I will make today’s a short update on the running blog. Last week we did a 10K hike at Buntzen Lake on Saturday, which was more of a workout than running due to the steep hills and warm weather. I’m so happy it has cooled again this week, and I began running again, prepping for the Terry Fox Run this weekend. As always, when running, I am awed by Canada’s natural beauty, much of it still intact but most of it threatened. It’s always on my mind to preserve our natural and cultural heritage, which brings me to the next point, the Leap Manifesto.
The Leap Manifesto, which has participants and founders such as Naomi Klein, David Suzuki, Leonard Cohen, Donald Sutherland, and Ellen Page, aims to move Canada forward in the right direction and away from our legacy of abusing our natural resources and our cultural heritage.
The 15 demands of this manifesto are as follows:
- The leap must begin by respecting the inherent rights and title of the original caretakers of this land, starting by fully implementing the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
- The latest research shows we could get 100% of our electricity from renewable resources within two decades; by 2050 we could have a 100% clean economy. We demand that this shift begin now.
- No new infrastructure projects that lock us into increased extraction decades into the future. The new iron law of energy development must be: if you wouldn’t want it in your backyard, then it doesn’t belong in anyone’s backyard.
- The time for energy democracy has come: wherever possible, communities should collectively control new clean energy systems. Indigenous Peoples and others on the frontlines of polluting industrial activity should be first to receive public support for their own clean energy projects.
- We want a universal program to build and retrofit energy efficient housing, ensuring that the lowest income communities will benefit first.
- We want high-speed rail powered by just renewables and affordable public transit to unite every community in this country – in place of more cars, pipelines and exploding trains that endanger and divide us.
- We want training and resources for workers in carbon-intensive jobs, ensuring they are fully able to participate in the clean energy economy.
- We need to invest in our decaying public infrastructure so that it can withstand increasingly frequent extreme weather events.
- We must develop a more localized and ecologically-based agricultural system to reduce reliance on fossil fuels, absorb shocks in the global supply – and produce healthier and more affordable food for everyone.
- We call for an end to all trade deals that interfere with our attempts to rebuild local economies, regulate corporations and stop damaging extractive projects.
- We demand immigration status and full protection for all workers. Canadians can begin to rebalance the scales of climate justice by welcoming refugees and migrants seeking safety and a better life.
- We must expand those sectors that are already low-carbon: caregiving, teaching, social work, the arts and public-interest media. A national childcare program is long past due.
- Since so much of the labour of caretaking – whether of people or the planet – is currently unpaid and often performed by women, we call for a vigorous debate about the introduction of a universal basic annual income.
- We declare that “austerity” is a fossilized form of thinking that has become a threat to life on earth. The money we need to pay for this great transformation is available — we just need the right policies to release it. An end to fossil fuel subsidies. Financial transaction taxes. Increased resource royalties. Higher income taxes on corporations and wealthy people. A progressive carbon tax. Cuts to military spending.
- We must work swiftly towards a system in which every vote counts and corporate money is removed from political campaigns.