a large group of people watching an election debate with four people at a table with a white table clothe on a stage.

Past Projects

Learn about some of the Ecology Action Centre's past politics and policy-related projects and initiatives!
 

2025 Canada Federal Election

2025 Canada Federal Election

Canada is holding a federal election on April 28, 2025. While tariffs, the economy and our very sovereignty are on our minds this election, the ties that bind us together as a country run deeper: iconic landscapes, clean air and water, fairness for everyone and hope for future generations. 

Voter Toolkit 

This election is an opportunity to help shape the priorities of our country. Right now, it is crucial to talk to your friends and family and engage with your political candidates on the issues that you care about.  

The EAC has published a voter toolkit to help you have some of those important conversations. Get your copy of the toolkit here! 

The topics in this toolkit are areas where the EAC has ongoing work and where we have identified clear federal actions that could be done quickly to have meaningful impacts on our communities. Given the growing polarization of political discourse, we have also included a section with tips for having difficult conversations with people who may not share your viewpoint. 

Environment Pledges

 16 of Canada's leading environmental organizations sent questionnaires to the federal political parties. A summary of responses received from four of the five main parties are reproduced on this page (one party did not respond). For detailed responses to each question from each party, click here.

Summary of Responses

  Bloc Quebecois Conservative Party Green Party Liberal Party New Democratic Party
1. Will you ensure that Canada meets its national and international carbon pollution reduction targets as detailed in the Paris Agreement and the Canadian Net-Zero Emissions Accountability Act? Yes. See detailed response. No response. Yes. See detailed response. See detailed response. Yes. See detailed response.
2. Will you ensure that Canada meets its international biodiversity targets to halt and reverse biodiversity loss as detailed in the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework? Yes. See detailed response. No response. Yes. See detailed response. See detailed response. Yes. See detailed response.
3. Will you eliminate all taxpayer subsidies, public financing, and other fiscal supports that are harmful to the climate and nature, including those to the oil and gas sector, petrochemical producers, industrial-scale resource extraction, and environmentally damaging land-use practices, and ensure that these companies do not pass the costs of reducing emissions or environmental clean-up onto the public? Yes. See detailed response. No response. Yes. See detailed response. See detailed response. Partial. See detailed response.
4. Will you support Indigenous-led conservation through policies and practices including: working in partnership with Indigenous Peoples across Canada to make collaborative decisions about the use of land, freshwater, and oceans, and supporting an increase of funding support to the Land Guardians programs, which are helping to drive the economic prosperity of Indigenous Peoples, while upholding their cultural and ecological values? Yes. See detailed response. No response. Yes. See detailed response. See detailed response. Yes. See detailed response.
5. Will you establish a permanent, high-level Office of Environmental Justice to implement Canada’s first national strategy on environmental racism and environmental justice to ensure that racialized and disadvantaged communities no longer bear a disproportionate burden from environmental degradation and preventable environmental health hazards? Partial. See detailed response. No response. Yes. See detailed response. See detailed response. Yes. See detailed response.
6. Will you deliver a plan for upgrading Canada’s electricity grid and achieving affordable, secure, net-zero electricity throughout Canada by 2035? Partial. See detailed response. No response. Yes. See detailed response. See detailed response. Yes. See detailed response.
7. Will you reinforce Canada’s Zero Plastic Waste agenda, including expanding Canada’s single use plastic bans and working with other high-ambition countries to develop a global plastics treaty that aims to end plastic pollution by 2040? Yes. See detailed response. No response. Yes. See detailed response. See detailed response. Yes. See detailed response.
8. Will you expedite the phase out of forever chemicals (PFAS), including in consumer products, to protect people in Canada? Yes. See detailed response. No response. Yes. See detailed response. See detailed response. Yes. See detailed response.
9. Will you provide long-term funding for Canada’s Chemicals Management Plan to better protect the health of people and the environment from toxic exposures, including harmful chemicals in consumer products? Partial. See detailed response. No response. Yes. See detailed response. See detailed response. Yes.

