Community action/Canada
| Map | |
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| Location | Canada |
| Coordinates | 61° 4' 0.09" N, 107° 59' 30.15" W |
The aim of this page is to recognise, celebrate and encourage the self-empowerment of community agency networks (CANs) and community groups' activism for climate, environment and many other sustainability topics across Canada.
News
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‘My own contribution’: the Ottawa immigrants learning to retrofit homes and fight the climate crisis, theguardian.com (Apr 30, 2026) — Canadian social enterprise hopes to help solve the urgent need for retrofits and shortage of skilled workers- Where the wild things thrive: Finding and protecting nature’s climate change safe havens, theconversation.com (Dec 17, 2025)
- Youth Climate Assembly Spotlights Climate Risks, Accountability, Urges Oil and Gas Emission Cuts, theenergymix.com (Nov 11, 2025)
- How one Kenyan community is building a new future on reclaimed ground, globalvoices.org (May 14, 2026)
- Data Centres Need a Social License to Operate, demnext.substack.com (May 13, 2026) — How lessons from citizens' assemblies are highly relevant for the future of AI infrastructure and data centres, Another Democratic Future and Claudia Chwalisz
- Argentina’s co-operativas escolares: A case study in co-op education, thenews.coop (May 12, 2026) — In 1946, national legislation formally established the teaching of co-operativism and the creation of school co-operatives
Networks and sustainability initiatives
[edit | edit source]- Canadian Environmental Network
- Green Communities Canada
- The Otesha Project, national youth-led charitable organization that seeks to educate and empower youth to make sustainable lifestyle decisions and consumer choices.
- Transition Initiatives Directory
Each week 3 different short videos from across the world.
Community networks, Community action/Philippines, Arts, sport and culture / ...This week's featured UK videos / ... read more about Cosmolocalism
International events
[edit | edit source]Global or International events
May 1 - 3, 2026 (Fri - Sun) first weekend of May every year — Jane's Walk, How to Lead a Jane's Walk, Video, janeswalk.org- May 03, 2026 (Sun) — International dawn chorus day, first Sunday of May, wildlifetrusts.org
- May 3 - 9, 2026 (Sun - Sat) — International Compost Awareness Week, compostfoundation.org
- May 9 and Oct 10, 2026 — World Migratory Bird Day, worldmigratorybirdday.org
- May 20, 2026 (Wed) — World Bee Day, May 20 each year, fao.org
- May 21, 2026 (Thu) — Outdoor Classroom Day, celebrating and inspiring outdoor learning and play, outdoorclassroomday.com
- May 22, 2026 (Fri) — International Day for Biological Diversity, May 22 every year, cbd.int
2021-2030, UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration, International community action events
Canada video
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Visions
[edit | edit source]- IMAGINING 2080, Jayne Engle, Published in Dark Matter Laboratories, Nov 6, 2023, provocations.darkmatterlabs.org. Dark Matter Labs team works with partners, clients, and collaborators across the world, researching and developing new institutional support frameworks for collaborative system change.
Commons
[edit | edit source]Great Lakes Commons, a grassroots effort to establish the Great Lakes as a thriving, living commons — shared and sacred waters that we all protect in perpetuity.
Climate action
[edit | edit source]- climacan25, Canadian Youth Climate Assembly, added 11:40, 14 December 2025 (UTC)
- Canada People's Climate Plan
Rates of acceptance (belief) for ongoing climate change
According to a 2020 survey of the Canadian Nuclear Association, climate change concerns Canadians more than any other issue.
In a 2021 survey, Nanos Research found that 30% of Canadians reported that climate change was their top worry, 2nd place behind inflation (36%) and ahead of the COVID-19 pandemic (29%).
Canadians think the threat posed by climate change is higher than their United States counterparts do, but slightly below the median opinion of other nations included in a Pew Research Center survey in 2018. However the majority of Canadians in every electoral riding of every province in Canada believe that climate is changing.
Rates of acceptance (belief) for ongoing climate change are highest in British Columbia and Quebec, and lowest in the prairie provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan. In a survey published by the University of Montreal and colleagues, national belief that the earth was warming was at 83%, while 12% of respondents said the earth was not warming. However, when asked if this warming is due to human activity, only 60% of respondents said "yes".
- Energy Action Coalition, coalition of 50 youth-led environmental and social justice groups coordinating on state, regional, and national levels in the United States and Canada.
Policy assessments
According to data in 2021, for giving the world a 50% chance of avoiding a temperature rise of 2 degrees or more Canada should increase its climate commitments by 57%. For a 95% chance it should increase the commitments by 160%. For giving a 50% chance of staying below 1.5 degrees Canada should increase its commitments by 215%. W
Climate change in Canada
Climate change is greatly impacting Canada's environment and landscapes. Extreme weather has become more frequent and severe because of the continued release of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. The number of climate change–related events, such as the 2021 British Columbia Floods and an increasing number of forest fires, has become an increasing concern over time. Canada's annual average temperature over land warmed by 1.7 °C (3.1 °F) between 1948 and 2016. The rate of warming is highest in Canada's north, the Prairies, and northern British Columbia. The country's precipitation has increased in recent years and wildfires expanded from seasonal events to year-round threats.
