Canada’s Next Government Must Prioritize Climate Justice

Canadians go to the polls on April 28th, with tariffs and the trade war between the United States dominating much of the conversation this election cycle. Amidst this turbulent political context, conversations around climate change have gone under the radar despite the rapid exacerbation of the global climate emergency during the past year.

At the end of 2024, the Senate and the House of Commons published reports on Canada’s role in responding to the global forced displacement crisis and Canada’s engagement with African countries, respectively. Climate Refugees provided input and shaped the recommendations for both reports to ensure climate justice is at the centre of Canada’s efforts.

In December 2024, the Standing Senate Committee on Human Rights published a timely report entitled Ripped From Home: The Global Crisis of Forced Displacement. The report highlights the scale of the displacement crisis, which is exacerbated as climate change negatively influences environmental, economic and physical wellbeing. 

In the recommendations presented, the Committee encourages Canada to “recognize climate displacement as an existential crisis and take an international leadership role on mitigating and adapting to climate change.” The report calls on the government to fully fund Canada’s climate finance commitments and address climate migration through international instruments such as the Convention on Statelessness. The Committee also encourages the government to consider introducing new pathways for refugees based on specific human rights considerations, such as people displaced by climate change. 

The report acknowledges the connections between climate change and displacement by asserting, “In short, climate change must no longer be thought of as a peripheral concern in the context of global displacement. It is already amplifying threats to peace and security, development and human rights, and has the potential to supercharge global displacement to unprecedented levels. Mitigating and adapting to climate change is therefore central to the nexus approach to global displacement.”

Climate Refugees contributed to the study through a joint brief with key recommendations on how Canada should respond to the global solidarity crisis for forced displacement in the context of the climate emergency. These recommendations include recognizing climate displacement, training decision-makers and officials on the intersection between refugee law and climate change, increasing humanitarian visas, developing relocation processes for internally displaced communities, and establishing long-term legislative solutions to provide a more permanent and comprehensive response to climate protection.

In November 2024, the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development published a report on a New Era of Partnerships: Canada’s Engagement with Africa. The report outlines a series of recommendations, including for Canada to address the intersection between climate change and healthcare, as well as to support climate-resilient agricultural systems. Climate Refugees contributed to the report as Amali Tower testified at the House of Commons by highlighting the impact of climate change on poverty, loss and damage, development setbacks and human rights, while underlining the climate injustice in the continent as African countries have contributed less than 4% of carbon emissions. Climate Refugees called on Canada to provide equitable, grant-based climate finance, including compensation for losses and damages, as well as for the government to take action that would help communities to adapt in place to climate change and support and facilitate voluntary migration. 

In March, the government launched its “Canada’s Africa Strategy: A Partnership for Shared Prosperity and Security.” The foreign policy is centered around five strategic areas aligned with the African Union’s Agenda 2063, including supporting adaptation and addressing biodiversity loss through Canada’s climate finance envelope, as well as through bilateral agreements and initiatives, such as the Global Carbon Pricing Challenge and Powering Past Coal Alliance. These investments are critical as the World Meteorological Organization estimates that by 2030, 118 million people living in extreme poverty across the continent will be exposed to drought, floods and extreme heat if adequate response measures are not put in place. 

As the United States retreated from global climate action under the second Trump presidency, which will have detrimental impacts on global climate finance through the dissolution of USAID, Canada has an urgent role to step up and demonstrate its leadership in global climate justice. This includes advancing protection pathways for those displaced and migrating due to the effects of the climate crisis, as recommended by the Canadian Association of Refugee Lawyers, as well as developing an ambitious and justice-centered five-year international climate finance pledge between 2026-27 and 2030-31.

Canada has disproportionately contributed to the climate crisis as it is the largest polluter in terms of cumulative emissions per population and the second highest in cumulative emissions per capita historically. Such figures underline how the next government must urgently work toward rectifying its global climate destruction by advancing justice-centered solutions to the climate crisis through ambitious climate finance pledges, including compensation for losses and damages for countries disproportionately impacted by the climate crisis, as well as innovative approaches to protect those displaced and migrating due to the complex and intertwined effects of the global climate emergency. 

