Watch: "Leap Manifesto: A Call for a Canada Based on Caring for the Earth and One Another"
Prominent Canadians launch manifesto outlining bold climate and economic vision for country
[ http://rabble.ca/rabbletv/program-guide ... festo-outl ]
By rabble staff | September 15, 2015 A rabble.ca live production Approx. 50 min.
September 15, 2015, musicians, directors, actors, authors, national and community leaders and dozens of organizations together launched the "Leap Manifesto: A Call for a Canada Based on Caring for the Earth and One Another".
Translated into 8 languages, including Cree and Inuktitut, the Manifesto aims to gather tens of thousands of signatures and build pressure on the next federal government to transition Canada off fossil fuels while also making it a more liveable, fair and just society.
In addition to featuring several of the Manifesto’s high-profile signatories, the launch event will include experts outlining why this vision is feasible and achievable.
Initiating signatories to the Leap Manifesto include Donald Sutherland, Rachel McAdams, Leonard Cohen, Neil Young, Ellen Page, Gord Downie, David Suzuki, Naomi Klein, Stephen Lewis, Sarah Polley, Bruce Cockburn, Guujaaw, Tegan and Sara, Leslie Feist, Joseph Boyden, Dionne Brand, Judy Rebick, Thomas King, Maude Barlow, Paul Moist, Robyn Benson, Former Ontario Chief Justice Ron McMurtry, Michael Ondaatje and more.
Plus more than 50 organizations, including Oxfam, Idle No More, CUPE, CLC, PSAC, Council of Canadians, Greenpeace, 350.org, and over 100 individual signatories like scientists, economists, artists, activists, journalists and others.
Read the Manifesto here:
[ http://rabble.ca/news/2015/09/leap-manifesto ]
Learn more about the Leap Manifesto here:
[ https://leapmanifesto.org/en/the-leap-manifesto/ ]
Watch: "Leap Manifesto: A Call for a Canada B
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• Page 1 of 1
Watch: "Leap Manifesto: A Call for a Canada B
by Oscar » Wed Sep 16, 2015 9:18 am
- Oscar
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Re: Watch: "Leap Manifesto: A Call for a Canada B
by Oscar » Wed Sep 16, 2015 9:41 am
WE CAN AFFORD THE LEAP – by Bruce Campbell, Seth Klein, and Marc Lee
[ https://leapmanifesto.org/wp-content/up ... rd-en1.pdf ]
September 2015
There are many who will read The Leap Manifesto and find the goals worthy and exciting, but who will legitimately wonder, “These ideas sound great, but how can we pay for all the green and social infrastructure envisioned? Is such a plan really affordable and realizable?”
Fair questions. But the answer, in short, is yes. We can afford to make this Leap. All that is lacking is the political will and determination.
The Manifesto itself offers a short summary of the options at hand to finance this grand shift in our economy:
“The money we need to pay for this great transformation is available - we just need the right policies to release it. Like an end to fossil fuel subsidies. Financial transaction taxes. Increased resource royalties. Higher income taxes on corporations and wealthy people. A progressive carbon tax. Cuts to military spending. All of these are based on a simple “polluter pays” principle and hold enormous promise."
One thing is clear: public scarcity in times of unprecedented private wealth is a manufactured crisis, designed to extinguish our dreams before they have a chance to be born”.
Below we elaborate on these ideas, and offer links to further resources. First, much of what The Leap calls for is infrastructure (transit infrastructure, high speed rail, renewable energy infrastructure, carbon zero buildings, etc.), and traditionally we finance such capital expenditures through debt spending (the selling of government bonds). Infrastructure is rightly understood as an investment, and thus it makes sense to amortize the cost over many years.
Much of what is envisioned consists of shifting new infrastructure spending away from traditional projects (roads, bridges, port and energy infrastructure designed to facilitate the extraction and export of fossil fuels) and towards the green infrastructure we now need.
It also means investing in our social infrastructure—health care, education, social housing, and child-care—with their associated low-carbon jobs.
Resource royalties across Canada are in urgent need of review, and many should be raised considerably.
What our provincial governments currently charge in forestry stumpage fees, natural gas and oil royalties, and for industrial water usage is often deplorably low. Setting appropriate royalty rates could raise much needed new revenues for provincial governments and First Nations (on whose territories much of this extraction occurs), helping to finance the transition envisioned by The Leap.
