A plan needed to solve the housing crisis

 

This report is an echo of HRM councillor Waye Mason’s proposal.

Affordable housing action

 

We need provincial support so we can have more shelters, more supportive housing, and build more housing for people requiring below-market housing.

I have an opinion piece in the Herald today about the housing crisis: Market Alone Will Not Solve the Housing Crisishttps://t.co/n2ZOhVRlio#nspoli #halifax

— Waye Mason (@WayeMason) November 28, 2020

 

The 2015 Halifax Housing and Homelessness Partnership study showed 20 per cent of residents cannot afford market price rental housing. Halifax’s population has grown nine per cent over the last five years. The number of people who need below-market housing continues to grow with the population, and the number of affordable units has not grown with demand. The market will not solve this problem. Unlike many municipalities in much of the rest of the country, housing in Nova Scotia is delivered by the province. Many other provinces chose to fund municipalities to deliver housing, but that has not been the case in Nova Scotia since 1996. As a result, the Metro Regional Housing Authority is a provincial entity and new affordable units are almost exclusively built at the direction of the province while most federal money goes to the province, not to Halifax1

Discussion, political action, and cooperation is required now to implement an Affordable Housing Work Plan for our region.

1(2020, November 28). WAYE MASON: Market alone will not solve the housing crisis .... Retrieved November 28, 2020, from https://www.thechronicleherald.ca/opinion/local-perspectives/waye-mason-market-alone-will-not-solve-the-housing-crisis-524670/

Mobilizing an emergency mindset

 

What can we learn from the way our leaders handled the Second World War and what they are doing with COVID-19 to inform our approach to the climate emergency?

Emergency action

 

Linda McQuaig reviews A Good War1 by Seth Klein who issued a compelling call to arms and presents an inspiring vision of a possible response in Canada to the climate crisis. While the world continues to fast-forward on a path to catastrophe for humankind—and there is really only about a decade left to change course—the CBC blithely insists on maintaining some silly notion of journalistic objectivity—as if it were dealing with a topic for which there are competing biases that must be weighed. This is a perfect example of what Seth Klein calls “the new climate denialism,” in his powerful and important new book: A Good War: Mobilizing Canada for the Climate Emergency.

Under the old climate denialism political leaders and business commentators simply denied the scientific facts of global warming. Under the new denialism, political leaders and business types claim they understand and accept the science. But they remain in denial when it comes to action, imposing measures that are far short of what’s needed if we are actually going to deal with the looming disaster. Another factor behind this timidity is the reluctance of today’s leaders to confront Big Oil and its bombastic political supporters, particularly in Alberta. This fossil fuel lobby makes the argument that, by itself, Canada has little power to reduce global emissions, and, since some other countries aren’t doing their share, why should we compromise our economic prosperity to do our part? In fact, as Klein shows, similar arguments applied during the war: fighting Nazism required a worldwide effort, and Canada was only one small participant, unable to achieve much on its own. Even the United States wasn’t involved until 1942. The threat no doubt felt quite removed from Canadian shores.2

Seth Klein, an adjunct professor with Simon Fraser University’s urban studies program and the former B.C. director of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, writes that the federal and provincial governments still don’t treat climate change as an emergency.

 

They need to show leadership and draw lessons from history. Nicholas Stern, author of the Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change, has said governments should be spending two per cent of their GDP on climate-mitigation efforts, which in Canadian terms would be about $50 billion per year.

That means the Trudeau government isn’t merely spending a little less than it should in the face of the climate emergency. It is spending less by a massive order of magnitude.

But in response to the climate emergency, we have seen nothing of this sort. In contrast to C.D. Howe’s wartime creations, the Trudeau government has established two new Crown corporations during its time in office – the Canada Infrastructure Bank (which has thus far accomplished very little), and the Trans Mountain Corporation (an ill-advised decision that makes all Canadians the owners of a 60-year-old oil pipeline). If our government really saw the climate emergency as an emergency, it would quickly conduct an inventory of our conversion needs to determine how many heat pumps, solar arrays, wind farms, electric buses, etc. we will need to electrify virtually everything and end our reliance on fossil fuels. Then, it would establish a new generation of Crown corporations to ensure those items are manufactured and deployed at the requisite scale. It should also create an audacious new federal transfer program – I recommend a $20-40 billion annual Climate Emergency Just Transition transfer program – to catapult climate infrastructure spending and worker retraining in every province.3

Klein asserts that If our current leaders believe we face a climate emergency, then they need to act and speak like it’s an emergency. That is what our leaders did in the Second World War and what they are doing with COVID-19. The climate emergency demands that same level of response.

