To date, 2020 has rolled out as a disaster movie with too many plot lines. A global pandemic shuts down huge swaths of the economy. An oil price crash poses an “existential threat” to the industry. The climate emergency continues – at a slower pace than the pandemic but with greater long-term consequences for human health and Canada’s economy.
Give us your ideas for how governments should respond in the comment section below!
As the Covid-19 pandemic continues to spread worldwide, many of us are feeling anxious about the health of our families and friends, and the wider impacts of this public health crisis on society. During a time of uncertainty, it’s important for governments to step in and protect the people who will suffer most, both directly and indirectly. By thoughtfully targeting this response, we also have the opportunity to come out of this public health crisis set up for a better future.
The investments made by governments to respond to the pandemic and the oil price collapse could leave us more equipped to manage the ongoing climate and biodiversity crisis, which poses growing threats to people’s lives, health, livelihoods and wellbeing. They could support the shifts for industry and infrastructure to the demands of a new net-zero carbon economy. And they could make major improvements for everyday Canadians’ daily lives, jobs and incomes.
There were some hopeful signs in the Trudeau government’s initial $82 billion Coronavirus stimulus package, because there were a number of people-focused measures – like extending income support programs to workers not covered by employment insurance, boosting federal child support payments and support to Indigenous communities – that will help the most vulnerable stay afloat in the near-term. These were measures that could be implemented quickly because they were based on existing programs but there are still a lot of people who fall between the cracks and whose needs must be addressed.
The approach in the Canadian package stands in sharp contrast to U.S. proposals to cut payroll taxes (that disproportionately benefit the wealthy) and offer bailouts to the fracking and airline industries. The Canadian package does, however, include over $10 billion for corporate support via Export Development Canada and the Business Development Bank of Canada whose details and impacts are still to-be-determined.
In announcing the stimulus package, federal ministers stressed that this was simply Phase One – designed to tide people over the coming rough patch – in what is still a rapidly-evolving situation.
We will likely get a better idea of what the longer-term strategy looks like in next week’s federal budget. A key question we should be asking is whether the programs and priorities laid out in the budget seek simply to return to a ‘normal’ that no longer exists, or if they take a longer view and seek to prepare us for the challenges to come.
The mobilization to fight the virus shows that we can drastically transform our systems and societies to fight a threat. I lived through the 2008 economic crash, when governments spent trillions to bail out the finance industry insiders who took irresponsible risks and left the most vulnerable worse off. The coronavirus has exposed the systemic failings of the global economy, which we must address in order to tackle not just this crisis, but the climate crisis too.
Listen to what Naomi Klein had to say.
We will eventually emerge from social isolation (perhaps with a new appreciation of the role of governments, scientific expertise and mutual-care in communities), but we need to recognize that the oil markets are never going back to their pre-2014 glory days.
The current oil price collapse is in many ways a preview of what will happen over the coming decades as oil is replaced by renewable energy powering electric vehicles. Demand is dropping, and low-cost producers are opening the taps to protect their share of a shrinking pie.
Mark Carney, former Governor of both the Bank of Canada and the Bank of England, has been warning that climate change is a threat to the global economy for five years and that companies that fail to transition to a zero-carbon world will go bankrupt. Even ruthless capitalists like Blackrock (the largest asset manager in the world) see fossil fuels as a sunset industry.
Swimming against that tide would only take us deeper into the climate crisis and make our economy more vulnerable to climate action by others.
In the coming federal budget there will be a temptation – and a powerful lobby from the oil patch – to bail out the oil companies. We should instead, bail out their workers and all Canadians, by taking advantage of historically-low interest rates to launch a Green New Deal-style low-carbon recovery program.
This isn’t just a Greenpeace dream. Even the very-conservative International Energy Agency (IEA) is urging political and global financial leaders to design “sustainable stimulus packages” that focus on investing in clean energy technologies and accelerate the transition away from fossil fuels. According to the IEA’s Fatah Birol: “This is a historic opportunity for the world to, on one hand, create packages to recover the economy, but on the other hand, to reduce dirty investments and accelerate the energy transition.”
The coronavirus has exposed the systemic failings of the global economy, which we must address in order to tackle not just this crisis, but the climate crisis too.
The thing to remember here – to borrow a line from Canadian writer/activist Cory Doctorow – is that disasters don’t have to end in dystopias. When disaster strikes, we often find that our neighbors are not our enemies, but our mutual saviors and responsibilities. And out of these disruptions can come creative solutions that make our world a better, safer place.
