Special election episode: Where is the climate crisis in Canadian party platforms? (w/ Anjali Appadurai, Juan Vargas Alba, Seth Klein & Alex Cool-Fergus)

In this episode of Break in Case of Emergency, host Erin Blondeau is joined by Anjali Appadurai, Juan Vargas Alba, Seth Klein and Alex Cool-Fergus of Climate Action Network Canada to discuss party platforms and climate policy leading up to the federal election.

This round-table style podcast episode explores the lack of attention to climate issues in party platforms, the implications of tax cuts as a response to economic challenges, and the critical need to address immigration policies in the context of climate change.

The conversation also highlights the importance of advocating for Palestinian rights as part of a broader climate justice framework, emphasizing the interconnectedness of these issues in the political discourse leading up to the election.

This episode aired on April 11 2025

Credits:

Produced by Doug Hamilton-Evans and Erin Blondeau. Hosted by Erin Blondeau with guests from the Climate Emergency Unit, Juan Vargas Alba, Seth Klein and Anjali Appadurai. With special guest Alex Cool-Fergus. Music by Anjali Appadurai. Audio editing by Blue Light Studios. Artwork by Geoff Smith.

Chapters:

• 00:00 - Introduction to the Climate Crisis and Election Context
• 01:23 - Party Stances on Climate Change
• 07:10 - Tax Cuts and Economic Policies
• 14:31 - Immigration and Climate Intersections
• 26:58 - Palestinian Rights and Climate Justice

Transcript

Erin Blondeau (00:05.742)
Hello and welcome back to Break in Case of Emergency, a podcast about mobilizing Canada for the climate crisis with audacious solutions rooted in justice and workers' rights. I'm your host, Erin Blondeau and today is another special election episode. This will be a brief episode today because we're going to do weekly episodes leading up to the election. And today I'm very excited because I'm joined by my team members at the Climate Emergency Unit. So we have Seth Klein, our team lead.

We have Juan Vargas Alba, our Prairies and Youth Climate Corps organizer. We have Anjali Appadurai our Director of Campaigns. And we have a very special guest with us as well, Alex Cool-Fergus, who is the National Policy Manager at Climate Action Network Canada. Thank you so much for joining us, everyone.

Hi there.

Nice to be here.

Hello.

Erin Blondeau (00:58.958)
Okay, guys, let's let's just jump right in because we don't have a lot of time today. So to kick this conversation off, let's just do a quick round and we can talk about the things that we should be prioritizing this election, maybe things that are overlooked. And you know, we know that this election is heavily influenced by the trade war, by tax cuts and geopolitical tensions that are continually rising. But where is climate in all of this?

So Alex, maybe we can start with you and we can do a quick overview of the party stances on climate.

Yeah, I mean, think if you were somebody from another country looking into this campaign, you would not know that Canada is being affected by the climate crisis. That's how little attention has been paid to the actual crisis. Of course, there's been lots of conversation about questions that are very closely linked to climate. So there's been a lot of conversation around energy specifically and pretty, you know.

unfortunate ways, like there's been a lot of talk about pipelines and LNG expansion across the country. There's been a little tiny bit of conversation about nature, especially through the Liberal Party and the NDP, as well as the Greens. But from the Conservative side, it's mostly just been about energy or else about repealing a lot of essential regulations that really keep us safe.

Yeah, just to jump in on that, mean, partly, you know, at the time that we're recording this, none of the parties have actually released their full platforms, which is super frustrating, you know? We seem to be in this era where the parties wait until the dying days of the campaign to release their full platforms. We're a week out from the debates and we don't have that yet. We so far just have all the parties releasing. It's campaigning by news release. So we get dribs and drabs.

Seth Klein (02:50.638)
I looked last night on the Conservatives website. They haven't issued a statement specifically about climate change. They've had news releases where they're all out for approvals of fossil fuel infrastructure. Interestingly, the first item on their list of things that they would expedite is LNG Canada Phase 2, which was already approved in 2018.

the private consortium that's waiting on a final investment decision. The Liberals, as Alex said, have had an energy, excuse me, a nature announcement, but no climate announcement yet, but I hear it's coming. The NDP has had one news release about climate and with a little note that more is to come, but we just don't have a whole lot to work with yet. And as Alex says, it's, you know, the...

crisis of our time is largely invisible.

