After four years of climate denial by former U.S. President Donald Trump, there is some encouraging leadership from the new U.S. President Joe Biden.
Biden is already signalling a new era of American climate leadership. Within his first few hours in office, Biden moved to return the United States to the Paris Climate Accord, suspend all new oil and gas drilling permits on federal land and cancel the Keystone XL pipeline.
There is no doubt that Biden’s climate leadership is a direct product of the pressures he’s faced from Indigenous land defenders and a growing people-based movement demanding climate action.
But rather than celebrating this new era of climate leadership from the United States government, Prime Minister Trudeau chooses to lament the demise of the Keystone XL pipeline. Instead of wasting his tears on the fossil fuel industry, the prime minister should deliver on his 2019 election promise to Canadian workers: a Just Transition Act.
During the 2019 federal election campaign, Mr. Trudeau promised to introduce a Just Transition Act that would “ensure workers have access to the training and support they need to succeed in the new clean economy.”
The cancellation of Keystone XL pipeline is a good moment to deliver on that promise.
Read more: Letter: In light of Keystone decision, Trudeau, Kenney fail to deliver real support for workers
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Anne Morris