While we mobilise public resources to respond to the Covid-19 pandemic, we must be careful not to wash our hands of the ongoing crises and injustices that already threaten people’s lives, health, wellbeing and livelihoods, including the climate and biodiversity crises. As the Lancet and World Health Organisation note, climate change is likely to have major consequences on infectious disease transmission. Just like Covid-19, climate change is an inequity multiplier that disproportionately affects society’s already most-vulnerable and marginalized. In these times of crisis, it’s critical that public funds flow towards strengthening the social and ecological systems that we depend on. Thinking ahead to prevent the next public health crisis means acting now to address existing injustice and the climate and biodiversity crises.
Now more than ever we need to work together and pool our resources for the public good. What do you think federal and provincial governments should be investing in? Add your ideas to the comments below and we’ll combine them with our own as we advocate for a strong response to these overlapping crises.
Discussion
I agree, spend taxpayer money to support workers and train them to take on green initiatives, not giving money to corporations so that they can give it to the wealthy of our country. Think of the lower classes @nd middle classes, they need the most help!
Thank you for the excellent article Keith. I hope you have sent this out to all media, the federal environment Minister, Bill Morneau and PM Trudeau so that they hear our views loud and clear in time for the federal budget release. Already there are rumors of a bail out for oil industry corporations but this money must be focused on transitioning oil workers to green jobs. I hope you are in talks with the government about transitioning to a green new deal. I have also written my MP. A petition , Twitter storm and telephone campaign coordinated by GP would be very helpful.
Let's start with: a guaranteed annual income. free public transit subsidies for renewables only (end all fossil fuel & related subsidies) properly maintain the train tracks - and separate passenger lines from freight lines end all subsidies to airports and air travel stop the building of new airports
Please fix this typo :" the oil markets are never going back to their pre-2104 glory days." ++
Fixed! Thanks
Si le parti Libéral du Canada interrompait son soutien à l'industrie pétrolière albertaine, sans financer en contrepartie une source d'emplois comparables, il engendrerait sans doute une profonde crise politique qui nuirait à la réélection du PLC pendant longtemps et qui garantirait le pouvoir aux Conservateurs. Or, ces derniers feront tout pour relancer cette industrie désuète. Il me semble donc impératif, pour abandonner dirablement l'exploitation pétrolière au Canada, que le gouvernement fédéral finance massivement l'implantation d'une nouvelle industrie pourvoyeuse d'emplois intéressants en Alberta, dans la transformation des céréales ou dans un secteur étranger à ce qu'ils connaissent.
A pandemi becomes a lesson for all. For every bad, there's a good. It is giving us an opportunity to take the time to open new technologies for climate transitions. Mother Earth has just proven that it will not tolerate exces. While sitting on our laurels, it is time to thinktank genius ways to transition and get governments at all levels to mandate the changes to clean our waters, earth and air. What are our options? We are overpopulated and can't feed the masses. Time to think of growth as better quality than quantity. Save our farms and mandate safe food production. Stay away from chemicals which is changing our DNA.
I would like to see investments in geothermal energy, and high speed rail transport.
Hello Keith, Thanks for your efforts. I agree we need to link the compassion and interconnectedness movements to the sustainability movement. My hope is that focusing on cultivating prosocial lenses with a kindness and compassion focus will work linking the latest neuroscience coupled with ancient wisdom traditions. I think it is is very important not to demonize the Canadian oil , gas and mining industries. Especially here in NL,we are very dependent on these industries and we know that there is much anger and disillusion in Alberta. I am impressed with the work of Wade Davies and Linda McQuaig in Canada. Kate Raworth in the UK and Internationally and many others including Kevin Bale whose work shows the links between modern slavery and climate change. We truly need very warm hearts and very cool heads to make the best decisions possible at this time. We also need a vision for an inclusive, thriving and sustainable Canada to work towards .
There is absolutely NO MERIT in any recovery from Covid-19 in Canada if it involves our government trying to drive Canada back to where we stood in January 2020. History is certainly in the making each new brave day as we all live forward together. HISTORY does NOT work in REVERSE! Our Trade Agreements and Political Postures failed us miserably at this crucial moment in our History. In the crisp and focused reality of this sudden Covid-19 Electronic Flash, Truth has somehow created and brought all our attention facts and figures about the operations and ownership of all the World's Economic, Cultural, and Social Infrastructures. This NOW demands creative, inclusive and exemplary ACTION on the part of all of Canada's Federal, Provincial, Territorial, and Municipal Governance "Chains" to built a stronger, more vibrant and inclusive Economic Order for our citizens. It could be that we are all over-represented, too self-serving, and smug about our highly polished and advertised governance credentials. THIS is a quintessential stop-action moment for the Creation of a genuinely "Brave New World"!!! The 21st Century is Canada's to choose or to loose. And Climate Change is Spring in the Northern Hemisphere and Autumn in our Southern Hemisphere. We have a big Job ahead of us. "Lead, or get out of Our Way!" is soon to be on everyone's lips, mind and hearts. Take ACTION... the chance may not come again.