 

References

 

1	Klein, Seth. (2020) A Good War: Mobilizing Canada for the Climate Emergency. Toronto, ON:ECW Press.
2	(n.d.). In a compelling call to arms, Seth Klein presents inspiring vision. Retrieved November 25, 2020, from https://canadiandimension.com/articles/view/seth-klein-a-good-war-review
3	(2020, November 25). Canada must adopt an emergency mindset to climate change. Retrieved November 25, 2020, from https://policyoptions.irpp.org/magazines/november-2020/canada-must-adopt-an-emergency-mindset-to-climate-change/

Disconnected from the need for maximum effort

 

In his book “A Good War”, Seth Klein demonstrates how wartime thinking and community efforts can be repurposed today for Canada's own Green New Deal.

 

He has found a politics of disconnect is hampering our progress in addressing the climate emergency.

 

"We elect governments that promise climate action, they deliver underwhelming and contradictory policies, and then get replaced by right-wing governments that undo what little progress we’ve seen."1

Damian Carrington, environment editor at the Guardian, reports that CO2 emissions hit a new record despite Covid-19 lockdowns. Scientists calculate that emissions must fall by half by 2030 to give a good chance of limiting global heating to 1.5C, beyond which hundreds of millions of people will face more heatwaves, droughts, floods and poverty.

WMO report on atmospheric CO2

 

Climate-heating gases have reached record levels in the atmosphere despite the global lockdowns caused by the coronavirus pandemic, the UN’s World Meteorological Organization has said.

“The lockdown-related fall in emissions is just a tiny blip on the long-term graph. We need a sustained flattening of the curve,” said Petteri Taalas, the WMO secretary-general. “We breached the global [annual] threshold of 400ppm in 2015 and, just four years later, we have crossed 410ppm. Such a rate of increase has never been seen in the history of our records… CO2 remains in the atmosphere for centuries. The last time the Earth experienced a comparable concentration was 3m-5m years ago, when the temperature was 2-3C warmer and sea level was 10-20 metres higher than now. But there weren’t 7.7 billion [human] inhabitants.”2

In August 2016, Bill McKibben wrote that we are under attack from climate change—and our only hope is to mobilize like we did in WWII.

 

War on climate change

For starters, it’s important to remember that a truly global mobilization to defeat climate change wouldn’t wreck our economy or throw coal miners out of work. Quite the contrary: Gearing up to stop global warming would provide a host of social and economic benefits, just as World War II did. It would save lives. (A worldwide switch to renewable energy would cut air pollution deaths by 4 to 7 million a year, according to the Stanford data.) It would produce an awful lot of jobs. (An estimated net gain of roughly two million in the United States alone.)3

Carbon and methane now represent the deadliest enemy of all time, the first force fully capable of harrying, scattering, and impoverishing our entire civilization.

 

References

 

1	Klein, Seth. (2020) A Good War: Mobilizing Canada for the Climate Emergency. Toronto, ON:ECW Press.
2	(2020, November 23). Climate crisis: CO2 hits new record despite Covid-19 lockdowns. Retrieved November 24, 2020, from https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/nov/23/climate-crisis-co2-hits-new-record-despite-covid-19-lockdowns
3	(2016, August 15). We Need to Literally Declare War on Climate Change | The .... Retrieved November 17, 2020, from https://newrepublic.com/article/135684/declare-war-climate-change-mobilize-wwii

Politics of our Disconnect - The Good War

 

In his book “A Good War”, Seth Klein demonstrates how wartime thinking and community efforts can be repurposed today for Canada's own Green New Deal.

A Good War

 

He has found a politics of disconnect is hampering our progress in addressing the climate emergency.

 

"We elect governments that promise climate action, they deliver underwhelming and contradictory policies, and then get replaced by right-wing governments that undo what little progress we’ve seen."1

Emma McIntosh writes that the Ontario Auditor General has issued a scathing rebuke of the Ford government’s environmental policies. Ontario has opened up protected wilderness areas for resource extraction, and two-thirds of the land in Algonquin Provincial Park can’t be considered “protected” due to commercial logging. The province also risks missing its 2030 emissions reduction target, in part because it isn’t reducing its use of fossil fuels.

