Climate justice champions
A Hamilton candidate is among a handful being hailed as a climate justice champion by two national citizen organizations. That comes as multiple local organizations are rallying on Wednesday September 8 at Hamilton city hall to push that the climate emergency be front and centre in the federal election campaign.
Hamilton Centre MP Matthew Green is one of just six candidates across the country that has been endorsed by both 350 Canada and Leadnow. The latter group has chosen nine while 350 Canada has picked thirteen out of the more than two thousand individuals standing for election in the country’s 338 federal ridings.
“It’s never been clearer that we need more courageous leadership to have any chance of curbing climate collapse and soaring inequality,” says Maggie Chao, Leadnow campaigns director. “We need leaders that understand the scale and inter-relationship of these crises, who are willing to deliver the programs we need to solve them.”
The group believes Green has “become a powerful voice for action on climate, economic, and social justice in the pursuit of building a more caring and compassionate Canada.”. That’s echoed by Canada 350 who contends Green “continues to champion climate justice” and supports “big, bold ideas to tackle climate change and inequality at the same time.”
Hamilton’s non-partisan “Canada is Still on Fire” rally starts Wednesday at 3:30 pm and joins fifty-five others across the country on the eve of the federal leaders’ debates set for September 8 and 9. A third of the rallies will be in British Columbia where wildfires and toxic smoke have been a climate-accelerated plague all summer.
Eight more are scheduled for Northern Ontario where fires have also been a bigger than normal presence. Other nearby rallies will take place at Burlington City Hall, in Halton Hills, Guelph and Kitchener-Waterloo.
Speakers promised at the Hamilton gathering include Skyler Williams, spokesman for the 1492 Land Back Lane indigenous occupation on the edge of Caledonia. He will be joined by Hamilton and District Labour Council chief Anthony Marco; Hamilton Health Coalition co-chair Rolf Gerstenberger; Kojo Damptey of the Hamilton Centre for Civic Inclusion; student Adeola Egbeyemi from Divest McMaster; Grant Linney for the David Suzuki Foundation; and Lynda Lukasik, executive director of Environment Hamilton.
Some groups are planning to meet in advance at various locations and march to join the city hall rally including Stop Sprawl Hamilton. Their demands for no boundary expansion and full preservation of farmland are considered key to Hamilton being able to meet its climate goals. City council declared a climate emergency two and a half years ago but has yet to release its detailed plans for cutting greenhouse gas emissions.
The lead organizer of the rally, Hamilton 350 Committee, has some demands for the city in addition to federal parties. Echoing the national call for a moratorium on building fossil fuel infrastructure like the Trans Mountain Pipeline, they want for an end to gas installations in new buildings, a policy that other cities such as Vancouver are putting in place.
