During the last few election cycles, I consciously chose to campaign on the idea that the Green Party is all about sustainability. Sustainability covers a great deal of ground – from the environment, of course, but also to affordability, a just society, education, healthcare, sound economics, and democratic institutions.
Shortly after the 2025 federal election, one in which climate and environment was not a priority, we were evacuated from our home in the Boreal Forest, due to a nearby forest fire (it turned out okay for us but two people died in fires near Lac du Bonnet). These fires were unusual. They were exceptionally hot, fast moving, and
We can’t say we were particularly surprised – springs have been warmer and drier for a number of years. We have gone through summers shrouded in smoke, hoping for clear air. I’ve grown up in these woods; the last decade has seen exceptional for smoke, low water, and flooding. Climate change is here and costing us already. Those costs will only go up as we continue to load the atmosphere with fossil fuel emissions.
I came to the realization that climate must be our number one priority. All those other issues – housing costs, food costs, healthcare, water resources, mental health issues – get increasingly difficult to manage as the costs, financial or otherwise, of climate change mount.
Climate change is the hole in the bucket of every other issue, we want to fix: hunger, poverty, health and more. If we don’t patch the hole, we can’t fix anything. – Katherine Hayhoe
As I watch the unfolding of recent events, however, from the authoritarian madness in Minneapolis to threats against the sovereignty of Canada and Greenland to Danielle Smith’s use of the Notwithstanding Clause to victimize trans youth, to the sidelining of environmental and climate concerns even by Manitoba’s NDP government, I have to wonder whether our political system has come untethered.
Canada, along with the United States and the United Kingdom, have the western world’s last first past the post electoral systems. They aren’t working. We might have had Al Gore but we got Bush. Biden brought in green energy incentives, Trump has incentivized coal. The UK Brexited and is now regretting it. People are self-identifying with their political party. As if it were a hocky team, but one in which lethal violence is increasingly possible.
We will not solve any problems – not cost of living, not mental health, not housing, or the climate crisis – in a political system built on a political tradition of being “for the king or against the king”.
First Past the Post is, by its very nature, a polarizing system in which the political field is dominated by two opposing “big tent” parties (this video by CGP Grey explains it well). Those parties, seeking power, need to be seen to be “against” their opponents, tear down what has been built, and, increasingly, promote an us-or-them strategy that has led us to violence1 against political opponents.
If climate change is the hole in the buckets, majoritarian electoral systems2 are the rust causing the holes.
Climate change and environmental degradation are long-term problems, as are the other big issues we face. As such, they don’t fit neatly in 5 year election cycles. We need long term planning and commitment and stability to work through these challenges. The problems are also extremely complex and the top-down structure of our system, where the PMO calls the shots, isn’t up to the task; they’re too busy focusing on optics for the next election.
If we are to solve our multitude of problems, rather than a system that intentionally pushes us apart, we need a system that brings people together in a spirit of cooperation. We need more voices and more ideas at the table than just “for and against”. We need proportional representation and we need more direct engagement with tools such as citizen’s assemblies if we are to tackle the difficult problems ahead of us.
- Violence is not limited to physical. Verbal violence has, sadly, become a norm in our political culture. Recommended reading: Marshall Rosenberg’s Non Violent Communication. ↩︎
- First Past the Post is a majoritarian system – a system that seeks to find a “winner”. Ranked Ballot (which Justin Trudeau favoured) is also a majoritarian system with most of the same problems as FPTP. ↩︎