In particular, higher resource royalties can and should be allocated to provincial and federal sovereign wealth funds for the benefit of current and future generations, as Norway has done with great success (for more on that topic, see Bruce Campbell’s CCPA report). [ https://www.policyalternatives.ca/publi ... -not-taken ]
As for many of the other revenue options proposed above, the Alternative Federal Budget (AFB), produced each year by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, outlines how many of these taxes (and others) can raise much needed new revenues.
It should be emphasized that budgets are about choices.
Successive federal governments, over the last 15 years have imposed tax cuts (disproportionately benefiting the wealthy), which have depleted the federal treasury’s capacity to spend and invest by $50 billion in 2014 alone (and provincial tax cuts over 20 years have had a similar effect.) Thus the “imperative” for austerity measures in recent years should be understood as manufactured.
The AFB can be found here:
[ https://www.policyalternatives.ca/publi ... udget-2015 ]
But to highlight a few options:
• Ending subsidies to the fossil fuel industry would recoup about $350 million a year for the federal government (and more if provincial governments do likewise).
• A national financial transaction tax could raise $5 billion a year.
• Ending special tax treatment for capital gains income would recoup $7.5 billion a year (and more for provincial governments).
• Returning the corporate tax rate to where it was in 2006 would raise $6 billion a year.
• Tackling tax havens would recoup $2 billion a year.
• A new federal upper-income tax bracket on incomes over $250,000 could raise about $3.5 billion a year.
• Scaling military spending back to pre-911 levels would save $1-$1.5 billion a year.
• Eliminating the recent income splitting and other family-with-children tax cuts would recoup $7 billion a year.
• And a national carbon tax of a mere $30/tonne (the same level as BC’s current carbon tax) would raise $16 billion a year.
The carbon tax option deserves special attention, given its unique potential in facilitating The Leap by driving new green investment by both public and private sectors. We would argue that, over time, the tax should in fact be higher than $30 per tonne.
Marc Lee, in his CCPA Climate Justice Project report “Fair and Effective Carbon Pricing”, has modeled a BC carbon tax that rises incrementally to $200 a tonne: [ https://www.policyalternatives.ca/publi ... bonpricing ].
At this level, the tax would truly impact the consumption and investment choices of households and business, helping to significantly reduce GHG emissions. But it would also raise about $8 billion a year (in BC alone). Lee proposes that half this income be used to fund climate action and green infrastructure (public transit, building retrofits, etc. as well as just transition programs for workers currently employed in the fossil fuel sector), and half be used for a carbon tax credit for low- and middle-income households. Such a credit would mean the bottom half of households would be net better off (meaning, they would receive more in the credit than they pay in the higher carbon tax), thus improving the progressivity and fairness of the overall tax system. A national carbon tax at $200/tonne would raise in excess of $80 billion a year.
For a full list of Climate Justice Project reports, many of which offer ideas and plans for how to implement the goals outlined in [b]The Leap, go to: [/b] [ https://www.policyalternatives.ca/publi ... ce-project ]
Our society has managed a dramatic re-structuring of the economy before. When Canada entered the First and Second World Wars, our economy had to be entirely re-tooled for a new common purpose: scarce resources were deployed for the task at hand, Victory Bonds were sold, new taxes were levied, household consumption shifted, core industries were directed to produce the good and services needed, and in the process employment grew dramatically.
Is the climate crisis we face today really all that different?
- - -
Bruce Campbell is Executive Director of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. Seth Klein
is the CCPA’s British Columbia Director. Marc Lee is a Senior Economist with the CCPA, and Director of the centre’s Climate Justice Project.
[ https://leapmanifesto.org/wp-content/up ... rd-en1.pdf ]
September 2015
There are many who will read The Leap Manifesto and find the goals worthy and exciting, but who will legitimately wonder, “These ideas sound great, but how can we pay for all the green and social infrastructure envisioned? Is such a plan really affordable and realizable?”
Fair questions. But the answer, in short, is yes. We can afford to make this Leap. All that is lacking is the political will and determination.
