Charlie Angus served as a Northern Ontario MP for more than 20 years, working often to support human rights. Charlie left Canada’s Parliament in 2025, but he has not stopped participating in political advocacy. A recent piece in his Substack journal demonstrates cause for concern.

Angus wrote about the shared belief of the Trump and Carney administrations that more pipelines are the answer. He says mega-projects to accelerate the burning of fossil fuels are being hailed as “nation-building” exercises. But asks, “What kind of nation are we trying to build?”

Climate fires are having devastating impacts in the northern boreal forests. Thousands of people have fled their homes. Choking smoke is impacting large parts of the continent. But similar fires are ravaging the globe, from the Savannahs of Africa to the rainforests to the wine-growing regions of France.

Over 370 million hectares of land in over 80 countries have burned this year — that is an area larger than Spain, France and Germany combined. A wounded earth doesn’t just rebound from such devastation.

…Rather than preparing for what is coming, we seem determined to shut out the bad news at our doorstep.

Climate Action Tracker already ranks Canada’s efforts to address climate change as highly insufficient. Federal Liberals and Conservatives seem determined to change this to critically insufficient.

Denmark and Sweden are the only two industrialized countries likely to attain net-zero by 2050. Canada will not. The Canadian Net-Zero Emissions Accountability Act was passed in 2021, but it has no enforceable requirement that the country actually achieve net zero by 2050.

Ottawa’s update on its National Adaptation Strategy documents a good deal of activity—but little sign that any of it is actually reducing the escalating climate and extreme weather risks that Canadians face.

Canadian Climate Institute