Of all the world leaders today, you’d be forgiven for admiring Justin Trudeau’s immaculate hair with optimism. Who else among global governments possesses such a heroic-looking barnet*? (*Cockney rhyming slang; I’m one of the pre-Brexit Brexilers enjoying Permanent Residency in relatively immigrant-friendly Canada with my foreign husband and dual national baby.)
Back to JT – He’s been a snowboard instructor, a drama teacher, and a boxer. He’s personally welcomed Syrian refugees with winter coats, lovingly cuddled pandas, and taken from the rich to give to the poor. He was the first Prime Minister of Canada to march in Toronto’s gay pride parade, and he did it in a pastel pink fitted shirt that was squirted generously with water by excited onlookers. When the President of Mexico visited Ottawa to talk trade, they began business with a quick 5k run through more scenic parts of the city, side by side in tiny shorts. He has a beautiful, intelligent, empathetic, smiley wife with an incredible singing voice and three children with cool first names that he takes trick-or-treating on Halloween, and then posts photos on social media. He’s tattooed, he’s bilingual and he was born on Christmas Day…
But for all this magical wonderment of man, can he be the one to initiate this necessary transformation to a better world? To incite peace, to rouse universal contentment, to unify the divided, appease the interminably grouchy and do it all while saving the planet. Fetch that man the cape he needs, and have him say this…
--------
”My fellow Canadians,
Today and always, it is my duty as your elected leader of this country, to tell you the truth – a concept you might consider alien to many politicians.
Sometimes we avoid absolute veracity, and it’s usually because we fear the impact in terms of public reception, corporate reaction and (most often) the possibility of economic turmoil. Assessing ourselves, each other and our nation on the acquisition of money alone has been and continues to be, the root of today’s greatest problems.
It would be wrong to lay blame, to accuse, ridicule or direct any anger towards the people, places and provinces which have contributed most to our current situation. (Honestly, I like Alberta!) For it is only with informed knowledge of realities, understanding of extensive research, and with sufficient help to adapt, that we can be expected to actively engage in the essential Real Change which our Liberal Party promised to you during our 2015 campaign, and endure to pledge now. (I use the word endure, not just because synonyms keep things fresh, but because this Real Change will be both challenging and gargantuan, but for the sake of all things can no longer be dismissed. It must happen, and so it is endurance that must prevail.)
Climate Change (you must’ve known?) is not a hoax. It is not an “agenda”. It is not insignificant, or an unworthy annoyance. The truth, my friends – the TRUTH – is that whatever monetary concerns you have over the intended transitions to clean energy and green innovation, the impact of man-made climate change will be infinitely more costly. As the frequency and intensity of natural disasters increases year on year, not only will we be in enormous financial trouble, but lives will be lost and the damage to our one and only planet will become irreversible. Climate change affects you, your children, your children’s children and everyone on Earth. It should be headline news, daily.
We know our planet has gone through perilous periods in the past. Ice ages, explosive magma covered continents, it’s been hot, it’s been cold, there’ve been asteroids and dinosaurs and shifting land masses. Does this excuse ignorance for the current state of affairs? Proven to be man-made, ignited and heftily fueled by the human race, we are the ones changing the climate this time. And we have a chance to make things better.
Rarely do we hear well-intentioned specifics. (Another issue typical of the average normal-haired, no-haired, grey-haired or crazy-haired politician.) What you need are some detailed examples to ponder… While we might associate breaking records with achievements to be proud of, this is not the case with meteorology. In fact, it’s quite the opposite. We’d rather be un-breaking records for those metal-meltingly high temperatures, those baseball-sized hail stones, the wild fires that destroy homes and businesses, the floods that cause hundreds of millions of dollars of destruction, and all the extremities that we see more and more – not just because of “media prevalence these days” but because it is actually happening more.
Earth, my friends, is raging. Mother Nature is angry, at us. She is specifically angry at us. You, me, people – all people. What we have seen thus far, pales in comparison to alarmingly devastating scientific predictions of our future, which see not only coastal towns or low-lying states like Florida under water, but also entire cities and even countries lost to our over-fished, abused, chemically tainted, plastic infused, disrespected - yet crucially vital, magnificent oceans. If you think these occurrences can be rescued with sand bags and government funding, you’d better be willing to pay a lot more tax and build millions of sand bags the size of houses.
It is an insult to you, and to our planet when we suggest introducing minor lifestyle alterations to limit individual contributions to climate change, such as charging you five cents per plastic bag at the supermarket, encouraging you to recycle, asking that you take fewer showers or enticing you on to affordable local public transport with snazzy new buses or telling you to walk or cycle as we again play our “you’re all fat and unhealthy” card.