Yeah, I mean, I think you're mostly right, Seth. The one exception to the parties not releasing their platforms is the Bloc Québécois, which I know most people can't vote for in Canada, but they've actually done a really good job of mapping out the impacts of their policies. And with regards to climate, they commissioned a report that was also released before they shared their full platform. And the Bloc is pushing really hard against...

fossil fuel projects that would expand across Quebec. We're especially hearing about the Energy East pipeline, which we all know is kind of like this terrible idea that kind of refuses to die in the public imagination. And there's also Génère Québec, which is an LNG project, which frankly was not approved by the Quebec government ever and then kind of died. But it's sort of like this zombie project that may or may not return. And Pierre Poilievre is really...

Alex Cool-Fergus (04:47.31)
pushing hard to support that project in Quebec. So it's a really interesting election where for the first time, I think in the past couple of elections, like we're really not talking about climate change. And that was noticed. There was a huge rally in the Okanagan that Pierre Poilievre held earlier this week. And, you know, the people in the Okanagan that I know of, for them, climate is a huge issue.

because some of them have lost their homes or else they all know somebody who has lost their home to wildfire or has been affected by tragic flooding and all sorts of heat waves and heat domes. There's a bunch of really horrific stuff happening in that particular part of the country and yet not a peep from the Conservative Party about those impacts. so it's like even as somebody who follows national politics very closely and really

was not expecting to see a lot of inspiring kind of stuff coming out around climate this election. It's still so remarkable, I find, that like not even the issue of adaptation has been taking a center stage, whereas we know that like Canada is one of the countries that's warming the fastest and that is experiencing the impacts of climate change in a really severe way and it's having a huge impact on our, you know,

on people obviously in communities, but it also has a huge impact on the GDP. And you'd think that like in this time where everyone's freaking out over the state of the economy because of Donald Trump and his tariffs, which is like fair, we should also be freaking out about the economic impact that climate change is supposed to have, or is already having on the Canadian economy and on people's wellbeing. So it's pretty rough, pretty rough, but it's not over yet.

Thank you, Alex. You've highlighted something really important here. And I think it's about how climate policies and the impacts of climate change are just continually being overlooked this election. And this actually brings up a really interesting point about priorities and who is benefiting from the economic policy discussions that are happening. So, Seth, I would like to turn to you now to talk about tax cut proposals that various parties are putting forward. Why are...

Erin Blondeau (07:10.798)
parties offering tax cuts and do you think that this is a good response?

Yeah, tax cuts is certainly, when the election was first dropped, that was really the first thing we started to hear a lot about. It's almost like in a crisis like we're facing with Trump, politicians sort of default to their one go-to answer to everything. it's a crisis, tax cuts, tax cuts, that must be the answer. It's a terrible response because tax cuts in general,

It's like maximum cost for minimal benefit. When you lower taxes, it's extremely costly to the public treasury, but the benefit is really diffuse. And a bunch of it goes to the wealthy who don't need it. So you get very minimal benefits at the household level and minimal benefits in terms of the overall economy. So it's an unfortunate response.

What we basically saw is the liberals promising to take the first tax bracket, the lowest tax bracket, and lower it from 15 % to 14%. The conservatives went up them by going, well, we're going to inch just below 13%. Again, very expensive to the public treasury, but it's not major at the individual household level. But also, when you lower the...