As of 2022, Canada was the world's 11th highest emitter of carbon dioxide (CO2) and as of 2021 the 7th highest emitter of greenhouse gases. Canada has a long history of producing industrial emissions going back to the late 19th century. In 2022 transport, oil and gas extraction, and fugitive emissions together emitted 82% of the country's total emissions. From 1990 to 2022, GHG emissions from conventional oil production increased by 24%, those from multi-stage fracturing techniques increased by 56%, and emissions from oil sands production increased by 467%. This has led to criticism against Canada for committing to reducing greenhouse emissions while supporting its oil and gas industry.
Canada committed to reducing its greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 30% below 2005 levels by 2030 under the Paris Agreement. In July 2021, Canada enhanced the Paris Agreement plans with a new goal of reducing emissions by 40–45% below 2005 levels by 2030, enacting the Canadian Net-Zero Emissions Accountability Act. In 2019, the House of Commons voted to declare a national climate emergency in Canada. Several climate change mitigation policies have been implemented in the country, such as carbon pricing, emissions trading and climate change funding programs.
Biodiversity
[edit | edit source]- PlantWatch enables citizen scientists to get involved by recording flowering times for selected plant species and reporting these dates to researchers, who work to identify ecological changes that may be affecting the environment. Data is added to Web map showing bloom dates across Canada. link checked 15:03, 25 November 2021 (UTC)
Yellowstone to Yukon Conservation Initiative
Yellowstone to Yukon Conservation Initiative or Y2Y is a transboundary Canada–United States not-for-profit organization that aims to connect and protect the 2,100 miles (3,400 kilometres) Yellowstone-to-Yukon region. Its mission proposes to maintain and restore habitat integrity and connectivity along the spine of North America's Rocky Mountains stretching from the Greater Yellowstone ecosystem to Canada's Yukon Territory. It is the only organization dedicated to securing the long-term ecological health of the region.
Since 1993, more than 700 partner groups have joined forces to support the shared mission and vision. Y2Y's work is a collaborative effort of conservation groups, government agencies, Indigenous governments, landowners, wildlife scientists, planners, businesses, economists, and other individuals and groups interested in protecting native wildlife, ecological processes, and wilderness in the Rocky Mountains of North America.
Existing national, state, and provincial parks and wilderness areas anchor the system, while the creation of new protected and special management areas provide the additional cores and corridors needed to complete it. This network is built upon the principles of conservation biology, various focal species assessments, the knowledge of local and traditional residents, and the requirements for sustainable economies.
Rewilding
[edit | edit source]The Rewilding Institute is an organization concerned with the integration of traditional wildlife and wildlands conservation to advance landscape-scale conservation. It was founded by environmental activist Dave Foreman.
The Rewilding Institute's mission is to work toward the survival and flourishing of large carnivores in North America by promoting the establishment of suitable habitats in the wilderness, which are permanently interconnected as to allow their natural movement. They believe that humans and large carnivores can and should co-exist in North America. They wish to undo the damage done by over-hunting, over-logging, and exploitation of natural resources. Through continent-scale conservation efforts, they hope to prevent further extinctions of large predators, and to restore them to their function of maintaining the ecological balance of animal life in the wild. They have proposed reestablishing wild populations of wolves in interconnected, protected habitats, so that they can resume their ecological role. As part of their program, they have worked to get wildlife crossings included in interstate highway projects. W
- Rewilding Earth, home of the Rewilding Institute
Environment quality
[edit | edit source]Community involvement
[edit | edit source]- Every One Every Day Kjipuktuk/Halifax, added 15:16, 23 February 2021 (UTC)
- Participatory Canada, added 15:18, 23 February 2021 (UTC)
- Strong Towns "supports thousands of people across the United States and Canada who are advocating for a radically new way of thinking about the way we build our world. Strong Towns is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization. Our work is performed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. Please share with others to use for good." added 16:00, 30 November 2020 (UTC)
Community currencies activism
[edit | edit source]Commons Currency Project, Imagining a Great Lakes Commons Currency
Community energy
[edit | edit source]Delivering Community Power, Canadian Union of Postal Workers plan to turn every post office in Canada into a hub for a just green transition...The Alternative UK, Feb 12, 2019.
