We’re angry at the past 30+ years of politicians in Canada for failing to meaningfully mitigate climate change.
As I stare at an orange sun in the sky while staying indoors to mitigate air pollution exposure from my 600 sq ft condo in Toronto, I'm surprised to realize that the emotion I've been harbouring in my chest all week is anger.
– and despite the subject matter OCP covers, I rarely allow myself to be truly angry about something, so I thought we should unpack that in case others were feeling some sort of way too.
I'm angry at how everyday plebs like myself were all manipulated into thinking that “reduce, reuse, recycle” would save us - while corporations and the fossil fuels industry continue to exploit our planet for personal profit, all while funding the disinformation campaign to justify their actions.
I’m angry at corporate/legacy media for continuing to position climate change as a debate, even though for more than 30 years, the science has been crystal clear.
– And I'm angry that they've gotten on board with calling this “wildfire season” as if the severity and frequency of fires aren't directly correlated to the climate emergency that they failed to accurately report on for decades.
I’m angry that we keep underfunding public health, and as a result, there are people outside maskless, and it’s unclear to me if that’s an informed risk that they’ve made or a result of a severe lack of information being disseminated to help folks make informed decisions.
– We deserve easy-to-access info about how to stay safe, and what to do to minimize risk if we're going to be outdoors - for work or play.
I’m angry for Indigenous peoples and communities, whose ancestral wisdom, leadership and expertise we should leverage at a large scale now more than ever.
I'm furious that Indigenous communities are being forcibly removed from their lands yet again – this time because of a worsening climate emergency that Indigenous peoples played no part in creating, yet will disproportionately be impacted by.
I’m angry for unhoused people who have already been failed by public systems and our politicians, who are spending the whole day outdoors inhaling smoke because they don't have access to shelter.
I’m angry for low-income folks and families who live today similarly to how my family lived in Scarborough, Ontario ~25 years ago (low-income housing, multiple immigrant family units, multigenerational, in a crowded small apartment with poor ventilation)
– These families deserve access to culturally informed, and easy to understand and access information, including about how libraries, community centers, and shopping malls have the ventilation they need.
I'm angry at myself for my privilege, which allowed me to be willfully ignorant while Alberta burned earlier this year, or while countries in the aftermath of European colonialism are disproportionately impacted by a climate emergency that they did not contribute to.
– I shouldn't have to be personally impacted to feel or pay attention to what is going on.
I’m angry at every former politician at every level of government in Canada, who, for over 30 years, has ignored crystal-clear evidence of a worsening climate emergency, and has failed to take the necessary steps to mitigate the harm done and prevent more harm from happening. All of these politicians have failed us and our planet – all while getting paid by our tax dollars.
I’m angry at the politicians who are currently in office across our country that still (to varying degrees) deny our climate emergency.
These are politicians that - at best are detached from reality and, at worst, are actively colluding and benefiting from the destruction of our planet, and either way – are failing at representing public interests while still being paid a salary from taxpayer dollars.
To be honest, any politician who isn't going to center and fight for protecting people and the planet from a worsening climate catastrophe to vacate their seat as a representative of the public and transition into the private sector where they belong.
I’m angry, and I’m scared because I’m coming to realize that if our politicians aren’t acting now – will they ever?
And I’m sure there are folks who are angry at capitalism as a system – as am I – but the truth is, I find it difficult to be angry at corporations and other for-profit industries because they’ve always been honest about what their priorities are - and while I certainly don’t agree with them, I appreciate that they are honest about how profits are their priority over people and planet.
What is harder for me to reconcile, and really makes me angry, is how leaders of a democratically elected wealthy nation, choose to work in a role that is about prioritizing the public’s interest, and - judging by the quality of the air outside today - have not and are not doing enough to protect our people and our planet.
In real-time, we are experiencing a worsening climate crisis, and what do we have to show for it? What change has any leader meaningfully made - and before you start listing examples to come to the aid of whatever political party you back, remember doing more than one government is not the same as doing enough to address the climate catastrophe we are currently in.