You know, they like to frame it, we're going to cut the bottom tax bracket, which makes it sound like it's lower income people who more benefit. But wealthy people get the same benefit because they also pay the lowest tax bracket on that first tranche of their income. The NDP took a different approach, which was to increase the basic personal exemption, where you get a little bit more of the benefit concentrated at the lower end. But again,

Seth Klein (09:07.244)
Wealthy people also benefit from that increase in the basic personal exemption. The Greens went up them and had quite a dramatic increase in the basic personal exemption, which is super expensive, like $60 billion. Again, the wealthy get the same benefit. It makes so much more sense to target benefits to the lower income households who actually need it. It costs less. It concentrates the help where it's most needed.

you know, the people who are already low income and really, truly struggling or who lose their jobs. The NDP did increase those direct transfers, like for the disability benefit they're proposing and for the guaranteed income supplement for seniors. So you do get in the NDP platform more of the benefit going lower down the income scale. But in general,

This is not how we should be responding to this crisis in this moment. We actually need to increase revenues to do the thing. And this is the thing about crises. Everyone has to do their bit. It's a time when everyone has to ante in to meet some collective tasks.

Yeah, I mean, on the the revenue side of things, right, we have, again, like a really clear, well, maybe it's not so clear, given that Mark Carney is kind of campaigning more from the center, right, at this moment. But there's like a clear dichotomy between the conservative party and everyone else, where Pierre Poliev just keeps like promising to...

find efficiencies in the government, which is very clearly code for cutting. And so there are lots of question marks raised with like, who's he going to be cutting? Where is he going to be cutting? And who is that serving? And I haven't heard any party so far, except maybe the NDP, but talk about repealing subsidies to the oil and gas sector, which as we know, eats into the federal budget significantly.

Alex Cool-Fergus (11:14.632)
There's a report that just came out by Environmental Defense that showed that over the past year, despite apparently having no more subsidies to oil and gas, like the federal government put in $30 billion in subsidies to oil and gas, which is much more than it would cost even to like have a national electricity grid, which is something that we've been asking for for years and would have a huge impact on people's well-being and their livelihoods.

So it's pretty unfortunate that there's not much imagination going out there with regards to, who is benefiting from the current status quo with regards to the federal tax system? And who can afford to be paying a little bit more? And so that we can meaningfully advance an energy transition, provide things like clean drinking water to all Indigenous nations, like really basic things that...

People require just to live good lives. Instead, what we're hearing is a lot of focus given to cutting taxes for the middle class, whatever that means, and kind of regressive tax policy in general, which would not make most people better off.

I think this really speaks to the fact that everyone is competing with their tax cuts and every party, including the NDP, has adopted that language is something that we have ceded to the right because the right has spent a long time spreading fear tactics, fear-mongering around government spending. a fear of any kind of public spending.

and a dislike of taxes. And even just, you know, in my personal life, there are so many reasonable, good folks I know who just have this sort of irrational fear or dislike of taxes. And I think there's just been so much negative messaging that we've been subject to around it that we haven't countered with our positive message and what you just said, Alex, about what it actually could be funding and the revenue side of things. And so...

Speaker 3 (13:33.602)
I think this is a good litmus test for us. Elections are really where we start to see sometimes the narrative war play out and produce real policy platforms. And I think this is a good litmus test for us going forward about where we need to be messaging and how we need to be countering some of this sort of fear mongering around taxation and public spending.

Thank you so much, Anjali. That's such a good point about how the narrative war is just constantly playing out with things like taxes that are being used as a scapegoat for other issues. speaking of narratives that influence policy decisions, I would like to bring in Juan. Juan, you've been looking at how immigration is being framed politically and culturally. So I would love to get your insights on that. And thanks for making your first appearance on our podcast. It's so great to have you here.

Yeah. Thanks for having me on the pod. This is my pod intro, my pod first time on it. So the hidden sixth, seventh team member that has yet to be on it. So I'm actually going to take a little bit of a pivot from what Seth and Alex were talking about. Cause obviously we're having an election where the main topics are tariffs, they're Trump and they're to some degree cost of living. Although now, you know, our politicians get to kind of ignore the fact that

they're largely to blame for the cost of living and get to blame someone else. But I'm thinking about who's on the chopping block, right? Like who is on the chopping block when we have to get to the table with Trump and reduce the amount of tariffs that we're getting, even though what we're seeing is that nothing can reduce the amount of tariffs that we're getting. And who's on the chopping block is migrants and immigrants. And so obviously when we're talking about the discussions that we need to be having at the federal level that we're not going to get.

