The history of Petro-Canada’s creation in the 1970s offers inspiration for our current political moment
Photo Credit: Spence Mann]]>Read the full opinion piece by Cam Fenton on Ricochet.
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The history of Petro-Canada’s creation in the 1970s offers inspiration for our current political moment
Photo Credit: Spence Mann]]>Read the full opinion piece by Cam Fenton on Ricochet.
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At 9:30 am on October 28th, 27 young people were arrested today occupying the House of Commons calling on our newly elected MPs to come together, put partisan politics aside, and govern for a Green New Deal. Here's a personal account from one of them. ]]>Earlier today, I was one of 27 young people arrested for occupying the House of Commons to call on our newly elected Members of Parliament to govern for a Green New Deal. As the new government gets set to enter the 43rd parliament, the demands of our generation for bold action on climate echoed through the halls of power.
I’ll be frank. This isn’t how I imagined my first visit to Parliament in Ottawa. But with our collective future on the line, we must ensure our leaders are ready to address the climate crisis at the scale necessary. Young people made this election the climate election, and it is Our Time to Lead. That’s why, today, one week after the election, we didn’t back down — we doubled down.
As Parliamentary police rushed in and dragged us across the floor one by one, our collective voices did not waiver. We spread the 338 mandate letters and the demands of our generation across the floor of the House of Commons. We urged our elected officials to take our future seriously.
After we were all removed from the House of Commons, we came together to share space, sing together, and share our stories. Some of our elected officials and Green New Deal champions who heard us loud and clear sent words of solidarity, including NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh. And Green New Deal champion and MP-elect Matthew Green even came out mid-way through his new MP orientation to accept his mandate letter and affirm his commitment to a Green New Deal.
Risking arrest and watching comrades get dragged out by the limbs just for defending our collective future was hard to stomach in the heat of the moment. But bearing witness to young people being brave and putting their bodies on the line filled me with courage. We all owe it to future generations to stand up and fight for our people and planet.
Onwards,
Jennifer Deol
Photo Credit: Spence Mann
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We’re in a critical window right now, where the priorities of our next government are up for negotiation. Let's speak up. ]]>Blog by Amara Possian
I’m still processing the mixed bag of last night’s election results.
Some of our boldest champions lost in heartbreaking races after Our Time organizers poured countless hours into supporting their campaigns. At the same time, we elected powerful champions, like Leah Gazan in Winnipeg Centre, Matthew Green in Hamilton Centre and Jenny Kwan in Vancouver East, as part of an eight candidate squad headed to Ottawa to fight for a Green New Deal.
These eight candidates ran people-powered campaigns committed to a Green New Deal, and demonstrated the kind of bold leadership that we’re going to need on our movement’s side.
Climate change was, for the first time in history, a top voting issue. That’s in no small part because of the climate strikes and the organizing you did across the country these past few months. On top of this, the vast majority of voters cast a ballot for parties that promised bolder climate action – action they only committed to under massive pressure from our movement.
And, our movement is just getting started.
We’re in a critical window right now, where the priorities of our next government are up for negotiation. The Liberals didn’t win a majority of seats, so they need other parties to help them pass legislation. Help us ramp up the pressure right away.
One thing that hasn’t changed after the election is the ticking clock we’re facing to deal with the climate crisis. We mobilized an unprecedented movement over the past few weeks, and now we need to keep pushing.
The first hundred days of a new government are a critical time for building momentum around bold, ambitious policies.
Let’s speak up and demand ambitious action from all of our new elected leaders.
I hope you were all able to get some sleep last night. Campaigns are never over the day after the election. For candidates, there are signs to take down, offices to close, and finances to work through. On our end, we’re finalizing our plans to make the most of this critical window.
We’ll be in touch with more soon.
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Before polls closed on Oct. 21, Our Time campaign manager, Amara Possian, sent out one last e-mail with some reflections about the campaign.]]>Friends,
I’ll be honest, I’ve been struggling to write this e-mail all day.
I’ve written this email 3 times in the last 4 years. You know the one — “no matter what happens tonight, we’ve already won.” I wrote it on the eve of the 2015 election, and I wrote it twice last year when I ran for office. But something about this time feels really different.