Most of the changes essentially put the burden of change primarily on the everyday plebs (the same ones told to reduce, reuse, recycle– and you remember how that story ends, right? Spoiler alert: the air wasn’t safe to breathe this week).
Instead, we need meaningful, comprehensive, evidence-informed and brave leadership to advocate for our lives and our future. This means making the necessary changes to - with no exceptions - hold corporations, the wealthiest countries (European nations (former colonizers) and settler-colonial countries like Canada, amongst others) and the ultra-rich accountable for any degradation of the planet that occurred once we knew better because every moment after that are moments we should have done better.
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for god’s sake, we have the science, the resources, the technology, the expertise and the Indigenous wisdom to meaningfully enact comprehensive and sustainable change - at least within the borders of Canada (to start) - all we seem to be lacking is the political balls to tell the fossil fuel industry to fuck off. And despite all their degrees, experiences, etc., etc., - not one politician in the last 30+ years across every level of government in Canada has done that in a way that has actually meaningfully made a difference.)
(yes, I know not all politicians - we’ve had a few real ones in there - but we’re talking about the overall system and players here)
I’m angry because we’ve been taught to believe that everyday people need to - on top of our jobs, our responsibilities to family and friends, managing our personal health, navigating crumbling public systems and rising cost of living - find time to keep on top of multiple issues and files so that we can use that knowledge to keep on top of politicians - who we are also paying to represent the interests of the public in the first place (??!).
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Don’t blame people for not voting because you’re asking us to participate in a system that has failed us over and over again and expect different results. You expect us to be able to - on top of our jobs, our responsibilities to family and friends, managing our personal health, navigating crumbling public systems and rising cost of living - get out and vote? Even though our governments are - at such a large scale - failing systemically neglected communities to a point where even white people are feeling the gaps and inequities that Black and indigenous peoples have been speaking to for decades upon decades.
I believe in voting but stop putting the onus of responsibility on the individuals struggling to make ends meet when the system itself is failing to hold up its side of the fucking deal
And do you know what is the most devastating part of all of this? Those of us who do what they tell us to do to enact change -vote, keep on top of the issues, contact our elected officials, run for office - rarely, if ever, get listened to (especially since we haven’t had any electoral reform @JT).
Hell, even when we organize on a large unprecedented scale, what meaningful change do we really see? — Honestly, ask yourself what really changed after worldwide protests occurred after the murder of George Floyd by police.
More often than not, politicians - across the political spectrum (to different degrees of awfulness) - have their own plans. And more often than not, these plans seemingly run antithetical to the public’s interest – which is wild considering their job is to represent the interests of the public (in what other job can you do the exact opposite of what your job role requires and still hold your job??)
Think about the privatization of our healthcare system, the destabilizing of our education system, the destruction of old growth and the Greenbelt, and yes, the lack of action to meaningfully mitigate the climate crisis.
How do these benefit the public? Please, tell me, because I’m dying to know.
I’m angry; I’m tired; I’m mourning a system I was raised to trust that has failed me; I’m grieving for a planet that may not exist for much longer.
I’m tired of having to be responsible for thinking about this. I’m tired of having to be vigilant and keep on top of politicians because I can’t trust them to do their goddamn jobs and represent the interests of the people they choose to serve.
I’m tired of a media landscape in Canada that is controlled by corporations that are helmed by people who are the ultra-rich. I’m tired of media that allows itself to be proud of neutrality in the face of human rights violations and oppression (because, you know, being neutral in the face of injustice is siding with the oppressor).
And despite how angry and exhausted I am, at systems and institutions that keep failing the people, I know there are people and organizations - like On Canada Project - working against every barrier and systemic disadvantage in the pursuit of a world that is better than the one we’re currently living in.
“Can I get real a second, for just a millisecond?”