The Manifesto itself offers a short summary of the options at hand to finance this grand shift in our economy:
“The money we need to pay for this great transformation is available - we just need the right policies to release it. Like an end to fossil fuel subsidies. Financial transaction taxes. Increased resource royalties. Higher income taxes on corporations and wealthy people. A progressive carbon tax. Cuts to military spending. All of these are based on a simple “polluter pays” principle and hold enormous promise."
One thing is clear: public scarcity in times of unprecedented private wealth is a manufactured crisis, designed to extinguish our dreams before they have a chance to be born”.
Below we elaborate on these ideas, and offer links to further resources. First, much of what The Leap calls for is infrastructure (transit infrastructure, high speed rail, renewable energy infrastructure, carbon zero buildings, etc.), and traditionally we finance such capital expenditures through debt spending (the selling of government bonds). Infrastructure is rightly understood as an investment, and thus it makes sense to amortize the cost over many years.
Much of what is envisioned consists of shifting new infrastructure spending away from traditional projects (roads, bridges, port and energy infrastructure designed to facilitate the extraction and export of fossil fuels) and towards the green infrastructure we now need.
It also means investing in our social infrastructure—health care, education, social housing, and child-care—with their associated low-carbon jobs.
Resource royalties across Canada are in urgent need of review, and many should be raised considerably.
What our provincial governments currently charge in forestry stumpage fees, natural gas and oil royalties, and for industrial water usage is often deplorably low. Setting appropriate royalty rates could raise much needed new revenues for provincial governments and First Nations (on whose territories much of this extraction occurs), helping to finance the transition envisioned by The Leap.
In particular, higher resource royalties can and should be allocated to provincial and federal sovereign wealth funds for the benefit of current and future generations, as Norway has done with great success (for more on that topic, see Bruce Campbell’s CCPA report). [ https://www.policyalternatives.ca/publi ... -not-taken ]
As for many of the other revenue options proposed above, the Alternative Federal Budget (AFB), produced each year by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, outlines how many of these taxes (and others) can raise much needed new revenues.
It should be emphasized that budgets are about choices.
Successive federal governments, over the last 15 years have imposed tax cuts (disproportionately benefiting the wealthy), which have depleted the federal treasury’s capacity to spend and invest by $50 billion in 2014 alone (and provincial tax cuts over 20 years have had a similar effect.) Thus the “imperative” for austerity measures in recent years should be understood as manufactured.
The AFB can be found here:
[ https://www.policyalternatives.ca/publi ... udget-2015 ]
But to highlight a few options:
• Ending subsidies to the fossil fuel industry would recoup about $350 million a year for the federal government (and more if provincial governments do likewise).
• A national financial transaction tax could raise $5 billion a year.
• Ending special tax treatment for capital gains income would recoup $7.5 billion a year (and more for provincial governments).
• Returning the corporate tax rate to where it was in 2006 would raise $6 billion a year.
• Tackling tax havens would recoup $2 billion a year.
• A new federal upper-income tax bracket on incomes over $250,000 could raise about $3.5 billion a year.
• Scaling military spending back to pre-911 levels would save $1-$1.5 billion a year.
• Eliminating the recent income splitting and other family-with-children tax cuts would recoup $7 billion a year.
• And a national carbon tax of a mere $30/tonne (the same level as BC’s current carbon tax) would raise $16 billion a year.
The carbon tax option deserves special attention, given its unique potential in facilitating The Leap by driving new green investment by both public and private sectors. We would argue that, over time, the tax should in fact be higher than $30 per tonne.
Marc Lee, in his CCPA Climate Justice Project report “Fair and Effective Carbon Pricing”, has modeled a BC carbon tax that rises incrementally to $200 a tonne: [ https://www.policyalternatives.ca/publi ... bonpricing ].
At this level, the tax would truly impact the consumption and investment choices of households and business, helping to significantly reduce GHG emissions. But it would also raise about $8 billion a year (in BC alone). Lee proposes that half this income be used to fund climate action and green infrastructure (public transit, building retrofits, etc. as well as just transition programs for workers currently employed in the fossil fuel sector), and half be used for a carbon tax credit for low- and middle-income households. Such a credit would mean the bottom half of households would be net better off (meaning, they would receive more in the credit than they pay in the higher carbon tax), thus improving the progressivity and fairness of the overall tax system. A national carbon tax at $200/tonne would raise in excess of $80 billion a year.