Meanwhile, the Environment Ministry often does not comply with key environmental protection and public disclosure requirements, and Ontario Parks lacks the staff it needs to do its work properly, the reports found. "Any time there’s a law, the law needs to be followed," auditor general Bonnie Lysyk said Wednesday, calling the government's failure to do so "concerning." The auditor general is a non-partisan independent watchdog tasked with holding the government of the day accountable for financial responsibility and public transparency.2

Ontario Green Party Leader Mike Schreiner said the government's actions are a threat not just to the environment, but also for the province's safety and economy. "I believe we have a moral obligation to our children to leave them a viable planet," he said. John Paul Tasker of CBC News reports that Prime Minister Trudeau has unveiled a new net-zero emissions plan to meet climate change targets. Tasker notes that some critics decry legislation that doesn't include penalties for failing to meet targets.

"Climate change remains one of the greatest challenges of our times," Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told reporters Thursday. Just like with COVID-19, ignoring the risks of climate change isn't an option. That approach would only make the costs higher and the long-term consequences worse. Canadians have been clear — they want climate action now."

Trudeau described the bill as an accountability framework that will "ensure we reach this net-zero goal in a way that gives Canadians confidence." Environmental groups celebrated the government's push to enshrine the net-zero commitment into law — but raised red flags about the plan to make 2030 the first milestone year, saying binding targets should be implemented much sooner than that.

"To be effective, the legislation will need to prioritize immediate climate action by setting a 2025 target, and ensure that all the targets we set are as ambitious as possible. We will be looking to all federal parties in the upcoming weeks to work together to strengthen this bill," said Andrew Gage, a staff lawyer with West Coast Environment Law.3

And that, friends, is my summary of the much-anticipated GHG reduction accountability act. This government does not appear to get the #ClimateEmergency We need a real emergency plan. pic.twitter.com/4mycazIMsG

— Seth Klein (@SethDKlein) November 19, 2020

 

Brad Wassink (he/him), Communications Coordinator, Citizens for Public Justice, has issued a response that celebrates Ottawa’s important move to net zero emissions.

“Through our campaigns over the years, CPJ has witnessed a real and active commitment among Canadian Christians to align their concerns and their actions,” says Willard Metzger, CPJ’s Executive Director. “People are making changes in their lifestyles that reduce consumption and emissions. Still, we know that the scale of reductions required needs an all of society approach. We are encouraged by the important step the Government of Canada has taken today.”4

 

References

 

1	Klein, Seth. (2020) A Good War: Mobilizing Canada for the Climate Emergency. Toronto, ON:ECW Press.
2	(2020, November 18). Auditor general issues scathing rebuke of Ford government's .... Retrieved November 19, 2020, from https://www.nationalobserver.com/2020/11/17/news/auditor-general-rebuke-ford-government-environmental-policies
3	(2020, November 19). Trudeau unveils new net-zero emissions plan to meet climate .... Retrieved November 19, 2020, from https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/net-zero-emissions-1.5807877
4	(n.d.). Citizens for Public Justice. Retrieved November 19, 2020, from https://cpj.ca/cpj-celebrates-ottawas-important-move-to-net-zero-emissions/

a crisis like none we've ever faced

 In the last century, the western democracies countered the existential threats of Nazi aggression and mounting concern about the nuclear arms race by powerful governmental action.

Action in crisis 

  Some call climate change a crisis like none we've ever faced and one that calls for a dramatic shift in the way we live our lives. Seth Klein says it's time to throw ourselves fully into battle against climate change.

 

Klein is the author of a new book called A Good War: Mobilizing Canada for the Climate Emergency.

During the Second World War, Canadian citizens and government remade the economy by retooling factories, transforming their workforce, and making the war effort a common cause for all Canadians to contribute to. Klein demonstrates how wartime thinking and community efforts can be repurposed today for Canada's own Green New Deal.1

Tzeporah Berman, adjunct professor at York University, chair of the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty Initiative and the international program director at Stand.Earth, comments that with COVID-19, fossil fuel majors are lobbying hard for bailouts, investors are desperate to salvage capital while workers and fossil-fuel dependent communities are often being left behind. A team of climate, policy and legal experts from around the world is proposing a Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty to be developed along with a strengthened Paris accord.

Don’t add to the problem (non-proliferation). End new exploration and expansion into new reserves.

Get rid of the existing threat (global disarmament). Phase out existing stockpiles and production in line with 1.5°C.

Accelerate an equitable transition (peaceful use).2

Action to address the climate emergency may be successful when a war time policy is applied to mobilizing the country to train, work and transform the under government sponsorship with clear cut objectives like those proposed in the idea of a Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty.