2024 Nova Scotia Provincial Election

2024 Nova Scotia Provincial Election

Nova Scotia held a provincial election on Tuesday, Nov. 26, 2024. 

The many crises facing Nova Scotia – from the high cost of living to polarization to environmental degradation – are interconnected. It is critical that our political leadership has the courage, clear plans and resolve to respond to these crises in a way that prioritizes care for all our communities and the ecosystems that sustain us.    

Platform Analysis

The Ecology Action Centre (EAC) has reviewed available party platforms, election promises made on the campaign trail and responses to community organization surveys to provide a picture of where each party stands on a variety of environmental, biodiversity and climate issues. Read the platform analysis here.

This analysis is not an endorsement of any of Nova Scotia’s political parties or their candidates and is not a reflection of their previous work on the environment.  

Voter Toolkit

The EAC has published a voter toolkit to help you engage your candidates and have conversations on climate, biodiversity and environmental justice. This election season, make the environment part of the conversation! View the voter toolkit here.

2024 Nova Scotia Municipal Elections

2024 Nova Scotia Municipal Elections

All Nova Scotia municipalities will held municipal elections on Oct. 19, 2024. The results of these 2024 elections will set the tone of locally based environmental action for the next four years. You can help make climate and environmental justice top election issues and help build your community around sustainability.

Voter Toolkits

For the 2024 municipal elections, the Ecology Action Centre (EAC) has prepared toolkits for voters, including summaries on key environmental issues, questions to ask candidates and what to listen for in their responses.

Find the toolkit for Halifax Regional Municipality here, the toolkit for rural municipalities here and the toolkit for Cape Breton Regional Municipality here.

HRM Candidate Survey

The EAC asked candidates running in the 2024 municipal election in Halifax Regional Municipality (HRM) seven questions about some of the key environmental and social issues in the area. Read their responses below!

Please note: HRM electoral districts have changed for the 2024 election. See the updated district boundaries here, or search for your address using an interactive look-up tool here.

Candidates for Mayor

Candidates for Councillor, District 1 (Waverley - Fall River - Musquodoboit Valley)

Candidates for Councillor, District 2 (Lawrencetown - The Lakes - Chezzetcook - Eastern Shore)

Candidates for Councillor, District 3 (Dartmouth South - Woodside - Eastern Passage)

Candidates for Councillor, District 4 (Cole Harbour - Preston - Westphal - Cherry Brook)

  • James Aalders did not complete the survey
  • Joe Colley's survey response
  • Nicole Johnson did not complete the survey
  • Trish Purdy did not complete the survey

Candidates for Councillor, District 5 (Dartmouth Centre)

Candidates for Councillor, District 6 (Dartmouth East - Burnside)

Candidates for Councillor, District 7 (Halifax South Downtown)

Candidates for Councillor, District 8 (Halifax Peninsula North)

Candidates for Councillor, District 9 (Halifax West - Armdale)

Candidates for Councillor, District 10 (Halifax - Bedford Basin West)

Candidates for Councillor, District 11 (Spryfield - Sambro Loop)

Candidates for Councillor, District 12 (Timberlea - Beechville - Clayton Park - Wedgewood)

Candidates for Councillor, District 13 (Prospect Road - St. Margarets)

Candidates for Councillor, District 14 (Hammonds Plains - Upper Hammonds Plains - Lucasville - Middle & Upper Sackville)

Candidates for Councillor, District 15 (Lower Sackville - Beaver Bank)

Candidates for Councillor, District 16 (Bedford - Wentworth)

 

2021 Nova Scotia Provincial Election

2021 Nova Scotia Provincial Election

As we face the intersecting crises of climate change, rising inequity and biodiversity loss, we don’t have time for leaders who are stuck in outdated ways of thinking about our environment and our economy. We need true leadership and political will to protect the communities and ecosystems we all love and rely on and ensure a future where everyone living in Mi’kma’ki/Nova Scotia can thrive.   

