Why aren’t we putting more money into the environment? Some people could argue that we need to put more money into the economy, jobs but we won’t even have an economy if we can’t live on the earth. In the past three years, we have spent $23 billion on pipelines in Canada. How do people not see how backwards that is?! We could have to put that money into cleaning the ocean or green energy. Justin Trudeau has again promised that he will advocate for the environment but how can we trust him?

In the former election, Trudeau said he would not be supporting the pipelines and he did cancel one of them but the approved two more, one of the reasons it makes sense that he did this is that 53% of Canada supported the pipelines but most of those people probably aren’t directly affected by the pipelines they are thinking about the economy and jobs.  A common theme in politics is making big promises during campaigning that they can’t necessarily keep. Although Canada is great as far as politicians keeping their promises we have a long way to go because these decisions are starting to become decisions that could be the difference between living on a habitual earth in 50 years and not being able to walk outside from pollution. In the way our parliamentary democracy works we do get to vote and we get lots of options of who we want to run but there’s a flaw in this system because I very much like the green parties platform but if I vote for them it could mean a vote for a party I don’t want. Now me voting for the Green Party could help them get another seat but that won’t do much if the Liberals have 156/170 and The Green Party only has two. I’ve spoken to many people and all have said that if they thought the NDP or Green Party had a chance at winning they would’ve voted for them because they’re scared that the conservatives would win they settle. But why don’t all political parties prioritize the environment? Well, the problem is that they all say they are going to. Every party claims that they would like to reduce a certain amount of greenhouse gases by 2050. But this isn’t the first time a politician has made this claim and yet the amount of years scientists are predicting we have left keeps getting lower faster than we can keep up. In the past 30 years, Canada has had a mix of conservative and liberal prime ministers and all have claimed reducing greenhouse gases and instead the opposite has happened, according to this website, emissions have risen by over 25%  and I understand that it is not an easy problem to solve, there’s no magic wand or a big green button that will fix everything but the government has not only not made progress but they’ve been putting money to go in the wrong direction, they are still funding fossil fuel subsidies. In  fact, according to this blog, in 2020 they put almost $18 million into the gas and oil industry yet they’ve put $15 million into climate action to spread over the next 15 years. The crown corporation has set a target to reduce the funding for industries like the carbon industries by only 3 billion dollars, they are currently getting $22 billion but the crown corporation would like to change that number to $19 billion. We need to keep speaking up and demanding change in the government because it’s our future and we need to keep it so that we have a future.

My friends and I protesting in 2019

So I’m conclusion the government is saying they are going to do things towards a cleaner future and they’re putting just enough money into it that most people aren’t noticing but I think this should change and I would like to say it starts with you and every little thing counts to help the environment but it needs to start with more change at a federal level.