As the eldest daughter of an immigrant and a refugee, with no generational wealth, who is still painstakingly paying off student loans - I need you to understand that I wouldn’t do this work; I wouldn’t gamble with the uncertainty that is (accidental) entrepreneurship (like many children of racialized immigrants, I don’t have family money or connections) if I didn’t wholeheartedly believe, with every fibre in my being, that it is possible for all of us to have better than the what we’re currently being forced to swallow as “normal,” “par for the course," “this is just how things are done,“ “wildfire season,” “politicians - amirite,?” etc.
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(And I haven’t taken the time here to speak to the intersectional aspect of this for me - as a South Asian woman of colour, whose people were colonized and then faced systemic violence and genocide post-colonial “independence,” who is neurodivergent, the eldest daughter of immigrant parents, someone with a mental health diagnosis, etc., etc., — and still I know there are people in Canada even more systemically oppressed and neglected, with lesser privilege than I have. Our experiences of being failed by politicians are exponentially more complex than our white neighbours and friends)
The only way through this is together. The only way to actually see the change we need to save our planet from our leaders and corporations and address the inequality we’re all experiencing to varying degrees - is to link our causes in pursuit of collective liberation. It is rejecting “good enough” policies - that are literally designed with gaps - for comprehensive, sustainable and inclusive ones.
"Master's tools will never dismantle the master's house."
- Audre Lorde, 1984
This means shutting down any climate solutions that don’t center Indigenous peoples. That means voting against, organizing against, mobilizing against, and making noise against, any climate solution that does not center Indigenous leadership and is not wholeheartedly supported by Indigenous peoples.
Because a Canada that cares - truly cares - about Indigenous trust and reconciliation, Indigenous justice, in not repeating the cycle of colonial violence against Indigenous peoples and Indigenous human rights - that Canada cares about all of our human rights.
And that Canada will take meaningful actions to protect our planet - both domestically and globally. This is why the only way through this hot mess, inside a dumpster fire, inside a train wreck of a world, we’re in one piece (that doesn’t include a Snowpiercer-like situation).
You - as an individual - get to decide if you’re going to take the easy route of trusting these half-assed measures or ‘reform’ designed to prolong the exploitation of our planet for fossil fuel industry -
- Or you can choose radical change and meaningful action to protect people and our planet Earth. You can choose to disrupt the status quo, in pursuit of our collective liberation.
“Radical simply means "grasping things at the root.”
- Angela Davis
If you’re ready for an alternative way forward, then we invite you to join our community of people who are committed to human rights-centred and evidence-informed solutions here.
An excerpt of Fred Hamptons’ “Power Anywhere Where There's People”
“A lot of people get the word revolution mixed up, and they think revolution is a bad word. Revolution is nothing but like having a sore on your body and then you put something on that sore to cure that infection.
I’m telling you that we’re living in an infectious society right now. I’m telling you that we’re living in a sick society right now. I’m telling you that we’re living in a sick society and anybody that endorses integrating into a sick society before it’s cleaned up is a man who’s committing a crime against the people
If you walk past a hospital room and you see a sign that says contaminated, and then you try to lead people into that room, either those people are mighty dumb. You understand me?
Because if they weren’t, they’d tell you that you were an unfair and unjust leader that does not have your follows interests in mind. What we’re simply saying is that the leaders have to become more responsible and accountable for their actions. […]
I mean, honestly, people, we’ve got to face some facts, that the masses are poor. The masses belong to what you call the lower class. When I talk about the masses, I’m talking about the white masses. I’m talking about the black masses. I’m talking about the brown masses, and the yellow masses too.
We’ve got to face the fact that some people say you fight fire best with fire. But we say you put out fires best with water. We say you don’t fight racism with racism. We’re going to fight racism with solidarity. We say you don’t fight capitalism with no black capitalism. You fight capitalism with socialism.”
- Fred Hampton, Executed by the United States Government when he was 21 Years Old
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