For a full list of Climate Justice Project reports, many of which offer ideas and plans for how to implement the goals outlined in [b]The Leap, go to: [/b] [ https://www.policyalternatives.ca/publi ... ce-project ]
Our society has managed a dramatic re-structuring of the economy before. When Canada entered the First and Second World Wars, our economy had to be entirely re-tooled for a new common purpose: scarce resources were deployed for the task at hand, Victory Bonds were sold, new taxes were levied, household consumption shifted, core industries were directed to produce the good and services needed, and in the process employment grew dramatically.
Is the climate crisis we face today really all that different?
- - -
Bruce Campbell is Executive Director of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. Seth Klein
is the CCPA’s British Columbia Director. Marc Lee is a Senior Economist with the CCPA, and Director of the centre’s Climate Justice Project.
- Oscar
- Site Admin
- Posts: 9122
- Joined: Wed May 03, 2006 3:23 pm
Re: Watch: "Leap Manifesto: A Call for a Canada B
by Oscar » Wed Sep 16, 2015 5:16 pm
Leap manifesto: bold climate and economic vision for Canada
[ http://canadians.org/blog/leap-manifest ... ion-canada ]
September 15, 2015 - 9:45am
We could live in a country powered entirely by truly just renewable energy, woven together by accessible public transit, in which the jobs and opportunities of this transition are designed to systematically eliminate racial and gender inequality. Caring for one another and caring for the planet could be the economy’s fastest growing sectors. Many more people could have higher wage jobs with fewer work hours, leaving us ample time to enjoy our loved ones and flourish in our communities.
Canada is not this place today – but it could be.
These are the inspiring words of the leap manifesto, a bold 15-point vision for Canada, launching today. Maude Barlow will be one of several high profile speakers alongside David Suzuki, Naomi Klein, Stephen Lewis, Tantoo Cardinal (and more) attending a press conference at the Toronto Film Festival for the manifesto.
You can read, and sign the manifesto at http://www.leapmanifesto.org , download a useful graphic outlining the 15 demands and supporting research paper from the Canadian Centre of Policy Alternatives on why we can 'afford to leap.' [ WE CAN AFFORD THE LEAP – by Bruce Campbell, Seth Klein, and Marc Lee [ https://leapmanifesto.org/wp-content/up ... rd-en1.pdf ] September 2015
Here are the manifesto's 15 demands.
1. The leap must begin by respecting the inherent rights and title of the original caretakers of this land, starting by fully implementing the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
2. The latest research shows we could get 100% of our electricity from renewable resources within two decades; by 2050 we could have a 100% clean economy. We demand that this shift begin now.
3. No new infrastructure projects that lock us into increased extraction decades into the future. The new iron law of energy development must be: if you wouldn’t want it in your backyard, then it doesn’t belong in anyone’s backyard.
4. The time for energy democracy has come: wherever possible, communities should collectively control new clean energy systems. Indigenous Peoples and others on the frontlines of polluting industrial activity should be first to receive public support for their own clean energy projects.
5. We want a universal program to build and retrofit energy efficient housing, ensuring that the lowest income communities will benefit first.
6. We want high-speed rail powered by just renewables and affordable public transit to unite every community in this country – in place of more cars, pipelines and exploding trains that endanger and divide us.
7. We want training and resources for workers in carbon-intensive jobs, ensuring they are fully able to participate in the clean energy economy.
8. We need to invest in our decaying public infrastructure so that it can withstand increasingly frequent extreme weather events.
9. We must develop a more localized and ecologically-based agricultural system to reduce reliance on fossil fuels, absorb shocks in the global supply – and produce healthier and more affordable food for everyone.
10. We call for an end to all trade deals that interfere with our attempts to rebuild local economies, regulate corporations and stop damaging extractive projects.
11. We demand immigration status and full protection for all workers. Canadians can begin to rebalance the scales of climate justice by welcoming refugees and migrants seeking safety and a better life.
12. We must expand those sectors that are already low-carbon: caregiving, teaching, social work, the arts and public-interest media. A national childcare program is long past due.
13. Since so much of the labour of caretaking – whether of people or the planet – is currently unpaid and often performed by women, we call for a vigorous debate about the introduction of a universal basic annual income.
