Letter to Minister Leona Aglukkaq: Canada’s Action on Climate Change

Dear Minister Aglukkaq,

The Canadian Council of Churches wishes to congratulate you on your recent appointment as Minister of the Environment and we are writing to continue the dialogue on climate change that we have enjoyed with your predecessor, the honourable Peter Kent.

Beside the meetings and correspondence with Minister Kent, we have also benefitted from meetings with former Senior Policy Advisor Monica Kugelmass and the helpful exchange we had with Mr. Dan McDougall, Canada’s Chief Negotiator and Ambassador for Climate Change, in Montreal on May 29th this year.

We do not see the climate crisis as an environmental problem that can simply be solved technically. Rather, it is a moral crisis: excessive self-interest, short-term thinking, destructive competition and greed have led to unsustainable patterns of production and consumption. We live in hope that as a society we can look beyond individual and national interests and collectively work for a better world that sustains all of us economically and ecologically—both now and for future generations.