432-01163 (Environment)

We, the undersigned Citizens of Canada, draw the attention of the House of Commons to the following:

WHEREAS, Climate change has escalated into a global climate emergency; the world is on pace to warm nearly 4 degrees Celsius by 2100 and extreme weather events are growing with increasingly severe impacts, including floods, forest fires, rising temperatures, killer heat-waves, massive storms, sea level rise and disruption to marine and land ecosystems;

WHEREAS, in order to act to avert further catastrophic climate change, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's (IPCC) states that the scientific consensus is that we need to immediately move to reduce net human-caused greenhouse gas emissions to 45 per cent below 2010 levels by 2030 and net-zero by 2050;

WHEREAS, Canada must address this climatic emergency with the ambition and urgency required, on behalf of present and future generations;

WHEREAS, Canadians are living through unprecedented, catastrophic climate events and at the same time, our society is suffering from worsening socio-economic inequalities, with almost half of Canada's population reporting they are $200 away from insolvency at the end of each month;

WHEREAS, climate change impacts threaten physical & mental health (particularly young people, the elderly and persons with disabilities), surrounding environments by affecting the food we eat, the world's water supply, the air we breathe, the weather we experience, and how well local communities can adapt to climate change;

WHEREAS, the impacts of climate emergency are far more severe for those living through the immediate consequences of climate change; Indigenous Peoples, frontline and vulnerable communities, like people seeking refugee status or asylum and those displaced by climate change, are disproportionality affected, resulting in the increased risks to their health;

WHEREAS, it has never been more urgent that Canada reduce its greenhouse gas emissions and transition to a low-carbon economy to meet the scale and urgency of the climate crisis, while ensuring that all Indigenous Peoples and Canadians benefit from the substantial public investments a low-carbon economy requires, like energy efficiency retrofits, affordable housing, renewable energy, infrastructure, public transit, pharmacare, dental care, childcare and eliminating student debt and tuition fees;

WHEREAS, reconciliation with Indigenous peoples and the recognition of inherent rights, title and treaty rights, while fully implementing the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP), must be at the heart of Canada's approach to addressing the climate emergency;

THEREFORE, your petitioners call on the Government of Canada to support Motion M-1, a made-in-Canada Green New Deal, the first initiative before the House of Commons, which calls on Canada to take bold & rapid action to adopt socially equitable climate action to tackle the climate emergency and address worsening socio-economic & racial inequalities at the same time; while ending fossil fuel subsidies, closing offshore tax havens, and supporting workers impacted by the transition and creating well-paying, unionized jobs in the shift to a clean and renewable energy economy.