Look, the brilliant late Oscar-winning film writer and director, Anthony Minghella (who was from the Isle of Wight by the way, beautiful place), put it pretty succinctly but with evocative profundity when he wrote Renee Zellweggers line; “they made the rain, then they stand in the weather and say shit it’s raining!” …Now before any batty conspiracy theorists start yelping about chem-trails, I’m talking about our current climate change situation. Growth has been our mantra for centuries, and the last one in particular has seen excess on a frankly disgusting scale. We want more, we want bigger - we want. Our glutinous drive for superfluous living has gotten out of control. And it benefits no one in reality. It’s all nonsense. Through our own incessant doing we have relentlessly sought too much, thinking it was clever, thinking it was good, thinking it was right – and now it’s raining so hard we’re wondering if we ought to build an ark.
Yet it is despite this apocalyptic abundance of metaphorical rain, that the United Nations predict (and they know what they're talking about, y'know) that by 2030 (that's just 14 short years from now) we will have just 60% of the water we need. Not comfortably want. But need. The global water crisis will lead to disease, famine, war, and for those who still place financial woe above those, yes the consequences of this horrifyingly dramatic shortage will also cause you, personally, to have significantly less money.
You may, listener, reader, disgruntled and now terrified audience, respond defensively to my uncharacteristic derogatory tone – but let me deflate this (honestly) unintended antagonism by telling you that I too am just as guilty, if not far more so, than each and every one of you. We’ve all behaved this way because for generations now, we’ve been told to behave this way. It’s well ingrained through our repetitive choices, teachings, the way we were brought up and, most notoriously, through advertising. Ah, advertising. On a daily basis through a zillion avenues, every medium is blasting you with images and descriptions of things you don’t need, making you want them, stimulating insatiability, condoning self-indulgence and fueling the fire. The way we work, my hard-working Canadian friends, is often cited as justification for said rewards. And why shouldn’t you treat yourself when you’re working a 44 hour week with only two weeks holiday per year which will be heavily scrutinised and frowned upon by seniors if you take it because work ought to be the most important thing in your life, and why would you want to do anything else but make money?
…It’s all wrong, Canada. We’ve been doing it all wrong.
So… what can we do to fix it? Well, asides from the comparatively very easy changes I can make almost instantly (like altering a few policies, re-writing some rules and changing the law to give you five weeks paid holiday as a compulsory minimum, reduce hours of the working week and impose new regulations for immoral and ruthless advertisers), I can tell you how, together, we can save the planet. And because the planet is otherwise doomed for all eternity if we do not do these things, I am calling this real Real Change…
Doing things together, means that every individual choice combined with every other individual choice has an effect, an outcome. So you’ll be delighted to hear I can tell you exactly what you need to do…
People berate the only man on Earth who might be more delicious than me, Leonardo DiCaprio, for being (in their ignorant opinion) a hypocrite - for urging us all to care more about the environment while he whizzes around freely in his private jet. A tiresome argument, because even if Leo and his entire family flew in said aircraft every day for the rest of their lives, the collective carbon footprint will still be monumentally more twee than that of the majority with their unknowingly clumsy big feet. DiCaprio doesn’t eat meat or fish. A rumoured vegan in fact, which is even better. He is a UN Messenger of Peace, and set up the LDF to combat the damage to our land and seas. He is enormously popular with a very loud voice. And by Executive producing eye-opening documentaries like Cowspiracy; the far-reaching influence spurring the vegan movement across the western world, in turn aids our troubled planet. How? I’ll tell you in the next riveting paragraph...
Taking your canvas bags to the supermarket under the catchy and tuneful instruction of Tim Minchin, embracing a whiffy aura for the sake of a spot of saved water, or ditching your RAM 1600 turbo mega-tyre man-vehicle that can carry trees - in favour of a bicycle with a basket, will not do enough to lower your unique contribution to this global catastrophe.
Eating beans will. ...(Farts aside.)
Pythagoras (that undisputed genius who 2,500 years ago discovered all sorts of exciting numerical secrets, tutored the likes of Plato and busied himself with philosophical Mathematica) said that for as long as we kill animals we will kill each other. - In so many words. He believed people should be vegetarian and eat plant-based foods and partake in regular daily exercise – vegan students of his, incidentally, are purported to have competed and won in the Olympic Games at the time. The same sort of people who might have voted for Brexit or think Donald Trump is “alright” might scoff and say “vegetarian? He had a phobia of beans!” This is one of those things (so say the historians who know far better than I) that has become lost in translation over time. Beans were in fact used in democratic votes for various policies, and leaders. White beans were cast for positive, and black for negative. Now perhaps Pythagoras feared politics (who can blame him, it’s terrifying) but more likely is that he urged restraint from involvement in politics in order to have a clearer mind. Maybe he was implying we ought to listen to our conscience. Before you say “woah there, hunky politician, do you want us to listen to you or not?” let’s remember it wasn’t actually a politician that wrote this speech.