We need leaders that do more than make empty promises. We need an ambitious vision for our future and concrete steps for how to achieve it. In 2021, we demanded No More B.S.  

No more B.S.  

What did we mean by No More B.S.? Aside from the obvious, we simply meant No More Bad Stuff! No more Big Subsidies to corporations that threaten our environment and our climate. No more Bad Stewardship of the natural spaces we love. No more Burning Stuff like fossil fuels and biomass. No more Bad Salmon farming threatening our marine ecosystems. No more Backwards Systems that fail to take care of our communities.  

EAC’s Four Asks 

  1. Bold Climate Plan  - We have a legislated target to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 53 per cent below 2005 levels by 2030. Getting there means: 90 per cent of our electricity comes from renewable sources by 2030, targets and incentives must exist for electric vehicles and investments made in energy efficiency and building retrofits. Money spent on outdated industries that threaten our climate and the long-term stability of our economy like offshore oil and gas, large scale biomass, and natural gas must stop. 

  2. Resilient Communities  - In an increasingly unstable climate, our communities need to be adaptive and resilient. This means investing in vibrant and accessible local food systems and active transportation, and integrating climate adaptation concerns in all decision-making across all government departments. It means that our coastal communities are protected from sea-level rise and that all municipalities are provided with adequate funding to implement their municipal climate action plans.   

  3. Healthy Ecosystems - To ensure a livable and sustainable future, we need to do more to protect the ecosystems we all rely on. This means increasing protected areas, reforming our forestry practices, and banning harmful industries that threaten our province’s biodiversity like open-net pen aquaculture and large-scale biomass burning.  

  4. No One Left Behind - We must ensure that all our communities are given the support they need to thrive, and that we all benefit from the transition to a green economy. This means creating thousands of good, green jobs and a just transition for workers, updating environmental decision-making processes to include a race-equity lens, and ensuring all provincial laws are consistent with the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.  

All Party Debate

Before the last provincial election in 2021, the EAC, Sierra Club Atlantic Canada Chapter and the Council of Canadians hosted a debate to hear the view of each pollical party on critical issues related to the climate and biodiversity crises. 

The debate was held at the Ummah Mosque and Community Centre in Halifax and live-streamed on YouTube. Opening remarks were delivered by Maggy Burns, EAC Executive Director. The moderator was Sheldon MacLeod, journalist and host with Saltwire.com. 

Additional Resources

Party Platform Analysis

We've reviewed available environmental party platforms to provide an objective picture of where each party stands on critical environmental, biodiversity and climate issues.     

The targets and promises of each of the parties are taken from their platforms and/or websites, except where otherwise indicated. Click here to read the full Party Platform Analysis from the 2021 provincial election. 

 

2020 Nova Scotia Municipal Elections

2020 Nova Scotia Municipal Elections

In HRM, there was unanimous adoption of the Halifax Green Network Plan and climate change action plan. This, as well as the unprecedented community support for climate, nature, and sustainability that was witnessed through the climate marches, support for Blue Mountain-Birch Cove Lakes Regional Park, and the success of the Shaw Wilderness Park, have shown that now is the time to be ambitious and committed to building our community sustainably. 

To help our community engage candidates, we've put together toolkits for voters no matter where they live in the province. 

Municipal Election Toolkits 

HRM Election Toolkit 

Our 2020 Election Toolkit featured significant environmental issues, sample emails and questions, and key information for voters in the region. Click here to view the Toolkit. 

Election Toolkit (Outside of HRM)  

Our 2020 Toolkit was designed to provide a starting point to raise awareness for environmental issues in your community and assist your future elected representatives to take environmental action outside of HRM. Click here to view the Toolkit.  

Survey of Candidates for HRM Election

In the last municipal election, we sent a survey to all HRM candidates. The survey provided an opportunity for candidates to pledge support for some of the major environmental and social issues affecting our region.

View candidate survey responses here. 

Read the list of questions (without responses) here. 

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