Author Arno Kopecky on Canada's Election Climate
On the road with Pierre Pollution, Carbon & Carney and Greens vs Greens
On Pierre Poilievre: “He turned the carbon tax into kryptonite.”
Media-phobic Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre bravely faces-off against the editor of the venerable South Okanagan Times Chronicle - one of the fiercest reporters in all of Osoyoos!
When Skaana covers politics, we try to bring in guests who can focus on environmental issues. So I was delighted that Arno Kopecky, climate-focused journalist and author (The Environmentalist's Dilemma & The Oil Man and The Sea) was game to make time to talk about his current election adventures and coverage.
Arno has been writing about climate issues for years and right now he’s not only following Pipeline Poilievre on the campaign trail for The National Observer, but he wrote a story for The Walrus examining the disappearance of Canada’s Greens as a force of/for nature.
For non-Canadian Skaana fans, I hope this episode will give you a pretty solid sense of the eco-stakes and players in our federal election - though this came out before the Tories declared they need to end the current government’s cruel attack on helpless single-use plastics.
For Canadian listeners I’ve got to set the timeline... This interview took place the day before Canada’s federal French-language debate (April 16th) where the Greens were disqualified hours before all the candidates took the stage because they somehow misplaced over 100 candidates between the time they gave the commission a list of (random?) names and the actual election.
Arno shared the story on BlueSky with the words: “nail in the coffin.”
I responded by adding… “time of death April 16th, 4:20 PST.”
I’ve written more about why the Green party was kicked out of the debates on my personal Substack. And I’ll be writing more soon about why that was absolutely the right decision (yes, despite the terrible timing). I’ll also dive into the entertaining debate between the Green co-leaders over the reasons they didn’t have enough candidates to qualify to be on the debate stage… And why I think Arno is right about that coffin - though since the party seems determined to set themselves on fire, I think cremation would be more eco-friendly.
Meanwhile, if you’d like to throw me any questions about that - or the Canadian election - I’m gonna do a special election Q&A episode of Skaana next week… so please send any questions to us here, or through Skaana’s social media or via our website.
Long before I started writing about whales, I covered politics for all sorts of media outlets…. I even did a federal election panel once for TV Ontario. I’ve also managed and consulted on political campaigns for the NDP and the Greens… Also spent a looooooong time - most of my life - doing political satire…So, I’m digging up my political hat before Canadians go to the polls on April 28th.
Elbows up, eh.
Coming soon on Skaana…
Sperm whale expert Shane Gero.
Beatrice Frank - New Executive Director, Georgia Strait Alliance.
Lummi Tribal Elder Squil-le-he-le Raynell Morris on the new movie Resident Orca about the life and death of Sk’aliCh’elh-tenaut (Lolita/Tokitae).