Immigration is one of the biggest ones. so across the parties, there is a very clear consensus that the current system is broken, that we are letting too many people in, quote unquote, that that is largely affecting the cost of living and that we are okay with making changes to our immigration system in large part to appease Trump. But more specifically, the liberals would say that the system is broken and that it's a broken promise to migrants.

Juan Vargas Alba (15:56.558)
The conservatives would say that the system is broken and it's a broken promise to people who already live here. And the NDP would say that the system is broken and honestly, that's as much as I've seen. And so when we're thinking really about how people are on the chopping block, we're in a really interesting time, right? Because we've heard about Canadians getting completely, like almost disappeared, right? By the Trump administration, by border services.

without reason, without due process. And we've actually, we know that that is a thing that exists for undocumented people, right? Like that is the way in which undocumented people have been treated for as long as there have been undocumented people. And there's been an interesting shift within this last liberal government of, you know, this was the government that promised regularization, that promised to give status, permanent status.

to millions of undocumented workers who work here, who live here, who contributed to our communities. And when they brought that regularization solution to their cabinet, the cabinet said, actually, we choose racism. And I wish I was being hyperbolic, but that is quite honestly the decision that was made almost exactly a year ago to say we're rejecting this regularization promise. We are cutting any kind of commitments to the temporary foreign workers program.

which in and of itself merits a whole episode, a whole podcast of critique because it exists effectively as modern human trafficking. But the outcome of that has been that deportations have climbed to the highest number since before the liberal government took over and people are being completely left out to dry and to be exploited. The problem with the current system isn't that it's bringing too many people in.

The problem with the current system is that it allows millions of people who are already incredibly vulnerable to be exploited so that wealthy CEOs, so that wealthy farmers, so that wealthy construction companies can make a bank, like can make so much money. And so when we're thinking about what other kinds of discussions do we need to be having, that's a key one, right? But I also think that it's important coming back to this conversation of climate, that the climate movement needs to be talking about this. First and foremost, because...

Juan Vargas Alba (18:18.542)
we are humans living together in this world together. And if we're not willing to stand up for the people who are the most vulnerable, while we complain about the fact that no one's talking about climate, which is a rightful complaint we should be, you know, like, it's gonna be tough to then request that same kind of support. But we also know that climate doesn't care about borders. And if we're accepting an immigration system that exploits people, that deports without due process, that

separates families and that forces more people to leave their homes, we're not actually going to end up in a better place. And so obviously this is one of those topics that we can try to get parties to talk about this election. I don't expect them to, but the connections between that, between terrorists, between Trump, between the kind of concessions that we're willing to make as a country and as leaders in this country means that, listen, this is going to really deeply impact the kind of

next four years, right? Whether we're dealing with a conservative government, liberal government, we cannot allow as a movement, but also as people who live in this society, allow this to be the compromise that we're making. We cannot allow migrants to be compromised. We cannot allow deportations to go up just because Trump is doing it, just because Trump is expecting it, and just because Trump wants tighter borders doesn't mean that that's concession we make, right? It's a concession that's been made because it's been allowed to be made.

Right. Because migrants have been devalued so much that it's an easy decision for our leaders. But if we're dealing with a significant liberal leadership of government, then that puts us in a better position to tie issues of climate, to tie issues of immigration, and to tie what to many people is seen as the quote unquote antidote to Trump. Right. If we are actually to form a government that is formed largely because it's a response to Trump, then don't let

Trump's immigration policy be the one that is the one that forms government here. Because honestly, the further I see it and I hear stories of people, the closer they become, right? We can do so much better. And we can fight, you know, instead of throwing migrants under the bus for cost of living, for housing, for whatever problems we decide to blame migrants for next. We know that it's part of the solution. We know that migration

Juan Vargas Alba (20:44.5)
and refugees are going to continue to happen around the world, including internally, right? Here in Edmonton, we still have people who are forced to flee, Yellowknife, who are now living either housed in the city or unhoused in the city. Those to me are climate refugees, right? And so let's think about what this means for us as a climate movement. Let's think about what this means during this election. Even if our leaders aren't willing to talk about it, we have to be thinking.

