The votes are in … except they’re not. But Ontario’s party platforms are here, and we’ve funnelled them through a climate justice filter to make it easier for you to assess them. 

With the provincial election coming up on June 2, we’re posing one question: What does the ideal climate action candidate look like for Toronto?

Forget partisanship. Forget smear campaigns. Forget voting for a candidate because their climate platform is marginally better than another. 

And forget needless bureaucratic gatekeeping — climate justice advocacy is simple when it’s specific, direct, and actionable.

Chiara Padovani is a social worker with North York Harvest Food Bank. In that role, she works on issues of food security and the right to food. Since late 2020, she has also been instrumental in the initiative, York South-Weston Neighbours for Flooding Action.  

Madagascar is in the midst of a famine. While this may come as news to most people around the world, the UN has cited this as the first famine caused due to climate change [1]. Madagascar has historically produced negligible amounts of carbon. However, they are the first to feel the disastrous effects of climate change.

The lands impoverished by colonialism are in line to face the consequence of the excesses of the colonizers once more. As the effects of climate change are being felt around the world, the mistruths perpetuated by self-interested parties to slow down climate action come into sharper relief every day. Politicians around the world claim that climate action has to be balanced with economic interests. This is a false dichotomy since any delayed action will result in much higher adaptation costs in the future.  It also exposes the amorality of the drive to extract value from the system regardless of the costs to the environment or human and animal life. 

Toronto Acorn (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now) is a "multi-issue, membership-based community of low- and moderate-income people" (quote from https://acorncanada.org/about) that fights and wins change by doings things like doorknocking, petitioning and non-violent direct actions.

The first organized group was founded in Weston-Mt. Dennis. They now have groups all over the city. Some of the fights and wins they've had over time include strengthening enforcement of standards in apartment buildings and regulation of the payday loan industry. Current campaigns include fighting for a new Residential Tenancy Act and for licensing all landlords in Toronto. Join an open, local meeting or learn more about how to get involved here! 

We touched base with a local organizer who highlighted the fact that retrofits and ageing high rises are a climate justice issue.

Read Acorn's full Healthy Homes Demands here. Or read on for highlights related to Retrofits and ageing High Rises and more ways to amplify and take action.

Over the past few months, fires and floods, atmospheric rivers and heat domes, largely attributable to climate change and largely unprecedented, have left communities reeling from the impacts. People have lost their homes, their livelihoods and some have lost their lives.

At the same time, for the sake of ramming through Coastal GasLink (CGL), a fracked gas pipeline that offers no local benefits and only dwindling returns, RCMP conduct highly militarized raids on Wet’suwet’en territory, arresting land and water defenders, media witnesses, and supporters. 

This destruction - raids on Wet’suwet’en territory in the name of CGL - has been going on since 2019. This destruction, a direct continuation of the colonial, extractive mandate that runs roughshod over Indigenous rights, destroys land and water and fuels climate disaster, has been going on for hundreds of years. This destruction must stop!

As Eve Saint said in a recent speech, "every time we get up, every time we stand up together, we are more powerful and they can't ignore us....We need to support each other....We all live here." What can we do? (Keep Reading to see some actions we can take now).

Toronto350 members are appalled by the ongoing invasion of Wet’suwet’en territory, the unlawful arrests made by militarized RCMP and the continued violation of Wet’suwet’en jurisdiction and law. The prioritization of Coastal Gaslink and a fracked gas pipeline at the expense of Indigenous sovereignty, internationally recognized human rights, and the protection of the local and global environment, is immoral and unconscionable. 

Those of us standing on the grounds of Queen’s Park on November 6th (N6) were there to ask for Climate Justice now Real Action @ COP26 as climate negotiations by political leaders in Glasgow went on with deferred promises, delay strategies and false solutions that continued to miss the mark on climate justice. 

Photos throughout by Dawn Pearson

October 29th will be a global day of action against fossil fuel financing. In so-called Canada, the action will focus attention on RBC’s funding for the Coastal GasLink pipeline which is currently being forced through Wet’suwet’en Territory against the wishes of hereditary leaders.

 As members of Toronto350 who are either descendants of earlier colonialists or more recent immigrants, we acknowledge that we are settlers on the historic territories of many Indigenous peoples. We also recognize that “Canada” is made up of lands that were stolen from different Indigenous Nations. The Colonial powers wanted the lands.