{"id":58173,"date":"2025-09-01T07:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-09-01T10:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thelaker.ca\/?p=58173"},"modified":"2025-09-01T07:00:00","modified_gmt":"2025-09-01T10:00:00","slug":"op-ed-more-fire-weather-to-come-if-things-dont-change","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/?p=58173","title":{"rendered":"OP-ED: More “fire weather” to come if things don’t change"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The following is an OP-ED from a letter to the editor sent to us by K.A. Peters<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This wildfire season is on track to be the second-worst in recorded Canadian history.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There will be more wildfire seasons like this to come if federal and provincial climate and energy policy continues fuelling what the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change calls \u201cfire weather\u201d. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

And the longer governments fail to protect Canadians from it, the more likely we are to see vulnerable communities turn to the courts as a last resort.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Is this what young people deserve? Reflections on International Youth Day<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Five months ago, when Mark Carney was on a mission to woo Canadians in his bid to lead both party and country, he wrote: \u201cYoung people deserve more from their government. They deserve to have optimism and confidence in their future. That\u2019s the Canada I want to build.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

58 days after being elected and nearly ten years after his landmark \u201ctragedy of the horizon\u201d speech about acting with foresight to prevent climate harms, Carney’s government rammed through Bill C-5 \u2013 legislation that gives cabinet sweeping powers to bypass environmental reviews and protections. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As the second-worst wildfire season in Canadian history forces evacuations from coast to coast to coast and leaders muse about taxpayer-funded fossil fuel expansion, I have to ask: is this the \u201cmore\u201d that young people deserve? Or are we seeing the continued sidelining of young peoples\u2019 rights to a climate-safe future, leaving them with no choice but to litigate? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

On International Youth Day, I celebrated the bravery of the seven young Ontarians in Mathur v. Ontario for taking their government to court over climate harms. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

For them, and for me, actions speak louder than words.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sincerely,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

K A PETERS<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Windsor, N.S.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The following is an OP-ED from a letter to the editor sent to us by K.A. Peters This wildfire season is on track to be the second-worst in recorded Canadian history. There will be more wildfire seasons like this to come if federal and provincial climate and energy policy continues fuelling what the Intergovernmental Panel […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":57768,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[111,997],"tags":[1623,9100,2416,9101,6189,270],"class_list":["post-58173","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-column","category-columns","tag-climate-change","tag-energy-policy","tag-ontario","tag-pm-mark-carney","tag-wildifres","tag-youth"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58173","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=58173"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58173\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/57768"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=58173"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=58173"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=58173"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}