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Who We Are

The La Pêche Coalition for a Green New Deal is volunteer-based, grassroots, and open to all.

We are a core group of organizers with a broad base of membership in our municipality and beyond.

We are parents, grandparents, students, activists, nature and water lovers, writers and artists who live in and love this region.

As settler-group, we recognize that we live and work on unceded, unsurrendered Algonquin territory and are committed to Indigenous solidarity and land justice.

We are a part of the decentralized global network of communities working to advance Green New Deal ideals and climate justice.

We want “rapid, far-reaching and unprecedented changes in all aspects of society” to mitigate the accelerating climate crisis and work towards a just future for all (IPCC Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5 °C).

Our Strategy

The coalition advances the Green New Deal mandate through four main avenues:

  1. Mobilizing the community to take local action
  2. Facilitating education and outreach
  3. Supporting and connecting local organizations doing climate justice work
  4. Advocating at all levels of government

Our Founders

The La Pêche Coalition for a Green New Deal was formed in February 2019 by Women’s March Network members Paula Halpin, Yolande Henry, Ilse Turnsen, Noelle Walsh, and Ellie Wilkinson along with Pierre Blin, Vagner Castilho and water activist Emma Lui.

The La Pêche Coalition for a Green New Deal was formed after the La Peche Women’s Network hosted a book launch for Corporatizing Canada: Making Business Out of Public Service – a book in which Emma Lui is a contributor. We began to link with other climate groups and became part of the nation-wide town hall meetings held in response to The Pact for A Green New Deal in Canada in May 2019. These town halls offered the principles for a Green New Deal for Canada. Over 100 people attended our town hall.

A Green New Deal

The Green New Deal (GND) is a movement to respond to the multiple and interconnected crises faced by humanity in this moment in history.

The GND offers the framework for the transformative change required toby build creating a just and sustainable future for everyone. It is far reaching and aims to reach across all levels of government to achieve the “rapid, far-reaching and unprecedented changes in all aspects of society” that the IPCC report calls for.

The Green New Deal is organized around principles of economic justice, Indigenous rights, a livable planet.

It is committed to confronting the roots of the climate crisis in Canada: capitalism and colonialism.

Corporate control of our democratic institutions is a leading barrier to meaningful action against climate change. A GND seeks economic solutions that lie outside of the Canadian history of accelerating unsustainable resource extraction.

A Just Recovery

Hundreds of organizations endorse the Principles of a Just Recovery.

As we continue to rebuild after the COVID-19 health crisis, organizations across Canada want governments to know that we cannot go back to the way things were. For years, we have witnessed the results of chronic underinvestment and inaction in the face of the ongoing, pre-existing crises of colonialism, human rights abuses, social inequity, ecological degradation, and climate change. Now, the COVID-19 crisis is forcing governments and civil society alike to reckon with the inadequacies and inequities of our systems.

This moment is a reminder that the status quo can and must be disrupted. We are standing on the threshold between the old world and the next and we must choose to build the future we want.

La Pêche

From the municipality website: “The Municipality of La Pêche, located in the Outaouais administrative region, north-west of the City of Gatineau, includes nine village clusters, namely Alcove, Duclos, East-Aldfield, Farrellton, Lac-des-Loups, Lascelles, Rupert, Sainte-Cécile-de-Masham and Wakefield. Born out of the municipal mergers undertaken by Québec’s Ministère des Affaires municipales in 1975, the Municipality covers an area of 597.74 km 2, making it the largest municipality in the MRC des Collines de l’Outaouais, and one of the largest in Québec.”

With a population of just over 8,000 residents, the population density is approximately 14 people per km2. Sixty percent of the population is bilingual. The mother tongue of fifty-eight percent of the population is French.

Unceded, unsurrendered

Since time immemorial, humans have been in relation with this land. Nomadic Algonquin Anishnàbe were the first people to live in the Ottawa Valley Rivershed. Though many more people live here now, they have never ceded or surrendered their right to it. Additionally, there is ongoing Indigenous presence and there are ongoing resistance movements today.