So, in addition to truthfully informing you that animal agriculture is responsible for a greater portion of global carbon emissions than of all transport worldwide, and that the methane released into the atmosphere is more harmful than the fossil fuels we burn, that the number one cause of the global water crisis is the inefficiencies of our unnecessary, (and utterly bonkers) animal agriculture processes; I’d ask you to consider your conscience, look at the logic and stop lying to yourselves. Long after I have finished this speech (and it will end, eventually) you can think for yourself, listen to yourself and accept that you already know veganism is the future.
Nostradamus said, "pig will become as brother to man" - which many have taken to mean that we will one day be able to communicate with animals. Quite clearly, what he meant, is that we will stop eating them. He accurately predicted a few things, that guy, so I remain faintly optimistic that he was right about this, and we will stop heartlessly gorging on our kin.
I’m a considerate man. I will cut the plastic that holds my six-pack of ethical, organic, Canadian brewed beer so that animals (namely birds, apparently) don’t get stuck in the holes. It’s a delicate operation – you have to make sure there are no remaining death-traps before discarding it in the recycling bin. Yet, that very same day, I probably ate some meat. If I had to, I’d wager it was chicken. Might have been some cheese involved. And before bed, I’ve been known to indulge in a refreshing glass of cows milk. Now, you may as I too contemplated, have called Leonardo DiCaprio a hypocrite. But in truth (truth, truth, truth) we all are - and he is significantly less so.
“We’re meat eaters, carnivorous by nature, it’s what we’ve always done!” you might cry as you raise your pitch fork and think of bacon. But I kindly remind you that there are plenty of things humans always did and no longer do. Plenty we did, that we no longer do. You know what they are. We’re evolving. All the time. Learning. Changing. Hopefully, ultimately improving. And I call this phase (this phase in which I transform the world as we know it into a cheery, happy, skipping-gleefully-through-the-fields in locally sewn clothing); “The Evolution of The Conscience”.
Vegans the world over, and for generations (believe it or not, it’s not a new thing. The scale is new, but the idea is persistent) have been living long and healthy lives, proving that man is not, or does not need to be carnivorous. Just as muscular gorillas or elephants do not require a diet of animal flesh to thrive. If you feel the uncontrollable urge to pounce on a sweet little squirrel in the street, your own back yard, or half way up one of our fortunate-to-be-remaining trees, and rip it apart with your animalistic claws and devour its raw carcass, then this is an issue we need to address. You might need some sort of psychological attention.
The truth (the consistent theme of this ever-elongated speech) is that there ought to be no difference between a pig, a cow, a sheep, a dog, a cat, or a three-legged porcupine. They are all sentient beings. Just like us, they feel fear, they experience grief. Babies bond with their mother, as the mother does in return. Don’t just read that and not think about it. Don’t tell me “plants have feelings too, lol.” Broccoli does not have the urge to play as a youngster.
The dairy industry, in particular, exceeds the cruel and torturous scenes of any Tarantino movie on a daily basis, and with not millions – but billions enduring the suffering. Cows are impregnated time and again (and not through enjoyable, consented love-making I might add) and go through pregnancy only to have their offspring stolen away from them at birth. When their udders are yanked at mechanically, they excrete not only the nutritious milk intended for her young (note: nutritious for the calf), but puss and blood and some of those hormones that they have been pumped with to keep them alive and fatten them up which now contribute to our growing antibiotic resistance, and for the poor cow (who has an individual personality just like your pet dog or cat) it’s painful and it’s endless… The milk ends up in our supermarkets where it may or may not get sold, may or may not be consumed, and most definitely is not worth the horror and immense sadness. Why cows milk anyway? Mammals with mammary glands all produce milk. Maybe the cows post-natal excretions were something someone tasted many, many, many years ago and said “I’m not interested in weaning, in “adulting” – if I can no longer suck on my mother’s breast then damn it I’ll suck this udder!” And so, over time, in the absence of an evolved conscience, we did whatever we wanted with animals. For many of our ancestors it was a decision born of necessity and desperation. We are not our ancestors. Most of us are not desperate. Animal suffering is no longer necessary.
The measure of it is probably most concerning. To the people who maintain they must make their body a morgue, perhaps we can sway them with the nonsensical scale. There are countries in Africa sending grains, pulses, protein-filled soy beans and maize to feed our livestock (who cover approximately 26% of our planets ice-free land. Yeah – we eat/waste a lot) when many there in Africa cannot feed themselves. The livestock in turn suffers, is slaughtered, and ends up very often in between bread at one of millions of fast-food eateries where if it is eaten instead of thrown away there’s every chance it was gobbled up by someone who not only doesn’t need it, but is causing extra strain on their own health by having it. These health strains in turn add cost to our health care system. Animal agriculture requires deforestation on an unimaginable scale -- in locations where crops are grown to feed 400lb cattle, crops can be grown to feed us directly. When and why did logic throw itself out the window and disappear?
