Presentation Slides – Climate Change and Security: A Canadian Perspective
Margaret Purdy, Past Liu Visiting Fellow, UBC
October 24, 2008
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Climate change–induced events and conditions will pummel Canada with a myriad of significant, unprecedented security challenges in the coming decades. Yet the words ‘security’ and ‘climate change’ rarely appear in the same sentence in Canada, and an enormous gap separates Canada and its closest international partners when it comes to taking climate change–security linkages seriously.
Climate change will affect all Canadian government, private sector and non-governmental entities with national security, public safety, and international security mandates and accountabilities. Yet the topic is barely on the margins of the contemporary public dialogue in Canada around current and future security threats and priorities. Perhaps officials are discussing this issue behind closed doors in Ottawa, but it has been nearly invisible in recent policy documents from federal lead departments, such as Public Safety Canada and the Department of National Defence (Government of Canada, Privy Council Office, 2004; Government of Canada, Department of National Defence, 2008).
