Elected officials are getting an earful from polluting corporations looking for bailouts and environmental rollbacks, so we need you to help balance the scales. Here are five reasons to support a green and just recovery that you can share with your Member of Parliament (federal or provincial), but feel free to add your own.  

Voters want it

Climate change a key issue in the last election campaign, when 63 percent voted for parties backing stronger climate action. Polling shows that a large majority (61%) of Canadians want governments to prioritize climate action in their response to the pandemic. Canada’s Parliament declared a climate emergency last year – now it’s time to act like it’s an emergency. 

It would create more jobs

When a team of economists at the University of Cambridge, including Nobel Prize winner Joseph Stiglitz, reviewed the published research and surveyed 231 experts they found that “green projects create more jobs, deliver higher short-term returns per dollar spend and lead to increased long-term cost savings, by comparison with traditional fiscal stimulus.”

We’ll be better prepared for the next crisis

While the COVID-19 pandemic is the immediate threat, we still face the ongoing crises of climate change, biodiversity destruction, and growing racial and economic inequality. As governments prepare recovery packages, the United Nations is urging them to seize the opportunity to “build back better” by creating more sustainable, resilient and inclusive societies. Greenpeace Canada  has put forward some ideas on how our country could do this – we’re working with allies and supporters to make this happen, and we need your MP to get behind a green and just recovery.

It’s better for our health

Canadian health professionals have identified climate solutions as “the greatest global health opportunity of the 21st century.” Investments in energy efficiency and renewable energy, walkable and bike-able cities, alongside electric vehicles and better public transit will decrease air pollution, which Health Canada says is responsible for more than 14,000 premature deaths and 2.7 million asthma symptom days each year.  

Polluters are using the pandemic as cover to try to roll back environmental regulations and suck up all the cash 

Show your MP our running list of the sneaky attempts by corporate polluters to further delay climate action, eliminate environmental and health protections, undercut workers and get governments to give them more of your money. We need your MP to say no to these dirty deeds and yes to a green and just recovery.