Niagara Has An Opportunity to LEAP!

 Global Warming And Grassroots Activism Come Together At ‘This Changes Everything’ Film Screening This Coming March 1st In St. Catharines, Ontario

An Invite from the South Niagara Chapter of The Council of Canadians and the Unitarian Congregation of Niagara

Posted February 28^th on Niagara At Large

Niagara, Ontario – In December, at the International Climate Change meetings in Paris (COP 21), the newly-elected government of Canada announced to the world that our country was changing course.

No longer would Canada be a laggard on climate change mitigation, allowing our greenhouse gases to rise year after year. Instead, at COP 21, Canada’s new Minister of the Environment and Climate Change, Christine McKenna, announced Canada’s decision to endorse the call for a target rise in global temperature of no more than 1.5 degrees.

Later this week, from March 3-5, Christine McKenna and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will meet with the provincial and territorial First Ministers to begin to craft a national approach to climate change mitigation and limiting GHG emissions.

It’s not going to be easy. With the Harper government taking a back seat on addressing climate change over the past decade, individual provinces have chosen different ways to deal with emissions, with the result that we have a patchwork of initiatives across the country. Our federal and provincial and territorial leaders need to find common ground.

“We Canadians must make our voices heard at this crucial time in the history of Canada and the globe. Canadians need to show our new federal government that we’re behind it—we want Canada to fulfill the promises made at COP 21,” says Fiona McMurran, of the South Niagara Chapter of the Council of Canadians. “That’s why we’re calling on individuals and groups to sign on the to Leap Manifesto.”

The Leap Manifesto is a non-partisan initiative that demands a transformative agenda for Canada to address both social injustice and climate change. The Manifesto was the result of a two-day meeting in the spring of 2015, bringing together representatives from Canada’s Indigenous rights, social and food justice, environmental and faith-based and labour movements, all of whom wanted to move beyond saying “no” to the polluters and the rights’-deniers. They wanted a vision of “a Canada based on caring for the earth and one another.”

Launched just prior to the Paris climate change talks, the Leap Manifesto calls for transitioning to 100% renewable energy by 2050, upholding Indigenous rights, and creating low-carbon jobs. 33,247 individuals and over 150 organizations have signed on across the country have endorsed the Manifesto; and 2016 will see a major thrust to get individuals and groups to sign on.

“2016 is a Leap Year, when we add a day to our calendars to bring them into sync with the earth’s revolution around the sun – a powerful metaphor for the need to change our economic system so that it is in balance with our environment. Politically it is past the time for small steps—we need to leap,” says McMurran.

On Tuesday, March 1, the South Niagara Council of Canadians along with the Unitarian Congregation of Niagara bring you the opportunity to learn more about the Leap Manifesto, and to watch a screening of Avi Lewis’ documentary film, THIS CHANGES EVERYTHING, from Naomi Klein’s book of the same name. The event is free, and takes place at 6:30 pm, at the Unitarian Congregation of Niagara, 223 Church Street, St. Catharines.

“We can be heard if we join together. We must let Justin Trudeau and Christine McKenna know that we want them to be true to their word coming out of Paris. We won’t take anything less. Our future and that of future generations is at stake.”

Endorsing the Leap Manifesto is one way to do that.

For information: contact Fiona McMurran at fmcmurran@cogeco.ca .

NOW IT IS YOUR TURN. Niagara At Large encourages you to share your views on this post. A reminder that we only post comments by individuals who share their first and last name with them.

Visit Niagara At Large at www.niagaraatlarge.com for more news and commentary for and from the greater bi-national Niagara region.