The Virtual Spring Rendez-Vous, Our Open Letter during COVID Crisis & Canada's GGPPA and more.

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CCL Canada Newsletter
March 2020
   
 
   

 

Be sure to forward this newsletter to your local politicians and networks.

 

 


 

Table of Contents:
The Virtual Spring Rendez-Vous 
Our Open Letter during COVID 
Canada's GGPPA's
2020 Carbon Pricing Guidelines
Vanessa Fiore
CCL on WDTH Earth Day Broadcast
Featured LTE of the month
A Virtual Spring Rendez-Vous
 

It has been confirmed. Our May Conference will be online on the same day and roughly at the same time as our Ottawa Conference previously planned. Refunds for the previous conference were sent on April 2, 2020. Look for a notification email from service@karelo.com.

CCL Canada has some of the best volunteers on the planet. Happily, we can easily conduct an online conference in May 2020 because our exceptional volunteers have the technical savvy to conduct such events. We have been live broadcasting our major events since 2014 – even before CCL USA began to broadcast their major events.  

In the morning there will be a lobby preparation session for all of our volunteers. In the afternoon, Jason Dion from Climate Choices, and formerly from the Ecofiscal Commission, will be sharing with us mitigation strategies. Céline Bak from Analytica Advisors will help us wrap our minds around some of the complex financial issues facing Canada as we transition to a low carbon economy.  Additionally, there will be music and story-telling with Angie Nussey and two panels including a legal panel and global carbon pricing panel.

 

 

OPEN LETTER Trust in Science

 

Across Canada, our leaders have been sending their MPs letters based on our open letter.

Here is a snippet:

In a recent address to the people of Canada, Prime Minister Trudeau praised the youth of Canada for all they are doing to help their parents during this pandemic and for “trusting in science”.

The youth of our nation are making sacrifices to protect us during this pandemic by social distancing. We owe it to the youth of our nation to protect them from a crisis that will disproportionately impact them: the climate crisis.

Thus, at this time, we are asking you to not let the COVID-19 pandemic distract our country from fighting the climate crisis. Specifically, we ask you to defend Canada’s carbon pricing policy in the Budget 2020 Bill that was supposed to drop this week but was postponed to a day yet to be chosen.

Read the letter HERE and consider emailing it to your MP too. 

 
LASER TALK: Canada's Greenhouse Gas Pollution Pricing Act   
 

Happy belated birthday Canada’s Greenhouse Gas Pollution Pricing Act (GGPPA). 

On April 1, 2020, Canada’s Greenhouse Gas Pollution Pricing Act will have been in force for a full year. It is a form of Carbon Fee and Dividend, a policy we have been advocating for almost a decade.

There are two elements of the Canadian government’s carbon backstop policy:1. A charge on fossil fuels that is generally payable by fuel producers or distributors that includes a rebate to citizens.2. For businesses and industries that qualify, they will enroll in an Output-based Carbon Pricing system.

You can read more about it HERE.

 
CCLC Carbon Pricing Guidelines 
 

In 2016, CCL created a Carbon Pricing Guidelines document that delineated our expectations for a comprehensive Canadian carbon pricing policy. We have updated this document. It ends with the following statement:

Although the societal wealth we currently enjoy would have been impossible without fossil fuels, we are transitioning out of a fossil fuel economy into a carbon-neutral economy. Strong policies are needed for such a transition to occur in the time that is available. This is where CCL contributes, to aid in the timely implementation of these strong policies. Please work with us on our focus: a predictable and effective carbon pricing policy that leaves no one behind.

Our updated document is an excellent resource. We highly recommend that you read and refer back to it often and perhaps forward it to your local parliamentarians. 

 
 
CCL Canada Youth Leading The Way   
 

VANESSA FIORE: Starfish Canada Top 25 Under 25 Environmentalists 

In February 2016, we received an email from a 16-year-old young woman from the Greater Toronto Area asking to join Citizens’ Climate Lobby.

Here is part of  what Vanessa wrote to us at age 16 : After exploring your website and learning more about your organization, I would like to ask for your support to help me achieve my goals in becoming a much more efficient climate advocate. I would like to be a part of your organization and gain knowledge / training to become more politically involved and actually see a positive impact against climate change …. Are there any links/documents that would help me get informed about the current progress of the Carbon Fee and Dividend?

That young woman was Vanessa Fiore and she has been a very effective CCL leader and liaison to her Member of Parliament; she has recruited youth to our CCL lobbying events in both Toronto and Ottawa; and she is a true team-player at Citizens’ Climate Lobby Canada contributing to various action teams. In addition to her CCL work, Vanessa was on the team that did the first Fridays For Future strike on Parliament Hill on December 7, 2018 before Greta Thunberg became a household name.

Thus, when Vanessa asked us to write a nomination letter for the Starfish Canada’s Top 25 Under 25 Environmentalists Award, we did not hesitate. 

To view Vanessa’s profile at Starfish go here and scroll down. 

Congratulations Vanessa. Your leadership and courage are an inspiration to us all. 

 
CCL, Earth Day Network & WDTH
 

For the third consecutive year, our friends at We Don’t Have Time are bringing the world a public, free, online, no-fly climate conference for Earth Day Week, April 20–24, 2020.  They are broadcasting this conference in partnership with the Earth Day Network and Exponential Roadmap. 

And again Citizens’ Climate Lobby (CCL) volunteers will be featured on the program including Rolly Montpellier (CCL Ottawa), James Collis (Chairperson of CCL  Europe), and David Michael Terungwa (African Coordinator, CCL). Here is the schedule of events, highlighting the daily keynote speaker and indicating the days when CCL members will be guests.

 

Saturday, April 25 – Climate Hackathon 

 
Featured Letters to the Editor and Special Request
 

The links between COVID-19 and the climate crisis are not lost on our volunteers. 

Cheryl McNamara and Cathy Orlando have been collaborating online since before CCL Canada formed. One month after Cathy started CCL Canada in Sudbury in September 2010, Cheryl founded that first chapter in Toronto in October 2010. On Cheryl’s birthday, April 1, The Hill Times published both Cheryl’s letter and Cathy Orlando’s letter.  You can read their letters here on page 8. 

One of newest members at CCL Canada, Rebecca Van Otterloo, wrote this letter that was published in the Brandon Sun: COVID-19 lessons can be applied to climate change. At this time of massive change, we need our local and national media more than ever.  Citizens’ Climate Lobby Canada therefore wants to encourage you to subscribe to local and national newspapers, listen to local and national radio and watch the news on TV. 


Thank you, for your consideration of our request.  Stay safe and be kind to yourself and each other.  

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