Ad nauseum, mainstream media have focused on the economic consequences of the blockades in support of the Wet’suwet’en Nation. Equal media attention has been dedicated to the complexities of Indigenous ancestral rights in unceded territories and who has the right to speak for the Wet’suwet’en. Rare are those who characterize the impasse as a clash of two economies, the resource-based economy and the green economy.

Jason Kenney got it half right in saying that the standoff is a “dress rehearsal” for future major fossil fuel projects.

The federal election results suggest that the first priority of the NDP must be electoral reform to bring to an end the politics of fear and the strategic vote, which favours the Liberals and Conservatives alike.

The second priority must be to engage Canada, for the first time, in an urgent migration to a green economy. The Liberal record on shifting to clean technologies is nothing short of insignificant, one of the worst records among developed countries. Meanwhile, China, and to a lesser extent, the European Union and California, are changing global economic, energy, and transportation paradigms.

Environmental liabilities are the most prominent global investment risks, according to a World Economic Forum (WEF) 2020 report.

This report’s short-term risks classified four of the top five hazards as being environmental — extreme heat waves, destruction of ecosystems, pollution’s impact on health and uncontrolled fires.

The five most significant long-term perils are also environmental, the WEF reports, with the latter list comprising extreme weather, biodiversity loss, climate-action failure, natural disasters and human-made environmental disasters.