I’m in awe. I’m in total awe of how much political power you’ve built, and how much you are all doing right now.
Since the sun came up over Halifax Harbour, Our Time organizers have been hitting the doors to pull the vote for our 35 endorsed candidates. These candidates aren’t just lesser evils, but they genuinely do politics differently. They’ve shown it through their track records, and through the way they’ve run their campaigns. I know that once elected, we can work with them to shake up the status quo and tackle the climate emergency.
As I write this email, dozens of volunteers are texting thousands of people to make sure they get to the polls. Our texting program has been one of my personal highlights of this campaign because it’s such a powerful example of the level of distributed leadership we’ve helped foster. Take Jaret, for example. He started volunteering on our text team, where he sent thousands of texts asking people to vote for Green New Deal champions. Then, he stepped up to become one of our text bank moderators, coordinating dozens of other volunteers to do the same thing. But, that wasn’t all. Last week, during a text moderator training, my colleague noticed something odd — Jaret wasn’t calling into the training from his home. Instead he had pulled over on the side of the highway and joined the call somewhere between Edmonton and his family farm, more than an hour away. The next morning, he showed up at the University of Alberta, ready to hand out hundreds of copies of the Our Times, spreading a message about the world we can win.
We’ve come such a long way in the past nine months. It all started at the tail end of the PowerShift convergence when 50 of us took to the Rideau Canal for our first Green New Deal canvass. It was a bitterly cold February 17th and the canal was packed with skaters. We were nervous, some of us because we had never canvassed before, others because it was the first time we were publicly talking to people about a Green New Deal for Canada. But, the nerves quickly gave way to a palpable excitement. The more conversations we had, the more we realized that the idea of tackling the climate emergency and deepening economic inequality was wildly popular.
We didn’t know it then, but we we were exactly two months away from launching Our Time. Instead of insider-politics-as-usual, we bet on a youth-led campaign to win a Green New Deal, and it’s working. Our Time has built people power and political power. We’ve knocked on countless doors, mobilized thousands of people to join the historic climate strikes, and spent thousands of hours building a movement of organizers who are ready to fight tooth and nail for a Green New Deal.
We’ve built something special here. No matter what happens tonight, our movement for a Green New Deal is stronger than ever. You’ve changed what’s politically possible in this country and you’ve done it with humour, with joy, and while taking care of each other. There’s no group of people I’d rather throw down with and I can’t wait to see what we do together next.
If you want to be the first to hear all of our hot takes tonight, visit our live coverage page. We will keep it up to date all night as we get news on the results — especially on our Green New Deal champions’ races.
Have a good time tonight,
Amara
P.S. Do you have any favourite memories from the campaign, or reflections you’d like to share? Just reply to this email to let us know. We’ll be debriefing the campaign in the coming days to make sure we learn as much as possible.
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Our Time is organizing an inter-generational alliance of voters to turn out to elect these champions and we really need your help in these critical races.
10 of our Green New Deal champions are running in some of the tightest races in the country. Here’s who they are and how you can support them.]]>
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Last night climate change was one of the most discussed issues during the English Federal Leaders’ Debate. Between the shouting matches and bickering over who is worse for Canada, and the significant air time wasted on a white nationalist like Maxime Bernier, 21 minutes were devoted to climate change. It came up during conversations about the economy, about leadership, about Indigenous rights, and other debate topics.]]>
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It’s E-18, and we're still buzzing from last Friday’s massive climate strikes. That’s why today’s newsletter is a bit of a special edition. Instead of the usual format, we just wanted to highlight the next steps we’re taking to turn this outpouring of energy into momentum for a made-in-Canada Green New Deal. (Photo Credit: Nhattan Nguyen)]]>It’s E-18, and we’re still buzzing from last Friday’s massive climate strikes. Nearly a million people turned out all across Canada at almost 300 events making September 27th the biggest climate mobilization in Canadian history by a long shot.
Our key message: let’s carry this momentum through the election. Our Time hubs have big plans for the next 3 weeks. Join an event close to you!
