Nash reflects on her time in Copenhagen

Inside Toronto - The Villager

ERIN HATFIELD

Sitting in a coffee shop on Queen Street West in Parkdale, surrounded by aging highrises and hundred-year-old homes, Peggy Nash said she can see the potential impact a greener Canada could have on Toronto's west end.

"Young people could train in retrofitting; we live in an area with a lot of old houses and old towers that are not very energy efficient," Nash said. "The jobs that could be created retrofitting these buildings could be just the kind of jobs that these young people could train for and become skilled at."

That is where the people of Parkdale, and Canada as a whole, missed out with the recent United Nations - Climate Change Conference, which ran Dec. 7 to 18, Nash said. The talks failed to hammer out a concrete commitment for curbing climate change.

The former Member of Parliament for Parkdale-High Park, current president of the New Democratic Party of Canada and labour negotiator, was able to join the delegates participating in the activities around the UN talks on climate change for a few days last week.

Nash was part of the non-governmental delegations as a labour delegate, under the umbrella of the Canadian Labour Congress.

The labour movement in Copenhagen, Nash said, was pushing for a serious commitment to reduction in greenhouse gas emissions that are enforceable, but they are also pushing for the recognition for the need for good jobs.

According to Nash, the fundamental question of our time is, are we going to be able to reduce greenhouse gas emissions for the benefit of the plant and future generations?

"We are in the middle of a global economic crisis and even though there are some signs of recovery, thousands of people will continue to loose their jobs. For people who have lost their jobs many of them have only found precarious work, temporary and low pay," she said. "So it seems to me we have a global opportunity for the leaders of the world to lead a transformation to a low carbon world, but a world where we make the transition to offering decent, secure jobs.

"Pound for pound our community probably has more creativity and innovation than most other communities in the world and I have a lot of confidence in people here, once they believe there is a welcoming atmosphere and a desire on the part of government to embrace that innovation," she said.

For a lot of Canadians who believe the time is now for our leaders to act in a bold way, Nash said, the results of Copenhagen were disappointing. She added it would have been helpful to have Canada's voice pushing for something more constructive.

"It seems to me in a country as vast as Canada with a relatively small population we ought to be global leaders," she said.

From the presentations and discussions she heard in Copenhagen, Nash said she learned that first and foremost there needs to be a serious commitment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.