects' to two years from five years. But mining executives say it's not clear how the new federal office will coordinate with provincial regulators and First Nations. The challenges, however, don't end once the ore is out of the ground. Canada's lack of critical mineral processing plants (known as the 'midstream') remains a significant obstacle to the country's export ambitions. Northern Graphite aims to lead the charge into this key industrial link of the supply chain. The miner recently partnered with BMI, a Canadian investment group, that last December bought a 2,800-acre former pulp and paper complex in Baie-Comeau, Quebec to turn it into a 'multimodal' industrial hub — including a graphite processing plant. The huge $2 billion project, called Norderra, would be built-out in four stages, eventually powered by up to 400 megawatts of hydroelectricity, with first graphite shipments from the site's deep water port as early as 'late 2027 or early 2028.' Financing for the lead-off phase has yet to be finalized. Norderra, Jacquemin said, could one day anchor a graphite mining and processing corridor with Quebec's deposits developed into mines producing 500,000 tonnes of graphite concentrate annually, for export to global markets via the Great Lakes-Atlantic Seaway. 'We have to reindustrialize for different types of materials,' Jacquemin said. 'Once we used forestry products to produce paper, now we will be using graphite to produce batteries.' Northern Graphite's five-year plan for the Lac des Îles mine — assuming analysts' forecasts are right and graphite gets a boost from demand for energy transition technologies — is still waiting on the $10 million expansion that would gear up production to 213,000 tonnes of graphite ore a year. 'The government, financial institutions, and industry need to get moving together to seize this opportunity now,' he said. 'Canada needs to put its stamp on this, to say 'We are a leader in critical minerals, and to back that up with high-quality Canadian products. It is time to show we are serious.'
National Observer
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- National Observer
MOVIES: For the adults: colonialism studied; and for the kids: Smurfs on a rescue mission
Teenagers this week will be attracted to I Know What You Did Last Summer. Almost for sure. It's a remake of a hit 1997 film that produced a couple of sequels, and a TV movie, and repeats a familiar movie plotline: teens one by one being killed off. Why that's so eternally popular I don't know. The teens in the movie try to cover up the facts of a car accident. The killer, unknown to them but apparently identified at last in this film, comes after them. He's seen as a fisherman armed with a hook and now also a harpoon. If that's not for you (and I didn't have access to a preview to offer advice) you've got these as alternatives: Eddington: 3 stars Smurfs: 2 ½ Don't Let's Go To The Dogs Tonight: 4 The Banished: 2 EDDINGTON: If the image of the United States we get in the news these days isn't caustic enough for you check out Ari Aster's vision. He previously made Midsommer and Beau is Afraid and here his view is that America has gone completely bonkers. People yell at each other with half-baked opinions or even completely bizarre conspiracy theories. Wait a minute. That's already true in some quarters. Well, Aster goes further. The society he describes is hopelessly divided, people can't agree on anything and while that's a legitimate opinion to have he says there's no way for the society to heal itself and violence is the only probable outcome. The first analysis is good but that fallout is sad, over the top and excessive. He has fun getting us there though. The time is right at the height of the COVID epidemic. In a small fictional town in New Mexico the people who refuse to wear masks are at the throats of those who do and say it's for the good of all. The noise is amped up when the no-mask sheriff (Joaquin Phoenix) decides to run in an election against the pro-mask mayor (Pedro Pascal). Suddenly all sorts of other issues come in. Black Lives Matter, after George Floyd is killed far away, brings out protesters on the main street. They shout about white oppression and one of the leaders suggests that she's embarrassed to be white. Shop windows get broken and the sheriff has trouble keeping the peace, and run his campaign at the same time. There's also a rumored but old history between his wife (Emma Stone) and the mayor. Of course everything taken together erupts into gunplay which in a way is a commentary itself about America. Feels more like an easy way out though. And after such careful scene building too: Trump is glimpsed, Faucci is graffitied, and remember hydroxychloroquine? The film will take you back but its satire is only glib. (In theaters) 3 out of 5 DON'T LETS GO TO THE DOGS TONIGHT: Here's a highly engrossing view of colonialism through the eyes of a child. She seems to know much more than we can expect