Juan, that was so well said, and I think you surfaced something so important in this election. I think the climate movement should be talking about and caring about migration and immigration because, well, if not for any reason other than that it is the scapegoat of the right, and it is the wedge issue by which horrific acts are justified, and there is this deep deception.

in all parties' handling and sort of narratives around the immigration issue, where they know very well that a more open border, although we never had an open border immigration system, but a greater intake of immigrants over the last 10 years has driven economic growth like nothing else. It has filled jobs. It has contributed so much to...

to Canada's economic growth and our recovery from the pandemic. And yet they have to message this sort of willingness to curb immigration without actually intending to do it at all and to walk this fine line between pretending that immigration is the problem and they are contributing to the housing crisis while also knowing very well that we need immigrants to maintain our status.

in the world. And I think that's a whole other episode in and of itself, Seth.

Seth Klein (22:44.014)
Well, just to add one other dimension to this and zero in on what we're hearing from the conservatives, it's the one-two hit of both cracking down on immigration and foreign aid. And what we know in a climate-changing world is that it's the poorer parts of the world that are more, you know, we're having huge climate impacts here in Canada, but it's poorer parts of the world that are really experiencing the brunt of it.

And so to simultaneously be saying, we're not going to allow or recognize climate migration, nor are we going to increase financial transfers to help other parts of the world confront this crisis, is really a subtext that says, know, Fortress Canada, damn the rest of them to hell.

So it's definitely like to all your points I fully agree and I would just add that Canada is the G7 president this year and you know of course we're going through an election and that's taking up everyone's attention right now so there isn't much attention being given to the G7 but in the face of Donald Trump's cuts in international aid and international cooperation as well as his ridiculous terror for that he's

that has an impact across the world. Canada has a duty, truly, to stand up and to play a leadership role, not only as the G7 president, but as a country that is incredibly privileged. We have enormous amounts of wealth here. And we also have really close, we have tons and tons of diasporic communities that are able to maybe shift the way that Canadian politicians should be thinking about.

about the world stage and about our place in it. so Climate Action Network has just, we've just released our election priorities, which are geared towards all parties. And that includes ensuring that everyone who is in this country has rights and that we're not exploiting migrants and we're not scapegoating them either. And it also includes a big piece about the role that Canada should be playing, of course, on climate.

Alex Cool-Fergus (24:58.638)
internationally, so with regards to COP 30, which is coming up this year, which is really like a high risk given the amount of backtracking that we're seeing around the world, but also in terms of tax fairness and in terms of investing in adaptation and mitigation for countries that don't have as much money as this country has. And so I recommend that people give it a look. There's a lot of good stuff in there, but we are we are not giving up that fight and we are going to be pushing no matter who

becomes the next Prime Minister of we're going to be pushing that person to strongly indicate their support for continued leadership. Rather, not continued, because I feel like Canada hasn't been so good on the international stage recently, but making sure that Canada is a leader and standing up for what's right around the world.

And speaking of standing up for what's right around the world, we would be remiss in a conversation about election priorities if we didn't mention the ongoing genocide in Palestine. You were on day 500 something, and I really think that this is an issue that's gonna find its way to the ballot box because it hasn't had.

lot of outlets and I think there's just so much latent energy and anger and frustration at a completely unresponsive government response despite some of the largest and

best organized movements I've seen in my lifetime in Canada, just incredible uprisings, incredible neighborhood organizing, organizing in every sector and on every level of society to stop the genocide and then watching our governments not stop it. So there is now an initiative called Vote Palestine that everyone should really know about and be encouraged to participate in. And it's basically this nonpartisan campaign.

Speaker 3 (26:58.092)
that is pushing for Palestinian rights and freedom during the Canadian federal election and using it as a way to push candidates to declare what they believe and what they're intending to do about the issue. So the platform was developed by groups and people across the country who have been part of the Palestine Solidarity Movement for the past couple of years and who consider Canada's position on Palestine a top election issue.