14. We declare that “austerity” is a fossilized form of thinking that has become a threat to life on earth. The money we need to pay for this great transformation is available — we just need the right policies to release it. An end to fossil fuel subsidies. Financial transaction taxes. Increased resource royalties. Higher income taxes on corporations and wealthy people. A progressive carbon tax. Cuts to military spending.
15. We must work swiftly towards a system in which every vote counts and corporate money is removed from political campaigns.
This transformation is our sacred duty to those this country harmed in the past, to those suffering needlessly in the present, and to all who have a right to a bright and safe future.
Now is the time for boldness.
Now is the time to leap.
[ http://canadians.org/blog/leap-manifest ... ion-canada ]
September 15, 2015 - 9:45am
We could live in a country powered entirely by truly just renewable energy, woven together by accessible public transit, in which the jobs and opportunities of this transition are designed to systematically eliminate racial and gender inequality. Caring for one another and caring for the planet could be the economy’s fastest growing sectors. Many more people could have higher wage jobs with fewer work hours, leaving us ample time to enjoy our loved ones and flourish in our communities.
Canada is not this place today – but it could be.
These are the inspiring words of the leap manifesto, a bold 15-point vision for Canada, launching today. Maude Barlow will be one of several high profile speakers alongside David Suzuki, Naomi Klein, Stephen Lewis, Tantoo Cardinal (and more) attending a press conference at the Toronto Film Festival for the manifesto.
You can read, and sign the manifesto at http://www.leapmanifesto.org , download a useful graphic outlining the 15 demands and supporting research paper from the Canadian Centre of Policy Alternatives on why we can 'afford to leap.' [ WE CAN AFFORD THE LEAP – by Bruce Campbell, Seth Klein, and Marc Lee [ https://leapmanifesto.org/wp-content/up ... rd-en1.pdf ] September 2015
Here are the manifesto's 15 demands.
1. The leap must begin by respecting the inherent rights and title of the original caretakers of this land, starting by fully implementing the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
2. The latest research shows we could get 100% of our electricity from renewable resources within two decades; by 2050 we could have a 100% clean economy. We demand that this shift begin now.
3. No new infrastructure projects that lock us into increased extraction decades into the future. The new iron law of energy development must be: if you wouldn’t want it in your backyard, then it doesn’t belong in anyone’s backyard.
4. The time for energy democracy has come: wherever possible, communities should collectively control new clean energy systems. Indigenous Peoples and others on the frontlines of polluting industrial activity should be first to receive public support for their own clean energy projects.
5. We want a universal program to build and retrofit energy efficient housing, ensuring that the lowest income communities will benefit first.
6. We want high-speed rail powered by just renewables and affordable public transit to unite every community in this country – in place of more cars, pipelines and exploding trains that endanger and divide us.
7. We want training and resources for workers in carbon-intensive jobs, ensuring they are fully able to participate in the clean energy economy.
8. We need to invest in our decaying public infrastructure so that it can withstand increasingly frequent extreme weather events.
9. We must develop a more localized and ecologically-based agricultural system to reduce reliance on fossil fuels, absorb shocks in the global supply – and produce healthier and more affordable food for everyone.
10. We call for an end to all trade deals that interfere with our attempts to rebuild local economies, regulate corporations and stop damaging extractive projects.
11. We demand immigration status and full protection for all workers. Canadians can begin to rebalance the scales of climate justice by welcoming refugees and migrants seeking safety and a better life.
12. We must expand those sectors that are already low-carbon: caregiving, teaching, social work, the arts and public-interest media. A national childcare program is long past due.
13. Since so much of the labour of caretaking – whether of people or the planet – is currently unpaid and often performed by women, we call for a vigorous debate about the introduction of a universal basic annual income.
14. We declare that “austerity” is a fossilized form of thinking that has become a threat to life on earth. The money we need to pay for this great transformation is available — we just need the right policies to release it. An end to fossil fuel subsidies. Financial transaction taxes. Increased resource royalties. Higher income taxes on corporations and wealthy people. A progressive carbon tax. Cuts to military spending.
15. We must work swiftly towards a system in which every vote counts and corporate money is removed from political campaigns.
This transformation is our sacred duty to those this country harmed in the past, to those suffering needlessly in the present, and to all who have a right to a bright and safe future.
Now is the time for boldness.
Now is the time to leap.
- Oscar
- Site Admin
- Posts: 9122
- Joined: Wed May 03, 2006 3:23 pm
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