from an 8-year-old but then it comes from a memoir that Alexandra Fuller wrote as an adult. So the perspective is rich with both adult knowledge and a child's sense of wonder. That comes out beautifully in a completely natural performance by young Lexi Venter. She's called Bobo, lives on a farm with mom (played by Embeth Davidtz, who is also the scriptwriter and the director of the film) and with dad (Rob Van Vuuren) who is often away on soldier duty. This is Rhodesia in 1980, before it became Zimbabwe. There's a civil war going, an election looming and the family is on edge as black activists want the land back that white settlers took from their ancestors. Bobo isn't supposed to talk to Africans 'about anything' because they could be terrorists. Africans and whites are not the same, she says, obviously repeating her parents' attitudes. She is close to a Black servant though ... and that friendship riles the woman's husband. 'Eyes are watching you from up in the hills,' he tells her. That sense of dread is everywhere and heightened by TV and radio news reports about atrocities committed and about the election that Robert Mugabe is about to win. That raises the fear even more. Mom has a gun in her bed when she sleeps. When she goes to work (as a police officer) an army convoy has to take her to the station. Dad wants to sell the farm and leave. She won't. They argue loudly. Bobo wonders if she is an African and is assured she's English and better for it because of 'breeding.' Colonial thinking, the tightening political situation and the child's view come across expertly. Director Davidtz is from South Africa and knows how it was. (In theaters) 4 out of 5 THE BANISHED: This horror movie from Australia is very good at creating atmosphere – dark, creepy, warped – but not so good at telling us what it means. There's a section here that reminds me of The Blair Witch Project and comes off better than it did. That's too brief though and the mysteries the film raises aren't resolved well. We're left to our own imagination to make what we can of it. It seems to offer a hippie commune (of 'junkies and losers,' as per one character) but doesn't make a firm enough impression to know for sure. Is it an intentional community run by a tyrant? Maybe. There's an alternate title in some references: Baal. He was a powerful god in some ancient religions. An oppressor in some. The film seems more mundane though. A young woman played by Meg Eloise-Clarke is grieving the death of her father and sets out to find her brother who has disappeared and who dad had abused. David got into drugs, was thrown out of his church and ran away. Grace, his sister, follows his trail although she's advised along the way to leave it alone. She's told about a colony in the forest called Utopia and that search is what takes on that Blair Witch vibe. She also gets some help from a former teacher (Leighton Cardno) and someone she communicates with on a walkie-talkie. Can she trust them? The film, written and directed by Joseph Sims-Dennett spins out the fear and mystery very well and kills off a bunch of backpackers but leaves us wondering what was all that about? (Available VOD) 2 out of 5 SMURFS: The tiny woodsy characters are back. Children will probably like that; older kids are likely to go 'meh' and parents will have to be benign. There's good animation here but a complex story that takes the little beings out into the real world, including to Paris and Munich, dodging cars on the autobahn and that sort of thing. Why there? Not clear. They're on a mission to rescue Papa Smurf who has been kidnapped by the series' regular villain, Gargamel, and his newly introduced brother, Razamel. The story is deeper though. There's an Intergalactic Evil Wizard Alliance and they're after a book, the one of a set of four, they haven't yet grabbed. Capturing Papa is meant to help their plot and that was actually enabled back in Smurfland. You see a new character, No Name Smurf, hasn't found his thing yet, not like Jaunty, Moxie, Worry (also new) or the rest. He's considering 'Magic' but not only is that not au courant, it tells the wizards where they are and enables them to come and get Papa. The film is stacked with celebs voicing the characters—Rihanna, Octavia Spencer, Sandra Oh, Jimmie Kimmel, Dan Levy, Kurt Russell, Alex Winter (he was Bill of Bill and Ted), Nick Offerman, James Corden, on and on. And references that will go right over kids' heads ('We'll always have Paris.' A vortex operating in non-Newtonian principles). But it's got the usual Smurf song and a new one by Rihanna. It's directed by Chris Miller, an animation veteran (Shrek films and others) and is, as he promised, buoyant. Not much more than that, though. (In theaters) 2 ½ out of 5
National Observer
2 days ago
- Health
- National Observer
Canada beyond Trump: Climate rages on as our greatest challenge