Check out our national flickr album to see some of our favourite photos from the climate strikes.
We’ll keep it simple this week. We just want to highlight the next steps we’re taking to turn this outpouring of energy into momentum for a made-in-Canada Green New Deal.
We got started last night with a mass organizing call where people from all across the country joined to plug into Our Time. If you missed it, you can click here to watch the recording.
Here is what you need to know:
It’s E-26, and big things are happening. Last week, more than 4 million people turned out for the first wave of Global Climate Strikes, and this Friday, millions more will take part in cross-Canada mobilizations during the second wave. Plus, just yesterday, we announced 16 new candidate endorsements, bringing our total number of Green New Deal champions to 29.]]>Our key action and message this week are also our strategy – Organize, Strike, Vote. We’ve been organizing our communities in support of a Green New Deal since April. Now, we’re gearing up to help make the climate strikes the largest climate mobilization ever in Canada. And we just announced another slate of Green New Deal Champions we’re going to help to elect on October 21st. Click here to find a Green New Deal Champion near you and get involved.
Highlights from Across the Country:
Normally we only share updates from across Canada here, but this week we’re going global with some highlights from the largest global climate mobilization in history: the September 20th climate strikes:
Hamburg, Germany — over 1.4 million people participated in the Germany climate strikes.
Children at 1 of over 70 climate strikes in India
100,000 strikers in Melbourne, Australia
In the lead up to this Friday, Our Time teams are busy preparing art, delivering class talks about the strikes, working hard to make sure that the climate strikes in their communities are as big and bold as possible.
You may have also heard that Greta Thunberg is headed to Montreal this Friday. She won’t be alone. In addition to thousands of Montreal students and youth expected in the streets, our friends at Indigenous Climate Action are supporting a national Indigenous youth delegation to join Greta at the Montreal Strike.
The big story last week was the revelation that Justin Trudeau has, on multiple occasions, dressed up in racist blackface and brownface. The revelation sparked some important conversations and commentary about the role that race plays in the election and about how structural racism is a massive problem in Canada.
In terms of how the race is shaping up, polls are showing a mixed bag in the wake of last week’s developments. Trudeau and Liberals have lost some, but not much, support. The Conservatives are inching forward, but again, not by much, and NDP leader Jagmeet Singh saw his own approval rating rise. But, even with this, the NDP and Green remain largely in the same place in national polls they were last week.
And, as always, remember that national horse-race polls are only a snapshot of a single moment in time, and have a lot of blindspots. Whatever is happening nationally, we can elect our local Green New Deal champions by organizing, striking and voting for candidates who are going to fight for us.
Also yesterday, Justin Trudeau and the Liberals rolled out a new climate platform, promising deeper emissions cuts and a national Just Transition Act, which looks a lot like a response to the pressure that youth-led organizing like Our Time and the climate strikes has put on candidates this election. But it’s also hard to trust any climate commitments coming from the party that bought a pipeline.
We endorsed 16 additional candidates this week. Click here to read about how we may move forward on further endorsements outside locations with active Our Time hubs.
Tools & Resources:
Can you pitch in a few dollars to support our bold, unapologetic campaign for climate action this election?
Donate to Our Time
On September 23rd, Our Time announced our second round of candidate endorsements. Here's more on our process. ]]>We followed the same process as the first round to decide who to endorse, but wanted to share some important feedback from our community.
After we announced our first round of endorsements on September 9th, Our Time organizers continued to meet with candidates across the country. They looked for bold leaders who are championing a Green New Deal and promise to work with people-powered movements during and after their election.
Our Time organizers nominated 16 new Green New Deal Champions in or near places with active hubs, local groups that are youth-led, with a demonstrated commitment to building a base that can turn out to support endorsed candidates and organize beyond the election.
We also received a number of nominations from people and communities far away from the places where our active, fired up hubs are ready to throw down behind champion candidates.
Here is just one of the messages we received:
“I appreciate the care with which you are approaching the nomination process and think your slate needs to have a LOT more people on it, in particular because there are a lot of deserving candidates out there. Just because there isn’t a hub in a constituency is not a final reason to leave out amazing candidates who fully support the Green New Deal!”
