Calling for climate change and environmental issues to be the No. 1 issue with voters at the ballot box, a national coalition is organizing a night of candidate debates in ridings across the nation.
The non-partisan group, 100 Debates on the Environment, has aimed to organized a series of nationwide events, and the group has done better than its title suggests: 118 candidate debates are on the agenda for Oct. 3.
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Laurie Adkin, a political science professor at the University of Alberta and a member of the organizing team for the event being held in Alberta’s Edmonton-Strathcona riding, underscored the importance of the issue in the federal election.
“We are at a point in human history that is unprecedented.”
“Every single election, everywhere in the world, at this point in history is absolutely critical,” Adkin said. She argues the climate crisis needs to show up across party platforms.
“It isn’t just a single kind of separate issue apart from everything else.
“Because what we decide to do about climate change is also what we decide to do about restructuring our economies, what we decide about providing sustainable livelihoods to people and income security. … So if we don’t have climate change in the centre and articulated to all these other areas of policy, we can’t address it properly,” she said.
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Look for one of the debates in your riding here.
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