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Inaction on Climate Change Poses Particular Risk to Indigenous Groups in Canada

Joris Beugels via UNSPLASH

The Canadian government’s failure to take meaningful action on climate change is putting Indigenous groups at risk of food shortages and poor nutrition, especially those in remote locations. A report by Human Rights Watch finds that habitat loss and extreme weather are major drivers of depleted traditional food sources, and nutritious food flown into communities remains too expensive.

Despite the Trudeau government’s commitments to be a leader on climate and advance the recognition of Indigenous People’s rights, Northern Canada is warming at a rate well above the global average. Provincial and territorial governments were also criticized in the report, which recommended stronger emissions reduction strategies as well as greater technical and financial assistance to communities facing negative impacts of climate change. 

One of the key implications of HRW’s report, which studied three different remote First Nations communities in Ontario, Yukon, and British Columbia, is that climate change is compounding already poor outcomes among Indigenous Peoples. For example, increasingly scarce traditional food sources are being supplemented by lower quality, less nutritious food brought in from elsewhere, which only worsens health outcomes stemming from centuries of marginalization and oppression. These intertwined issues are particularly concerning in the context of a global pandemic, in which poor health outcomes undermine coping mechanisms traditionally used to manage extreme events. 

"The horrible irony is that we have contributed very little to climate change but are facing the biggest impacts" - Vern Cheechoo, director of lands and resources at Mushkegowuk Council, which represents seven Cree First Nations in northern Ontario

In addition, this report highlights yet another example of how governments, even those that outwardly support the issues at hand, often fail to adequately include their most vulnerable constituents in discussions and policymaking. This means that even communities who take matters into their own hands, such as implementing food sharing networks and regional monitoring systems, are left with inadequate support. 

Worryingly, the findings of this latest report mainly echo previous warnings. Over a year ago, Canada’s environment watchdog found the government’s lack of progress on emissions reduction “disturbing” just days after Environment Canada’s scientists issued a warning regarding Canada’s rapid rate of warming compared to the rest of the planet. (Reuters, CBC)

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Canada Court Rules US 'Not Safe' for Asylum Seekers

Morning Brew via UNSPLASH

Canada’s federal court has invalidated its Safe Third Country Agreement (STCA) with the United States in place since 2004 because it has determined that the US violates the human rights of refugees. An STCA requires an asylum-seeker to seek protection in the first safe country they reach. Under this agreement, both countries have been able to turn back asylum-seekers attempting to enter at official crossings because they each recognized the other as safe places to seek refuge. 

In a 60-page ruling, Judge Ann Marie McDonald ruled the deal as a violation of Canada’s Charter of Rights that prevents the government from impeding the right to life, liberty and security. The deal was thus declared unconstitutional because of the US government’s practice of imprisoning migrants and asylum-seekers, citing the conditions asylum-seekers face in detention, including the lack of access to adequate health care and legal counsel.

Judge McDonald found the experience of Nedeira Mustefa particularly compelling, a Muslim asylum-seeker from Ethiopia. After Canada returned her to the United States, Mustefa was detained and placed in solitary confinement, where despite telling guards of her religious beliefs, she believes she was fed pork, was placed in solitary confinement, which she said was “a terrifying, isolating and psychologically traumatic experience”

The judge said “Canada cannot turn a blind eye to the consequences that befell Ms. Mustefa in its efforts to adhere to the STCA. The evidence clearly demonstrates that those returned to the US by Canadian officials are detained as a penalty”

The court ruling is suspended for six months to give Parliament time to respond, which it can appeal, and litigants could potentially appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada. Otherwise, the ruling is set to go into effect on January 22. 

The agreement has been under fire in Canada since the election of Donald Trump, who has actively sought to limit asylum, refugee resettlement and immigration in the United States, as well as detain and separate migrants. With increasing arrivals of Central American asylum-seekers who are fleeing violence, gang violence, crime but also the impacts of climate change and climate variability that has exacerbated poverty and left many parts food insecure, the US has pursued and entered into Safe Third Country Agreements with several Central American countries. 

University of California, Hastings College of Law professor Karen Musalo, who testified on behalf of litigants, called the decision “an indictment of the inhumanity of the American detention system for asylum-seekers.”

We could not agree more. 

(BBC, Washington Post, NY Times)

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We have written extensively about asylum conditions in the United States and the situation of Central American asylum-seekers, including the climate conditions in their countries of origin. For further reading, here’s one such Feature.  

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