VANCOUVER – Today marks 17 years since I lost my mother and my home to a mudslide. It’s unacceptable for the federal government to permit any of its residents to suffer what my family and I even have needed to endure. The record rainfall that resulted in wide-spread flooding and landslides across B.C. served as a painful reminder that we must act now.
2021 was a 12 months crammed with climate disasters. Floods, heat and fires devastated communities across B.C., the territories and the prairies. The Atlantic provinces experienced an unusually high variety of hurricanes while agricultural landscapes suffered drought conditions and extreme weather events that caused a severe decline in crop yields.
Consequently of a modified climate, we are going to proceed to experience such weather events in coming years. It’s vital for the federal government of Canada to get serious about addressing the climate emergency, and make resources available to mitigate and manage impending climate impacts. The federal government’s insufficient response to this 12 months’s climate events also implies that it has yet to commit the obligatory resources and infrastructure required to assist communities address and recuperate from disasters that every one too a lot of them have experienced.
We call on the federal government of Canada to perform their climate, safety, and emergency preparedness commitments outlined in all their ministerial mandate letters, including elimination of fossil fuel subsidies, protection of old growth forests, and aggressive reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. Motion on climate change impacts and disasters is required now, including research on improving and updating risk mapping in addition to climate adaptation and mitigation measures and techniques.
As I remember my mother today, I refuse to sit down idly by while people proceed to suffer the identical fate. Insufficient motion means risking everyone’s future; it implies that probably the most marginalized and vulnerable will suffer and die. I see the pain from the lack of my mother and my home reflected within the experiences of my fellow residents, and I call on the federal government to do the whole lot possible to attenuate the severity of the climate emergency.
Amita Kuttner
Interim Leader
Green Party of Canada
