What is a Green New Deal?

A Green New Deal is an ambitious vision for tackling the climate crisis in a way that also addresses other crises we face, from rising cost of living, growing inequity, and lack of affordable housing, to implementing the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and challenging the rise of racism and xenophobia. People from all walks of life are convening to define exactly what it will look like. Learn more about the national movement to create Canada’s Green New Deal.

Why call on the CBC?

The CBC is our public broadcaster, funded by public money. We’re calling on them to act in the public interest by hosting a debate on the most urgent crisis of our time. They have a responsibility to play a key role sharing critical information on national emergencies, like the climate emergency our government declared in mid-June. We want every broadcaster in Canada, and the Leaders’ Debates Commission, to step up to the plate, and that’s why we’ll be taking action all across the country.

The CBC has listened to us when it comes to covering climate change. Early on in the summer, after thousands of us called out the CBC on twitter for refusing to call climate change a crisis, the CBC announced their new climate change reporting project. The CBC said they launched this project because people like you have been “asking the media to do a better job by providing more facts about what is happening and more coverage of possible solutions.” Hosting a federal leaders’ debate on climate change and a Green New Deal would be the next step in the right direction.

Why focus on the debates?

We know that winning a Green New Deal will mean mobilizing an unprecedented youth and millennial voter base in the 2019 election. But as we get closer and closer to the election, we have to make sure that every federal party leader and political hopeful is prepared to speak to a Green New Deal and why it is absolutely essential for responding to climate change and rising inequality.

Millions of people tune in to watch the debates and every single major media outlet in the country covers them. For a massive number of voters, these debates are or the first time they get a sense of the biggest issues in the election. People deserve to know who has a real plan to tackle climate change, and who is just blowing hot air.