My friends, I know this is a lot to take in. It’s a big change this Real Change. Akin to the abolition of slavery perhaps, or relatively recent triumphs of race, gender and sexuality equality. (There’s still a lot to be done there too - don’t worry, I’m on it.)
These are not changes that can be executed overnight (as the animals can), but rather we need to each, individually adopt these values (which we already hold, we just need to stop ignoring them) and start taking steps in the right, compassionate, logical direction. We need to embrace the brilliance that is reason and rationality. Sense. Obviousness. Otherwise our own barbaric, ridiculous, ludicrous ways will end us all, simply because we love a bit of sausage.
…It’s all wrong, Canada. We’re doing it all wrong.
So here’s what I intend to do… We will start by funding vegan education programs for doctors and nutritionists so they can advise patients how best to live a healthy life on a plant-based diet. I promise, not once will you eat a plate of grass. This is 2016 (and I don’t mind stating what year it is to strengthen my arguments), and there are an abundance of cruelty-free, delicious, hearty comestibles just waiting to be discovered by you. There’ll be apps, there’ll be seminars, there’ll be websites. We’ll increase funding for vegan start-up businesses and hike taxes on those selling meat in direct accordance with their environmental impact. We’ll ask all existing cafes, restaurants, bars and food-trucks to offer a majority of vegan foods and to implement this change as soon as possible.
Schools, hospitals, army-barracks and prisons will all offer vegan only menus by 2018. Climate change, animal rights and sentience, and nutrition will all be added to school curriculums. These subjects outweigh any other in their present level of importance. We, the Liberal Party of Canada, will be here to help you. We will set an example and become vegan ourselves. You will receive comprehensive information on what being vegan means and how to do it. And you’ll soon realise it is easy.
You can be healthy or unhealthy as a vegan, just as you can be healthy or unhealthy as a meat-eater. But the point is that you can be a healthy vegan and we can no longer afford to consume animal products at the rate we do. Why? Because the cost, my friends, is the planet. And that’s just about as expensive as it gets.
Farmers who have worked their lives and perhaps on generational small farms, to earn a living through this way of life which for so long we have said was OK (and I think we’re accepting now that we make mistakes…) will be compensated, and given enough financial aid to either start up a business in plant-based foods, or to comfortably retire. These things will cost us money – but again, not as much as ignoring the consequences of self-inflicted global warming will cost us.
The water we will save, the pollution we’ll avoid, the harm we’ll cease to do is something our great grandchildren will not only be proud of, but will thank us for – because they can.
Now, despite the points I’ve put forth being rather strong, there’ll still be people that claim they cannot live without bacon. Summer isn’t summer without a steak sizzling on the barbeque. Among other things I would like to say to those people, I would tell them with great optimism and promise that there are meat alternatives out there to appease even the most begrudging of transitioning vegans. Foods which you might consider “fake” but are in fact far less processed than the majority of meats on the market. Foods which look like meat, taste like meat and sometimes even have that faint sort of mild-poo smell like meat, that will satisfy those blood-thirsty cravings. Really – a company called Beyond Meat (invested in heavily by wise foreseer Bill Gates) makes a vegan burger which actually bleeds. If that disgusts you, think about it.
Guilt-free, healthy diets make more sense than donating to world hunger while munching on some cheese and crackers. Than sponsoring a child in Africa then indulging in a cream filled donut. Than erecting wind turbines alongside steak houses. Than hoping Nemo gets found while eating fish and chips.
...This is Canada. We are not and will not be, a country of Oxymorons.
Let us set this great example. Ban Ki Moon will be so impressed. DiCaprio might kiss me (twice – because that’s how we do it in Quebec and I’m a Habs fan… speaking as writer as well as Trudeau here.) But for all the heroics and inevitable cape-donning caricatures of me with my flowing dark locks, the reality, the TRUTH, we must not lose sight of here – is rescuing our planet. Saving it from nonsense.
Canada, we can do this. I call on you to join me in saving billions of lives. All you have to do, is go vegan. To save BILLIONS of lives. Fruit and veg. BILLIONS of LIVES. Healthy food. LIFE…
I believe in you. I believe in truth, and I believe in our future.
This is 2016, and it’s time for real Real Change.”
---
..."oh, and I will quickly repeal that stupid amendment which now states humans can engage in sexual activity with an animal legally... I must've been high when I said that was OK. They can't consent, so I cannot consent to it on their behalf. Gross. What to do when you're dealing with people that wanna shag and eat the same thing and both are simply disgusting....? Please Canada, I know you're better than this."
---
It’s quite a long speech and his encore was a bit of a shocker. He should wear something nice and have appropriate, impactful imagery accompanying his powerful words.
The transcript (this) should probably be widely circulated, just to be safe…