Save Winter

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Winter provides Canadians with many things. It is a source of our identity. It makes us tough, cool and romantic. It gives us hockey, igloos, snow-capped mountains and cozy nights curled up by the fireplace. It's a source of our recreational activities. Without winter there will be no skiing, snowboarding, skating, snowball fights or snow angels.

Winter keeps millions of Canadians employed with hydroelectric power generated by melting snowpack, not to mention jobs in ski resorts, winter carnivals, making ice wine, testing snow-tires, and towing cars out of ditches.

But winter is under threat. Global Warming affects Canadian winters more than any other season. Whereas the average temperature of the globe has risen .74 degrees Celsius over the last hundred years, the average temperature of the Canadian winter has risen 2.3 degrees Celsius over the last fifty. Warmer winters threaten everything from ice fishing on Lake Erie, to alpine skiing in the Rockies, to Carnaval de Quêbec.

Heat trapping gasses released from fossil fuel production are the cause of this rise in temperature. Per person Canada produces 17 tonnes of CO2 fossil fuel pollution per year, more than all but two other industrialized nations. Canada's oil sands, our fastest growing source of heat trapping pollution, are a particularly egregious example of Canada's poor record on Global Warming.

I therefore ask you to help save winter by taking the lead with firm and responsible action to prevent Global Warming.  Please act quickly and,

- Cut Canada's per-capita emissions of heat-trapping gas pollution to the level of Norway's by 2020 via enforceable limits on greenhouse gas emissions, particularly in the oil sands.

- Build the cutting-edge new infrastructure needed to support Canada's ability to compete in the new global clean energy economy, including: mass transit, local and regional food systems, energy efficiency, and clean, renewable sources of energy.

- Invest in job and skills training programs across the country so that hard-working Canadians are equipped to be part of the solution.

Canada is a country of intelligent, educated, and responsible people. It is time for us to take the lead in preventing Global Warming.

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