— Kathleen, BC
Our Time is building a movement for the long haul. We’re focused on more than the election, so when we endorse a candidate, we want to back that up with organizing power, energy and a fired-up movement ready to fight with our champions.
There are some amazing candidates that we aren’t endorsing today because we want to make sure that our endorsement is more than a symbolic nod. We need to figure out how to support these candidates from afar.
If we’re able to do that, we’ll consider making another round of endorsements that includes those candidates, and any other champions that might emerge after the Climate Strikes.
]]>There are 33 days left to election day, and while the campaign is just getting going, Our Time is in full swing. Our message of the week: Millions of people around the world are joining the upcoming global climate strikes. Are our politicians paying attention?
]]>Our message of the week: Millions of people around the world are joining the upcoming global climate strikes. Are our politicians paying attention?
This week, we have two key actions – gearing up for the climate strikes, and preparing for the October 7th federal leaders’ debate in Ottawa.
For the strikes, click here to find a strike near you. Since you’ve probably already done that and signed up, our ask this week is for you to recruit three friends to strike with you.
For the debates, we’ve learned that the CBC is in charge of the questions that are asked at the debate on October 7th, and they’ve created a form for us to submit questions. We’ll go through this together on Wednesday’s Mass Organizing Call, but if you can’t make it, click here to submit a climate question.
Highlights from Across the Country:
We flooded the streets outside the first federal leaders’ debate, demanding a dedicated climate debate and a Green New Deal at the scale that science and justice demand.
Last week, Our Time Toronto and Our Time Peel were the biggest, loudest, and most energized group outside CityTV and Maclean’s federal leaders’ debate. They greeted every party leader as they entered with a call for bold action on the climate emergency.
Photo Credit: Climate Justice Toronto
Once the debate started, they watched it together, asking the question “how many minutes is our future worth?” and keeping track of how much time was allocated to climate. In the end, it was a measly 22 minutes, give or take. Throughout the debate, they also held up green and red placards to express their support (or serious lack thereof) for what the leaders were proposing.
Passers-by also decided to join the crew. And as Grace King from Climate Justice Toronto put it, if anyone was the winner of the federal leaders’ debate it was the young organizers outside.
We’ll make sure that’s true again on October 7th for the English language debate in Ottawa.
Photo Credit: Climate Justice Toronto
The Climate Strikes will be HUGE
Millions are expected to join the global climate strike on September 20th and 27th.
Our Time hubs across the country are busy mobilizing thousands of university and college students to join the global climate strikes on September 27th. Last week, Concordia University in Montreal announced that they would cancel classes on the 27th, and the Toronto District School Board (TDSB) encouraged all schools to reschedule conflicting tests or assignments. Hundreds of other institutions are also shutting down for the day or offering their students amnesty to join the strikes.
We’ve also got word that many businesses are shutting down for the day to join the strikes. The cosmetics company Lush will shut down all its stores, manufacturing facilities, and offices in the country on September 27th so all its employees can join this historic moment. I have to say that in all my years of climate organizing, I have never been a part of anything so massive.
This week, Our Time Edmonton mobilized hundreds of students at the University of Alberta. And now they’re ready to deliver class talks, and cover their campus with posters and chalk art to recruit for the climate strike.
Our Time Ottawa has been out canvassing university and college campuses across the city to recruit students to the Global Climate Strike.
Climate Justice Peel was out canvassing this weekend at Peel Planet Day, talking to dozens of young people from the Greater Toronto Area about how we can win a Green New Deal grounded in justice.
As you know, the election was called last week and we released our first slate of endorsed candidates.
And everywhere party leaders go, young people are confronting them with demands for bold climate action.
The latest horse race polls remain unchanged — a dead heat between the Liberals and Conservatives with no one clearly leading or guaranteed to win a majority. But, there’s only so much value in watching the poller-coaster. We’re focused on turning out for our champions, the candidates we know are going to fight for a Green New Deal.
Tools & Resources:
Can you pitch in a few dollars to support our bold, unapologetic campaign for climate action this election?
Donate to Our Time