And the whole platform has five points and it's grounded in Canada's obligations under international law, which there's been this sort of glaring gap between what we support on paper internationally and what we do materially policy-wise and where our money goes. And Alex, you were talking about Canada being a leader on the world stage. this is, you know, we've seen that same gap on climate with the Liberal government over the last decade. Incredible messaging.

to the point where much of Canadian society thinks that we are climate leaders. But our track record globally has been dismal as compared to our actual obligations. But anyway, I think this Vote Palestine platform is very powerful. It already has a number of endorsing candidates. As of this week, it's 124 NDP candidates, 44 Green candidates, LPC has 13, and the CPC and Bloc are at zero.

but it has over 14,000 endorsing signatures across the country and the ask is that everyone sort of takes this to their local candidates and questions them on it, sends them an email, you can send an email tool on the website. And the asks, really quick, the five asks are to one, impose a two-way arms embargo on Israel because Canada is absolutely still complicit in exporting weapons.

through the US and directly to Israel. So we are fully complicit in the ongoing war crimes and atrocities. And we also purchase Israeli weapons and parts that have been field tested on Palestinians in contexts like this, which is absolutely horrific. Two is to end Canadian involvement in illegal Israeli settlements. Our foreign policy, again, that gap, like we officially, we formally recognize that Israeli settlements are illegal and violation of the

Speaker 3 (29:24.206)
Fourth Geneva Convention, but last year there was this, I don't know if y'all remember, there was a tour of an Israeli real estate event. It's called the Great Israeli Real Estate Event, and there was this sort of kerfuffle in Ontario where there was this touring real estate event that was selling land for settlements in the occupied West Bank. And there were lawyers who were seeking an injunction against it, but they mostly got away with it. So things like that.

Number three, address anti-Palestinian racism, protect freedom of expression on Palestine. Four, very symbolic but important, recognize the state of Palestine. Like 147 out of the 193 UN states recognize the state of Palestine. And then finally, to properly fund relief efforts in Gaza, including UNRWA. So I think because I think this is gonna show up at the ballot box and I'd be really, really interested to see how.

that influences the final results because I haven't seen it reflected in a lot of the major polls. So there isn't a question that would capture that on a lot of the polling. So I'd be curious your thoughts on this Alex or anyone else.

I mean, I think it's a really good point that we are not seeing that in the polling for sure. But we definitely know that this election is garnering a lot more attention. So people are really paying a lot more attention. And they say that they're planning on voting in much stronger numbers than the past few elections. And I think that that's generally a really good thing because it's been pretty sad to see how few people have been participating. And so, yeah, it's...

It's going to be really, really interesting to see whether people show up for Gaza and for Palestinian rights. And I think we have like very clear leaders. And I want to say across parties, like there's one party notably that has been really quiet or rather not quiet, but like not helpful. But there have been strong leaders in the NDP within the Liberal Party. I would say especially like who are they?

Alex Cool-Fergus (31:39.022)
who have made some important statements and who have been following the movement for Palestine very closely and speaking out. And so I, for one, really hope that they are all encouraged to continue and that they're all able to come back into the new parliament because we definitely need to see that kind of change, Anjali, that you were talking about. And yeah, and I'm just really concerned that if those voices are not stronger.

And if we don't elect more candidates who really care about these rights, that we will see way more backsliding. And that's incredibly concerning.

Yeah, it's such an important thing to keep in mind because, know, like we talked about earlier with the immigration policies as well, like for the sake of humanity, we cannot forget about these things. We can't have climate justice while there is still brutal militarism and ecocide and crimes against humanity that are continuing to happen. You know, all of these issues are connected and we will never have climate justice unless we also acknowledge and deal with these issues.

So thank you so much for bringing the conversation to this really important point. And I think this is a good place to close. So thank you to Anjali, Juan, Seth, and Alex. It was so good to have you here and helping us break down what is happening in this crazy election season. So thank you all so much for joining us.

Thanks for having us.

Erin Blondeau (33:10.85)
Thanks everyone and yeah, thank you to our listeners for listening to today's episode and make sure to like, subscribe, review and share with a friend. Thanks everyone.

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