We need a just transition not another bailout for fossil fuel CEOs

Are you fed up with corporations hoarding wealth while the rest of us are bearing the brunt of inflation, inequality, and the climate emergency? You’re not alone. But together, you and I can take action and put a stop to it.

Big Oil CEOs are aggressively lobbying for yet another bailout. Despite another year of record profits, petroleum profiteers are angling for $11 billion dollars from the federal government. This is money that should instead be going to workers, communities, and the just transition we so urgently need.

A JUST TRANSITION MEANS ECONOMIC JUSTICE AND GOOD JOBS

You and I know the economy is rigged in favour of the super-rich. Windfall fossil fuel profits, hoarding CEOs, price-gouging, cost of living increases from food to housing to transportation. While most of us are struggling with skyrocketing expenses, corporations are raking in the largest profits in 50 years.

They’re calling the shots and perpetuating the economic and climate crises we’re facing. It’s time to take control of our economy – and our democracy – away from private corporations. Right now, fossil fuel companies, private utilities, Big Pharma, and so many other big corporate interests are making decisions about all of our lives. They’re deciding whether Indigenous sovereignty is respected, whether we take meaningful climate action, whether dozens or hundreds or thousands of people are laid off. They’re setting the prices of our food, our housing, our medicines. They are, in many ways, determining which of us will live, and which of us will not be able to afford to survive.

That’s where a just transition comes in.

A just transition is not a destination, it’s a process. It’s about the work of restoring control over utilities, health care, resources, housing – the essentials of a good and meaningful life, and the foundations of strong, resilient communities – back to the people. Fair and just taxation of the corporations that have been exploiting the land and the people for decades will fund things like income supports for workers transitioning out of high-carbon jobs and into exciting and fulfilling new fields.

By regaining control over services and infrastructure that should have been under public control this whole time, we can fund low-carbon public transit, social housing, health care, and child care.

We must work together as people and communities to ensure that fossil fuel companies and other big corporate employers are no longer the ones who decide whether our communities live or die based on whether industry decides to stay in a place or leave it.

A just transition means the workers in affected sectors are supported through the transformation of the sector in which they work and that CEOs are prevented from profiteering from the crisis. Corporate executives will not be allowed to grow richer by setting the prices of the things we need to live and flourish ever higher.

Just transition legislation must recognize and affirm Indigenous rights, sovereignty, knowledge, and stewardship duties, and include public education about Canada’s true colonial history and how colonization is a root cause of the crises we’re facing. In a just transition, the police and industrial occupation of Indigenous lands will cease, and Indigenous sovereignty over the land will be affirmed. Indigenous communities will guide the transition.

If these changes seem monumental, aspirational, we must remember the stakes if we don’t make this radical change. If we continue on the path of privatization that we’re on, not only will we not see the necessary scale of climate action in our lifetimes, as the climate crisis worsens, it will be corporations’ and the wealthy who decide which of us have jobs and which of us are left unemployed and destitute when they conduct mass layoffs and close industries that are no longer profitable or viable.

It will be corporations and the wealthy who decide how resources like food and water are distributed. It will be corporations and the wealthy that decide which of our communities face rolling blackouts, school and hospital closures, and who will bear the brunt of scarcity and climate collapse.

TRANSITION LEGISLATION IS ON THE WAY, BUT WILL IT BE JUST AND EQUITABLE?

Because of the passion and hard work of thousands of people across the country, Minister of Natural Resources Jonathan Wilkinson has confirmed that the federal government is finally set to introduce just transition legislation this year.

This shows that our campaign and the organizing our movement is doing is working, but we can’t let up yet.

Powerful fossil fuel CEOs are getting in the way of the action we need because they have too much control over our energy and climate policies. It’s time to ramp up the pressure on the federal government to make sure that the just transition legislation is truly just.

PEOPLE POWER CAN OVERCOME PETRO POWER

Over the course of the last year, thousands of people from hundreds of communities have sent letters to the federal government, talked to their neighbours, collected petition signatures, met with their MPs, and got them to present the just transition petition in the House of Commons.

Together, we can build the people power necessary win binding federal just transition legislation that confronts the climate emergency while addressing historic injustices and creating good green jobs. 

You and I along with thousands of others from coast-to-coast need to flood parliament with massive waves of support to ensure the impending legislation rises to the challenge of the crises we face. Together, we can turn the tide.

WHAT IS A JUST TRANSITION?

A process of supporting oil and gas workers, other affected workers, and their communities – while we decarbonize the economy and wind down the fossil fuel sector.

This process should be guided by affected workers, affected communities, and Indigenous peoples and knowledges.

This process needs to be supported by federal legislation that requires and funds society-wide action to decarbonize our economy and ensure that no one is left behind in the process.

LEARN MORE AND TAKE ACTION

Download the new Flood Parliament organizing toolkit: You can use this workbook to help you team up with others in your community to get your MP to table our just transition petition and speak up for transition legislation that’s truly just.

Read and download our just transition backgrounder: This outlines in more depth what our just transition petition is calling for and can be used as a briefing note to share with your Member of Parliament.

Take action to fund a just transition by taxing billionaires: “Sharing” the wealth of billionaires, profiteering corporations, and the 1 per cent is a solution, not only to the climate crisis, but also to addressing the income inequality and lack of supports for people and communities unable to make ends meet in this challenging economic situation.

---

Read more analysis

---