Megan Leslie, former MP, climate activist and CEO of World Wildlife Fund Canada.SAM SINGH/The Globe and Mail
When I was 15, there was a proposal to put toxic waste in the empty mine shafts in my hometown of Kirkland Lake, Ont. My friends and I staged a protest in front of town hall, and that was when I realized I could be a part of my community’s decision making even though I was a kid.
Politics sort of presented itself: I went to law school at Dalhousie, and I was in former NDP leader Alexa McDonough’s riding. When she announced she wasn’t going to run again, they approached me, and I realized it was another way to realize justice in the community.
When I won in 2008, I was terrified. I was this stereotype of a gal riding her bike to work with a baguette sticking out of the basket. But I realized these MPs were just people from their communities. That’s the role of someone in the House of Commons—i.e., the House of the Common People, right?
I didn’t expect to lose in 2015. I mean, people lose their jobs. Mine just happened to be on national television.
The key is to work on real solutions. It doesn’t have to be restoring a salmon stream. It can be being kind to your neighbour. Not to get too dark, but should bad things happen in our future, it will be the fabric of community that keeps us together.
The Liberals had a nature plank in their platform, and it was strong, so I was delighted when Mark Carney got elected. Since then, we haven’t seen much action on nature, and certainly not much action on climate. When the major projects list came out, it felt like 2008—this was a list of projects from the past.
I saw Wab Kinew at a press conference about infrastructure development in northern Manitoba, and he characterized it as environmental stewardship. He refused to extract the economy and the environment from each other.
At WWF, we have this line: You don’t have to destroy nature to build Canada. You could have projects that proactively build up green infrastructure. And we’re not seeing that. I’m tired of being told, “We can’t do everything all at once.” Actually, we can. And if we don’t, it’s at our peril.
Trees hold the earth in place. If you cut down all the trees, you end up with landslides. That landslide crosses a railway track and prevents you from getting your goods to customers and from getting raw materials. It cuts off access to the town where your workers live.
It means a degraded forest that catches fire in a split second, ripping through that town, and now we have increased insurance claims. It doesn’t take much imagination to envision a future where our nature is so degraded that you cannot do business.
Everything is linked. It’s not even six degrees of separation from nature. It’s one.
The best advice I got was from my mom. I went to Ghana on exchange when I was 19, and she could tell I was going through culture shock. She wrote me a letter that said, “Always remember that even if you fall flat on your face, you are still falling forward.” That has made me a lot less scared of failure.
If you want opportunities, put up your hand and say, “I don’t know that I’m ready for this, but can somebody back me if I take a stab at it?”
A few of my favourite things
Sauna
“I’m a Finn. I grew up having sauna. It’s culturally important to me.”
White-water canoeing and kayaking
“I am really mediocre at white-water rafting, and I’ve been mediocre at it for years, but it’s a wonderful challenge. It’s about learning how to do something well enough that there isn’t any adrenaline.”
Chickadees
“They’re cheery. They’re resilient. And they can manage the Canadian winter and still make their little cheep-cheep-cheeps that speak to my heart.”