Photo by Hillary Beattie
Corporations and corporate power
The pollster Nik Nanos claimed in June that climate change would be “one of the defining battle grounds” this election. “More important than jobs, more important than health care, more important than immigration.” In July, Abacus Data put climate change in third spot behind health care and cost of living, the latter an important issue (with the environment) for the two-thirds of voters from the millennial and gen-X cohorts.
Ottawa / Washington, D.C. / New York, NY / Mexico City, Mexico—With ratification of NAFTA 2.0 still up in the air in the U.S. and Canada, a new international report contrasts the deeply flawed agreement with proposals for a more progressive and truly fair trade regime.
With ratification of NAFTA 2.0 still up in the air, a new international report looks beyond that deeply flawed agreement to imagine a more progressive and truly fair trade regime. The report, which includes contributions by trade experts and activists from all three North American countries, critically analyzes the USMCA (known as CUSMA in Canada and T-MEC in Mexico) and sets out alternatives that would give priority to human rights and the rights of nature over corporate rights.
(VANCOUVER) What do Suncor, Encana, the Royal Bank of Canada, the Fraser Institute and 46 other companies and organizations have in common?
They are among the entities that make up the most influential fossil fuel industry players in Canada. Today, the Corporate Mapping Project (CMP) is drawing attention to these powerful corporations and organizations with the release of its Fossil-Power Top 50 listing, along with a publicly accessible database of the larger Canadian fossil fuel industry that maps its connections to the wider corporate sector in Canada and globally.
REUTERS/Nick Didlick
For the last decade, oil and gas industry supporters in media, civil society and government have honed a populist narrative revolving around two core arguments:
1) Fossil fuel development is vital to the national economic interest.
Illustration by Scott Shields
Canada is addicted to oil. Like all addictions, ours is debilitating. It has erased the line between state and private industry (thin as that line is in most countries), stifles our politics, and is holding back local, provincial and national preparations for a world without fossil fuels. Curing our addiction to oil and gas will take time and money, and historic levels of Indigenous–federal–provincial co-operation. But it absolutely has to happen—starting now.
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