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Canada’s Election is a Painful Race to the Middle

The latest leaders debate was an unwatchable mess that resembled a malfunctioning Chuck E Cheese animatronic puppet show. But what made it truly sad was that the three men competing to lead our country had a verbal pissing match over who could build climate-torching pipelines the fastest. It epitomized the race to the middle that this campaign has become. Just look at a graph of how party popularity has changed over the year. It looks like snakes in a feeding frenzy.

It was a helpful reminder that voting is important, but not enough. Leadership isn’t going to come from the top down on climate. And that leadership vacuum is what the newly released Leap Manifesto is meant to fill. But it’s been fascinating to watch the media react to this thing by dusting off their cold war rhetoric. “Know who else has manifestos? The Reds. Know who else leaps? Chairman Mao. And frogs…”

One of Canada’s papers of record actually referred to it as “madness.” They apparently concluded that “Caring for one another and caring for the planet” is literally insane. I’m curious what the cure is for this sickness? And does it involve several spoonfuls of oil and Vitamin catastrophic climate change?

It shows just how pathetically narrow the Canadian media has set the range of acceptable debate on climate. They’re fine with environmentalism steered by the free market and entrepreneurs, but the Leap Manifesto proposes a new approach, one that might actually work.

I’ve signed this thing. It’s reasonable, doable, and our best chance at survival. And if that’s “madness,” then call me Crazy Uncle Scott. My nephew already does.

This video was created for the Toronto Star. 

Like a kid in a candy store
When those boxes of heavily redacted documents start to pile in, reporters at The Narwhal waste no time in looking for kernels of news that matter the most. Just ask our Prairies reporter Drew Anderson, who gleefully scanned through freedom of information files like a kid in a candy store, leading to pretty damning revelations in Alberta. Long story short: the government wasn’t being forthright when it claimed its pause on new renewable energy projects wasn’t political. Just like that, our small team was again leading the charge on a pretty big story

In an oil-rich province like Alberta, that kind of reporting is crucial. But look at our investigative work on TC Energy’s Coastal GasLink pipeline to the west, or our Greenbelt reporting out in Ontario. They all highlight one thing: those with power over our shared natural world don’t want you to know how — or why — they call the shots. And we try to disrupt that.

Our journalism is powered by people just like you. We never take corporate ad dollars, or put this public-interest information behind a paywall. Will you join the pod of Narwhals that make a difference by helping us uncover some of the most important stories of our time?
Like a kid in a candy store
When those boxes of heavily redacted documents start to pile in, reporters at The Narwhal waste no time in looking for kernels of news that matter the most. Just ask our Prairies reporter Drew Anderson, who gleefully scanned through freedom of information files like a kid in a candy store, leading to pretty damning revelations in Alberta. Long story short: the government wasn’t being forthright when it claimed its pause on new renewable energy projects wasn’t political. Just like that, our small team was again leading the charge on a pretty big story

In an oil-rich province like Alberta, that kind of reporting is crucial. But look at our investigative work on TC Energy’s Coastal GasLink pipeline to the west, or our Greenbelt reporting out in Ontario. They all highlight one thing: those with power over our shared natural world don’t want you to know how — or why — they call the shots. And we try to disrupt that.

Our journalism is powered by people just like you. We never take corporate ad dollars, or put this public-interest information behind a paywall. Will you join the pod of Narwhals that make a difference by helping us uncover some of the most important stories of our time?

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