While the effects of the climate crisis are becoming increasingly tangible and devastating, Quebec is ripe for the holding of a leaders’ debate focusing exclusively on this issue during the next Quebec election. This is what we are asking of the media and political parties, with the support of a majority of Quebecers.
According to a Léger poll, 56% of Quebecers believe that it is relevant to hold a leaders’ debate exclusively on the environment, the climate crisis and the solutions proposed by political parties for these issues. According to the same survey, it is mainly the debates that help Quebecers to guide their choice.
Now that this is said, a legitimate questioning will certainly emerge: “Yes, but as long as it is, why not hold a leaders’ debate just on health? On the economy? All of these topics are important! If we have a debate for everyone, we won’t end it and we’ll end up with 12 debates! »
The answer is simple: we need a leaders’ debate focused exclusively on climate and environmental issues, because these already affect almost every aspect of our lives.
Climate change threatens our collective and individual health: air pollution, heat waves, the emergence of diseases linked to the destruction of natural environments, the decline of biodiversity and the arrival of invasive species are so many recent and convincing examples. According to the Léger survey mentioned above, 73% of Quebecers understand the state of the situation and say they are worried about the impact of climate change on their health.
These upheavals also threaten our quality of life and our economy, driving up the price of our grocery basket, destroying our public infrastructure or flooding our homes. In this regard, the same proportion of the population—73%—expressed concern about the cost of climate change on public funds and their personal finances.
Climate change ultimately threatens our security by exposing us to the consequences of increasingly frequent extreme weather events. We paid the price recently, when several of us found ourselves without electricity for several days. There are also heat waves, which kill many fellow citizens every summer, and shoreline erosion, which affects coastal communities.
That is why holding a leaders’ debate on this issue is more necessary than ever. We can no longer content ourselves with treating the situation as one problem among many others.
16 minutes is not enough
We only have to go back to 2018 to see how far we still have to go for adequate political and media coverage of the climate crisis during a Quebec election campaign. And you just have to remember one number: 16 minutes.
That’s how much time was allotted to environmental and climate issues during the media consortium leaders’ debate during the last Quebec election. This debate lasted about two hours.
And in the Face to face TVA 2018, we briefly talked about electric cars, the McInnis cement plant and the REM in the “Public Finances and Economy” section, at the very end of the year. A debate also of two hours.
Results ? We evade ideas and arguments, we stay on the surface or we repeat the two or three “lines of communication” necessary to get through. Is this really the kind of treatment that a crisis of such gravity and complexity requires?
We must do better in the next election. Much better.
How can we hope to see the different parties present their climate platform adequately in about ten minutes, when four or five leaders share the air time?
The elections on October 3 must be those of the climate emergency. Voters are entitled to know the solutions proposed by the parties. Holding a leaders’ debate will allow them to make an informed choice to decide who to trust to safeguard our health, our economy and our security in the coming years and decades.
* Also signed this text:
Angèle Pineau-Lemieux, Coordinator – Public Affairs and Communication, Viable Transport Access
Colleen Thorpe, Executive Director, Equiterre
Catherine Gauthier, Executive Director, YOUTH ENvironment
Rébecca Pétrin, General Manager, Eau Secours
Sabaa Khan, Executive Director for Quebec and the Atlantic, David Suzuki Foundation
André Bélanger, Executive Director, Rivers Foundation
Elisabeth Gibeau, Common Front for Energy Transition
Shawn-Patrick Stensil, Director of Programs, Greenpeace Canada
Quentin Lehmann, The Ecotheque
Gabrielle Spenard-Bernier, Mothers at the front movement
Alice-Anne Simard, Executive Director, Nature Quebec
Sandrine Cabana-Degani, General Manager, Piétons Québec
Margo Burgess-Pollet, National Campaigns Manager, Climate Reality Project Canada
Martin Vaillancourt, Director General, National Group of Regional Environmental Councils of Quebec (RNCREQ)
Alain Branchaud, General Manager, SNAP Quebec
Sarah V. Doyon, Executive Director, Trajectory Quebec
Jean-François Rheault, President and CEO, Vélo Québec
Christian Savard, General Manager, Living in the City