With its 500,000 lakes, unique boreal forests, polar bears and wildlife, Canada has a reputation for being one of the most beautiful places on earth. But it is being hit by increasingly frequent climatic disasters. Catastrophes with global repercussions. Yet the country is doing very little about global warming, it is one of the worst performers in the G7 and one of the world’s leading producers of fossil fuels.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has built his political program on ecology. But he has relaunched numerous oil projects, including a gigantic pipeline that will triple the country’s fossil fuel production.
We went to meet the Inuit, the first Canadians to live near the Arctic Circle, and the first victims of global warming, about to be swallowed up by rising sea levels. We also filmed the polar bears, starving and threatened by the melting ice pack. As their food runs out, they are coming closer to towns and humans. Finally, in the woods threatened by the logging industry, we see the extent to which greenwashing is wreaking havoc. Young saplings, meant to replace 10,000 year old primary forests, are now also threatened by logging and forest fires.
Is Canada, with its image as a model student and friend of nature, a climate hypocrite?