Editor:
Regarding the NDP’s controversial Leap Mani-festo that threatens to tear the party apart, I feel the debate misses the point.
An article in the April 16 edition of The Globe and Mail describes the Manifesto, authored by writer Naomi Klein and her husband, documentary filmmaker Avi Lewis, as a Utopian vision, not an economic blueprint for the real world – in fact, a recipe for economic disaster.
It’s true that the document, which has so far been endorsed by more than 37,000 people including numerous celebrities, sets an ambitious target of making Canada’s electricity industry 100 per cent renewable within 20 years and the entire country fossil fuel free by 2050. It also seeks to terminate trade agreements that hinder or eliminate the ability of local or regional governments to pursue green initiatives.
In such a transition, what happens to workers in the old paradigm? Do we retrain oil workers as windmill makers? the article snidely asks.
The point is that yes, in the current socio-economic paradigm, the Manifesto is visionary. But it is the opposite of unrealistic if we are serious about meeting our Paris commitment to keep global warming below a 2 degrees Celsius rise or face environmental catastrophe.
This is going to take a massive shift and re-envisioning of values and lifestyle on a scale not seen since the Second World War, when our economy was restructured to meet the demands of the war effort. We did it then, and we can do it now.
Yes, even with political will, the Leap Manifesto is ambitious. But it clearly defines the problem and sets out an agenda that we can aspire to. As Barack Obama once said, yes we can.
Michael Siddall, Sechelt