This pandemic has opened up the gross inequality in our world in a way that no person or group could ever describe or express. Now everyone can see how the most marginalized are living and dying. We have absolute clarity that the poor and sick suffer and die most often. It is abundantly clear the most urgent workers lives and families are sacrificed in the front lines due to disastrous greed and lack of leadership. Those most urgent workers who help to sustain life, receive salaries unequal to the significance of their contributions or to their personal and family risks. Our governments have not provided required safety equipment in our hospitals, in fact, Provincial Governments very often cut resources for our health care systems when they're elected. We are sickened to learn what has been happening to those in the most vulnerable stage of life, senior citizens who can no longer care for themselves. We are witnessing again that ageism is rampant, unchecked and grossly evil when private citizens with money are allowed to buy "senior warehouses." They expect to make profits off the backs of our most helpless seniors They do that by paying substandard salaries, they allow understaffing and like other areas in our underfunded Health Care System, they fail to provide adequate health and safety supplies and equipment for hospitals and workers in those homes. Our's is a society run by the 1% enabled by corrupt, greedy politicians and within a fraudulent voting system desperately in need of Election Reform.
In an effort to help alleviate climate change, environment, over-all health of all humans, avoid spread of novel or existing animal virus pandemics, stimulate green economy & create green jobs (transition animal food workers, oil & mine workers to green jobs): Grow more non-GMO, organic & natural plant foods and stop all animal farming, hunting and fishing and animal importing for food, clothes, shoes and other wearable & usable animal based products. Ensure a guaranteed living income for all (disabled, retired, students); ensure all essential workers are compensated to their essential status & that continued emphasis is on health & safety practices in their duties even after the pandemic is cleared. Decrease reliance on fossel fuels. Increase sustainable energy: practices, incentives, tax credits, job creation grants and low interest Green/Sustainable business development loans, Green/Sustainable Only GICs, Green/Sustainable Only Government Investments, offer free public transit across Canada. Ensure clean: air, water (fresh water bodies and ocean water) and land across Canada. Ensure safe potable water across Canada. Ensure adequate funding to all levels of medical and health care systems across Canada. Stop and reverse all privatization of all levels of medical and health care systems across Canada. Ensure Housing-First initiatives (Net-zero builds) across Canada for every citizen (no more homeless, no more deplorable living conditions on reserves or elsewhere in Canada (i.e. slum landlords charging market or inflated rents for dilapidated accommodations). Encourage business owners to provide employee stock ownership plan (ESOP) that does not expire (time put in is time earned wether a business is purchased by new owner or an employee leaves: for retirement, job change, parental leave, medical leave, lay offs, etc... unless employee choses to sell of their own stock ownership or employee endows stock ownership to another person as an inheritance, spousal support, survivor support) to foster reciprocal incentives and benefits to the owners, employees and consumers. When the top 1% income earners take care of the rest, they ensure their own long-term success. Win-Win-Win!
Mr. Trudeau and Ministers, replicate the beautiful 'chess-game-like' move just done for cleaning Alberta oil wells. Investing in laid-off workers in the (very dirty) oil patch and training them in green technologies will ensure solid, well-rooted and sustainable transition to a better world for us and next generations. Thank you for your immediate attention. Luiz
An initiative being taken in some European countries is to demand a sort of State of the Union on climate issues, by instituting an Earth Day at a fixed date each year and having the governments present what they've done in the past year to fight the climate crisis and what their concrete plans for the coming year(s) are. I think it's a very interesting initiative.
I would like to see job transitions from oil and gas industries to green industries and training to allow people currently working in the oil and gas sectors to do so. I also want to see more green incentives for Canadians. I also think that Indigenous studies should be made a mandatory high school credit so that Canadians can be educated on the many Indigenous teachings crucial to building a green future.
hello im a sientist i have solution for the petrol compagnie we need to do hho kit generator for car it mean that we put electricity in the water to produce hydrogene and oxygene gas wich is flamable !! also we can make it for house and stuff i beter than gas my name is julien newman and im a sientist i am 27 yrs old and we can beat the governement that make slave and war on the planet thx you have good luck god bless you look here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wuDJEeA25mg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cqjn3mup1So make fuel of water ! pls share and tell everyone !
hello im a sientist i have solution for the petrol compagnie we need to do hho kit generator for car it mean that we put electricity in the water to produce hydrogene and oxygene gas wich is flamable !! also we can make it for house and stuff i beter than gas my name is julien newman and im a sientist i am 27 yrs old and we can beat the governement that make slave and war on the planet thx you have good luck god bless you look here hho kit for car how to make fuel out of water on youtube ! make fuel of water ! pls share and tell everyone !