 

References

 

1	(2020, October 1). A Good War | CBC Books. Retrieved November 17, 2020, from https://www.cbc.ca/books/a-good-war-1.5746874
2	(2020, May 4). It's time for a fossil fuel non-proliferation treaty. Retrieved May 4, 2020, from https://news.trust.org/item/20200504090700-pblc5

 

Grasping for relief

 

After the Nov 3 election in the United States, Matt Galloway, of CBC The Current, talks to former U.S. ambassador to Canada, Bruce Heyman, about what this uncertain outcome might mean for U.S.-Canada relations.

 

Canada and US relationships and wealth inequality

Ambassador Heyman connects the response to Donald Trump to the need of people enduring the consequences of greater wealth inequality to grasp at a possible solution from the “non-politician” candidate.1

Bruce Livesey of CBC Ideas investigates how capitalism is destroying democracy.

'Authoritarian capitalism is where the U.S. is heading,' says Timothy Snyder, Yale historian, Levin professor of history, and author of On Tyranny and The Road to Unfreedom. 

Is capitalism destroying democracy and fostering the rise of authoritarian regimes around the globe? With the election of right-wing populist governments and leaders in Hungary, Poland, the United Kingdom, Brazil, Turkey, India, Italy and the United States, the prospect that the answer is "yes" is gaining credence. 

"Authoritarian capitalism is what China has under the aegis of the Communist party; authoritarian capitalism is what Russia has with no particular ideological content," asserts Timothy Snyder. "And authoritarian capitalism is where the United States is heading… I think it is much more closely connected to a certain kind of capitalism — a capitalism which says: it's okay for there to be radical inequality."2

But long before Trump's ascendancy, corporations and the ultra-wealthy had been using their resources to undermine American democracy. In 2010, the U.S. Supreme Court opened the door for unlimited corporate money to enter the political system through a ruling called Citizens United.

"It cannot be overstated what a deleterious effect on American political discourse the Citizens United decision has had," explains Andrea Bernstein, a New York-based investigative journalist and author of American Oligarchs: The Kushners, the Trumps, and the Marriage of Money and Power. "After Citizens United… it became possible for money to just flood into the system."2

Indeed, President Barack Obama commented on the dangers of the ruling:

 

"There aren't a lot of functioning democracies around the world that work this way. Where you basically have millionaires and billionaires bankrolling whomever they want and however they want and in some cases undisclosed. And what it means is ordinary Americans are shut out of the process."2

Thomas Piketty’s argument, as explained by Justin Fox for the Harvard Business Review is that capital (which by Piketty’s definition is pretty much the same thing as wealth) has tended over time to grow faster than the overall economy.

Blue line of worker's income plunges below red line of return on wealth

 

Income from capital is invariably much less evenly distributed than labor income.

Piketty’s main worry seems to be that growing wealth in Europe will bring a return to 19th century circumstances in which most affluent people get that way through inheritance… But the basic message from Piketty’s data, that the ravages of the World Wars and the high taxes that followed put a big damper on wealth and inheritance that has now been lifted, seems irrefutable… he does offer evidence for his contention that the bigger the fortune, the faster it will grow in the future: the performance of university endowments in the U.S., where the largest endowments have earned dramatically higher percentage returns than the rest.3

Piketty proposes a progressive global wealth tax — at one point he suggests that it could start at 0.1% a year for small nest eggs and rise to 2% for fortunes of above 5 billion euros ($6.9 billion) — as the best response to the current dynamics of inequality. No longer will one be able to simply assert that rising inequality is a necessary byproduct of prosperity, or that capital deserves protected status because it brings growth. From now on, those who say such things may be expected to provide evidence that they’re actually true. Perhaps Trump popularity is a symptom of increasing wealth inequality in the United States that has encouraged “authoritarian capitalism” and increasing the desperation of the working class with a society where their income decreases.

 

References

 

1	(2020, November 4). U.S. Election Special: The Current for Nov. 4, 2020 | CBC Radio. Retrieved November 4, 2020, from https://www.cbc.ca/radio/thecurrent/u-s-election-special-the-current-for-nov-4-2020-1.5789224?cmp=rss
2	(2020, November 2). How capitalism is destroying democracy | CBC Radio - CBC.ca. Retrieved November 4, 2020, from https://www.cbc.ca/radio/ideas/how-capitalism-is-destroying-democracy-1.5786136
3	(2014, April 24). Piketty's “Capital,” in a Lot Less than 696 Pages. Retrieved November 4, 2020, from https://hbr.org/2014/04/pikettys-capital-in-a-lot-less-than-696-pages