Cycling activism
[edit | edit source]Canada Bikes, the national voice for commuter, touring and recreational cycling - Critical Mass bicycle rides in Canada
Ethical consumerism
[edit | edit source]The Buy Nothing Day site through the Adbusters Media Foundation - Fairtrade settlements in Canada
Food activism
[edit | edit source]Face Your Farmer on pinterest - Open Food Network, Canada - Solar cooking resources in Canada - Wikipedia category: Food markets in Canada
Hunters' and Trappers' Committee in Aklavik, Northwest Territories
For thousands of years, Inuit communities in far northern Canada lived seminomadically, surviving off of whatever wild game they could hunt. But starting in the mid-20th century, climate change, colonialism, and economic changes had a devastating impact on people in places like Aklavik. Caribou herds shrank and migration patterns changed. The Inuit were forcibly resettled in prefabricated towns and their sled dogs culled by authorities. As demand for seal and fox furs fell and resettlement accelerated, hunters were forced into employment or into nine-to-five jobs, reducing both time and money for hunting.
With fewer hunters, food had to be flown in at exorbitant prices — as much as $38 for a bag of grapes that would cost only a few dollars in the south. As a result, the Aklavik Hunters' and Trappers' Committee and several other groups across the Arctic have established community fridges, where hunters or people who have been fishing drop off surplus meat. The hunters are reimbursed for certain fees and the food is distributed to people in need, following a centuries-old Inuit tradition of delivering one's surplus catch to the elderly and isolated. Canada's largest Inuit advocacy group, the Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami, has launched a food security mapping project to track similar initiatives across the Arctic...@Shareable, Aklavik Hunters and Trappers Committee – Community Harvesters, itk.ca
Reduce, reuse, repair and recycle
[edit | edit source]Sharing
[edit | edit source]Halifax Tool Library (HTL), is a tool lending library based in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Members pay an annual subscription and may borrow specialized tools for home repair, maintenance, building projects, community projects, gardening and landscaping. The HTL is a Non Profit community organization. The HTL offers standard, Student/Low-Income option, and organizational memberships to non-profits and small businesses. The HTL is supported by Dalhousie University student union, Ecology Action Centre, Parker Street food & furniture bank, Forest Friend, Bike Again, North Brewing Company, Catalyst, Fusion HFX, Deiter's tool and Saw. W
Urban sustainability
[edit | edit source]- Evergreen, national non-profit transforming public spaces in our cities to build a healthier future for people and our planet. Evergreen Canada on youtube.com, added 21:40, 13 March 2025 (UTC)
- 8-80 Cities, Canadian based non-profit organization with an international outlook, promote walking and bicycling as activities and urban parks, trails and other public spaces as great places for ALL.
- Depave Paradise
- RAIN, urban stormwater program designed by Green Communities Canada to maximize community engagement and action.
Public interest law resources
[edit | edit source]Ecojustice Canada, Canadian non-profit environmental law organization that provides funding to lawyers to use litigation to defend and protect the environment. W
Apps for sustainability
[edit | edit source]Apps for Climate Action Contest winners, September 16, 2010
Other resources
[edit | edit source]- ecoENERGY Efficiency and Alternative Transportation Fuels, information from Natural Resources Canada
- Life Off Grid, film about people who have chosen to build their lives around renewable energy
About Canada
[edit | edit source]Campaigns
Past events
- June 7, 2014, 100in1day, transform your city (Vancouver, Toronto, Montreal, Halifax)
- May 26, 2014, Bike Day in Canada is about bringing together the public, cycling organizations and members of all three levels of government across Canada, to ride on the same day. The day is dedicated to highlighting the importance of cycling in Canada as a healthy, affordable and environmentally friendly form of physical activity, transportation and tourism...Canada Bikes media release, April 15, 2014
Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, making it the second-largest country by total area, with the longest coastline of any country. Its border with the United States is the longest international land border. The country is characterized by a wide range of both meteorologic and geological regions. With a population of over 41 million, it has widely varying population densities, with the majority residing in its urban areas and large areas being sparsely populated. Its capital is Ottawa and its three largest metropolitan areas are Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver.
Indigenous peoples have continuously inhabited what is now Canada for thousands of years. Beginning in the 16th century, British and French expeditions explored and later settled along the Atlantic coast. As a consequence of various armed conflicts, France ceded nearly all of its colonies in North America in 1763. In 1867, with the union of three British North American colonies through Confederation, Canada was formed as a federal dominion of four provinces. This began an accretion of provinces and territories resulting in the displacement of Indigenous populations, and a process of increasing autonomy from the United Kingdom. This increased sovereignty was highlighted by the Statute of Westminster, 1931, and culminated in the Canada Act 1982, which severed the vestiges of legal dependence on the Parliament of the United Kingdom.
Near you
[edit | edit source]Montreal - Toronto - Vancouver]
Alberta - British Columbia - Manitoba - Ontario - Quebec - Saskatchewan
External links
- Environment of Canada, Poverty in Canada
- Cascadia (bioregion) W
Wikipedia categories: Environment of Canada, Environmental issues in Canada
- The Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development
- Top 5 Cities To Live in Canada as an Immigrant
| Authors | Phil Green |
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| License | CC-BY-SA-3.0 |
| Cite as | Philralph (2014–2025). "Community action/Canada". Appropedia. Retrieved May 31, 2026. |