Long after the current US government has gone, the climate crisis will remain the greatest existential threat of our time. While it's no surprise the recent Canadian federal election was dominated by the immediacy of unprecedented US threats against us, the environment is critically intertwined with every major issue, ranging from Canadian sovereignty to the economy, jobs, housing and health. Whether we're talking about it or not, the climate crisis continues to escalate, affecting nearly every facet of our lives. Canadians and our new federal government must recognize that strong climate policies now will ultimately make or break our future, and that of our children. The climate crisis shortens lifespans, costing both lives and dollars. Health experts worldwide, ranging from the World Health Organization to the Canadian Public Health Association, recognize climate change as the greatest health challenge of the 21st century. Burning fossil fuels, including the potent so-called 'natural' gas, generates both carbon pollution that causes climate change and toxic air pollution associated with widespread human health harms. Air pollution is linked to roughly one in seven premature deaths in Canada, while burning fossil fuels is linked to one in five deaths worldwide. Climate change contributes to health harms through extreme weather and heat, food insecurity, proliferating infectious diseases and more. Both climate change and air pollution are associated with severe mental health harms, including depression and suicide, especially impacting our youth. Environmental impacts increase the burden of diseases requiring care, while also damaging our health care systems at massive financial cost. Together, these risks are making our health system entirely unsustainable. Climate change is already slowing Canada's economy, with costs in 2025 estimated at $25 billion. This cuts Canada's gross domestic product (GDP) growth in half, hurting every household in the country. As far back as 2016, the economic cost of premature deaths associated with air pollution across Canada was estimated at $114 billion annually. Over the next few decades, climate change is expected to trigger up to an additional $100 billion per year or more in health-related costs alone due to the impacts of heat, ground-level ozone, infectious diseases and more. Policies that get us off fossil fuels and fight climate change would effectively lower those costs, reduce illness and relieve pressure on the already overstretched Canadian health system, while keeping pace with global decarbonization trends. We would all benefit. Slashing billions from government services to fund massive military spending, while building pipelines and attempting to keep a fossil-fuel-based economy on life support, are not the way forward. They are simply archaic. Every dollar invested in climate action pays back approximately two dollars in health care savings alone — a doubled return on investment that more than pays for itself. Pollution pricing is one of the most effective — and yet least expensive — tools to slash both air pollution and carbon pollution that threaten our livable future. In the lead up to the federal election, we lost consumer-facing pollution pricing, which ranked as the fourth-most effective emissions-reduction policy in Canada. However, the still-standing industrial pollution pricing is Canada's single most important policy to drive down emissions by making the largest industrial polluters pay. The federal government must respect its election promise to protect industrial pollution pricing. We can't afford to drop the most powerful tool we have to protect our future. A strong Canadian climate policy will save lives and improve health, while keeping the cost of our healthcare system sustainable to help stabilize our economy. A current nationwide campaign calling for federal climate action and protection of industrial pollution pricing has already been endorsed by over 85 organizations and counting, including both the Canadian Medical Association and the Canadian Public Health Association. Recent polling shows 73 per cent of Canadians agree that walking away from pollution pricing betrays our kids and the majority are open to voting for a party defending pollution pricing. This mirrors results of a global study of 130,000 people, revealing 89 per cent want increased political action on climate worldwide. Climate change must be treated like the public health emergency that it is. We must hold the federal government accountable to lead Canada at this pivotal moment with sustainable, forward-thinking policies incorporating urgent climate action. Slashing polluting emissions will yield massive health and economic co-benefits, while keeping us competitive on the global stage. We are the final generation with the opportunity to choose a liveable future for ourselves and for our children. Dr. Mili Roy is a practicing physician and surgeon in the Greater Toronto area. She serves as Ontario Regional co-Chair of the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment (CAPE).
