Good Sunday Morning

This will be the last missive of 2020.  

Good Sunday Morning!

Yesterday was the five year anniversary of the historic conclusion of the climate negotiations in Paris.  I remember it as if it were yesterday. Claire Martin, Jaymini Bhika and I had pulled three all nighters in a row as the negotiations wore on. But then again I remember the signing of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Rio in 1992 as if it were yesterday.  I am cursed with a good memory.  I say “cursed” because, at least in the case of the climate crisis, remembering is torture.  All those opportunities. All those promises. All those failures and betrayals.

Good Sunday Morning

We are nearing the end of this parliamentary session as the House will rise December 11 until late January 2021.

Good Sunday Morning!

And November draws to a close.

Tomorrow will be Chrystia Freeland’s Financial Update, to which I will respond from Command Central – my home office in Sidney.  I will speak, beamed into the House of Commons on a big screen as the last of the speakers from each Opposition party in reply to our Finance Minister. Meanwhile, our Green Leader will be meeting with media, in real life, in Ottawa.  It is a good thing Annamie Paul feels COVID-safe traveling to Ottawa from her home in Toronto.  It is an excellent thing that she has such remarkable skills in speaking clearly and effectively to our national press.

This morning’s newsletter is dedicated to the memory of my brother-in-law, Peter Anthony Kidder. Much loved and much missed.

(April 15, 1960 - November 7, 2020)

Good Sunday Morning

Today’s missive is intended to be something you can post on FaceBook pages and share with friends by email.  Please share and please take steps to demand better.

On Thursday, the long-awaited Climate Accountability Act – full name “An Act respecting transparency and accountability in Canada’s efforts to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by the year 2050” - received First Reading.

Good Sunday Morning

Blustery and cold here on the southern tip of Vancouver Island. We have been shivering for a while in unseasonable cold, while for early November, Toronto, Ottawa and much of eastern Canada have been experiencing unseasonable warmth.  Across southern Ontario records were being smashed. It looks like more normal temperatures are returning in Ontario with snow on the way.

We tend, even in the depth of the climate emergency, to see such anomalies as just “weird” – as opposed to scary.   I had not realized how warm it was in Toronto until I saw a tweet from Dogwood’s Kai Nagata. He commented on a tweet from someone named Kamil Karamali – who said it had been too hot in his apartment and he’d had to go for a walk in the middle of the night to “cool down”…  I wondered where he lived, so I looked up Kamil Karamali. He is a Global TV reporter in Toronto. Toronto in November and it is too hot to sleep?

Good Sunday Morning!

Well, the agonizing wait ended yesterday morning with the news that Joe Biden is President-Elect.  

Good Sunday Morning

Welcome to our 9^th month of pandemic- November. Hard to stay cheerful, but we must keep trying!

Getting back to trying to share actual news about oil and pipelines, but first some really good Green news!

Good Sunday Morning!

As loyal readers, you likely know by now that I write GSM on Saturday. And I usually try to be right on top of the latest news. But today, I am going to take a chance and NOT write about the election results from the two elections happening right now.

With COVID and mailed in ballots, we may not know for a while how things turn out in British Columbia and in Saskatchewan. I am too nervous to think about the results in BC. I am so very proud of all 74 candidates, of a brilliant campaign and especially of our spectacular caucus of my own MLA, Adam Olsen and my dear friend, our BC leader, Sonia Furstenau. No matter the result, they ran the best and most inspiring campaign. I am too nervous to write about it.

Good Sunday Morning!

Election count-downs galore – Six days until voting is done in British Columbia and Saskatchewan!

Eight days until the two Toronto federal by-elections!

Fifteen days until the Prince Edward Island By-election in Charlottetown!

And the scariest of the scary elections- 16 days until the US presidential election.