NationTalk: Winnipeg, MB, in the National Homeland of the Red River Métis - Yesterday, the Manitoba Métis Federation (MMF), the National Government of the Red River Métis, unanimously passed a resolution at a Cabinet Meeting, highlighting the critical importance and necessity of the Federal Carbon Pricing Plan and strongly urging the Prime Minister to resist the politicization of the issue by seven Premiers.
“Quite simply, the removal of the carbon rebate has an adverse effect on Canada’s ability to meet its climate action targets,” said JoAnne Remillard, MMF Minister of Environment and Climate Change. “If we allow industry to continue unchecked, instead of focusing our obligations to the environment, we are signing away our future, and the future of our children.”
Carbon pricing is not new. It has been consistently proven that while individual citizen efforts to reduce carbon footprint are helpful, sweeping industry changes are required to mitigate the harms being done to our world, including the water, plants and animals that share it with us.
We further urge these Premiers to reconsider the impacts of this choice on the environment and on the middle class and working poor and disadvantaged.
“The carbon rebate allows the middle class and the working poor and disadvantaged opportunities to receive dollars in their bank accounts, that can help with the cost of living, as well as giving them an opportunity to consider investments in transitioning their homes from oil, gas or wood heating,” said Minister Remillard. “This current plan transfers dollars from industry to individuals, which is good for citizens, and incentivizes industry to find better ways – what happens to those benefits if the carbon pricing is cut? It removes tens of millions of dollars from the tables and pockets of the working poor, middle class and disadvantaged.”
Increasingly, the global community, particularly environmentalists, are pointing to the knowledge, wisdom and ways of knowing of Indigenous Peoples, who understand the territory of their homeland very well, and are always concerned with the broader impacts on the water, the land and the animals, as well as the generations to come. Doing nothing to combat climate change is simply not an option.
The Government of the Red River Métis, which represents approximately 150,000 individuals in the West, stands in opposition to the carbon pricing cuts being proposed, and calls out the opposing Premiers on their complete lack of consultation with Indigenous peoples on this matter.
“Industry needs to be held accountable for climate action, and every level of government has agreed to that,” said David Chartrand, President of the MMF. “Industry knows or should know what Indigenous governments and organizations know to be true that carbon harms the environment. We should all care about how this necessary transition impacts the people most affected.”
“What’s happening right now is not reflective of the values that made Canada strong,” said President Chartrand. “It is not in keeping with the values of the Red River Métis Government today. I challenge any of those seven Premiers to show that they consulted with the MMF or any other Indigenous government on this vital matter.”
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For more information, media may contact:
Kat Patenaude
Media Relations Advisor
Manitoba Métis Federation
204-801-7710
Kat.Patenaude@mmf.mb.ca