Listen to the full conversation on the Perspectives Journal podcast, available to subscribe on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube, Amazon Music, and all other major podcast platforms.
The climate crisis overlaps with the cost-of-living crisis, amid the US tariff threat. As our fossil fuel dependence exposes us to inflation and trade threats from the US, the labour and climate movements are uniting to demand more for working-class Canadians. Jim Stanford, economist and director of the Centre for Future Work and Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives senior researcher Hadrian Mertins-Kirkwood argue that green industrial strategy can make life more affordable in the long-term, and reduce our dependence on fossil fuels while charting an independent economic course for Canada.
This is the first episode of Class & Climate: Perspectives on a Green Economy, a short series from the Perspectives Journal and the Green Economy Network mapping how climate action can deliver jobs and long-term affordability for workers — while debunking myths that these goals are a zero-sum trade-off with a clean environment. In this episode, Mertins-Kirkwood and Stanford define what green industrial policy is and explain why it’s having a renaissance in the middle of the Trump trade war.
Notes
- The Green Economy Network, “Our Common Platform”, n.d., https://greeneconomynet.ca/common-platform/.
- Jim Stanford, “Canada Needs a New National Policy”, Centre for Future Work, Feb. 23, 2025. https://centreforfuturework.ca/2025/02/03/canada-needs-a-new-national-policy/
- Jim Standford, “New Report Shows Speculative Oil Markets Drove Inflation Crisis — And It’s Poised to Happen Again”, Centre for Future Work, March 19, 2025.
- Hadrian Mertins-Kirkwood and Marc Lee, “A dozen radical responses to Trump’s economic warfare that go beyond Canadian counter-tariffs”, CCPA, Feb. 3, 2025. https://www.policyalternatives.ca/news-research/a-dozen-radical-responses-to-trumps-economic-warfare-that-go-beyond-canadian-counter-tariffs/
- Hadrian Mertins-Kirkwood, “Ten Trump-proof nation-building projects for a strong, independent Canada”, CCPA, Feb. 25, 2025. https://www.policyalternatives.ca/news-research/ten-trump-proof-nation-building-projects-for-a-strong-independent-canada/
