By Anjali Helferty, Deputy Executive Director

I’ve spent the past 15 months on parental leave, primarily attending to the minute-by-minute needs of two small humans. It’s been a beautiful and challenging time and I have to express some relief at the opportunity to return to working on our larger collective project of building a healthy world for everyone—including, but not exclusively, my own kids.

This return feels all the more critical in this moment.

Immediately before joining CAPE, I was working on a PhD. My dissertation topic, inspired by the time I had spent working in youth climate activism and coalition building in Canada and the United States, was focused on settler environmentalists’ efforts to position themselves/ourselves in solidarity with Indigenous peoples while working to stop pipelines.

As I completed my dissertation and became part of the CAPE community in the summer of 2020, one way or another the cross-country pipeline battles in Canada were all but over. 

While continuing to stand in solidarity with the Wet’suwet’en peoples fighting the Coastal GasLink pipeline, much of our CAPE work in recent years has focused on CEPA reform, passing national environmental justice legislation, banning fossil fuel advertising and working to stop greenwashing, and advocating to strengthen and pass federal climate legislation including the Clean Electricity Regulations and an oil and gas emissions cap. CAPE physicians have travelled around the world to global climate and plastics negotiations. There was some reason to hope that what had been dubbed “zombie” pipelines might finally be done with. We could move on and work towards building a healthy reality instead.

And yet, how strange to now find the zombies rising once again…

Despite this disappointing turn, I’m so glad to have returned to CAPE at this moment—when our work is as critical as it has ever been. Physician voices are exactly what are needed to provide thoughtful, just, scientifically-grounded and sensible approaches to extricating ourselves from legitimate concerns about over-reliance on our relationship with the United States. CAPE voices, speaking truth, caring and practicality, are a powerful rebuttal as cross-country pipelines weasel their way back into a collective narrative about what it means to be “reasonable” in the face of rampant unreason.

I had hoped that my doctoral work would mark the end of my focus on pipelines, and we could instead work collectively to advance policies rooted in Indigenous worldviews of health and flourishing. Yet, in returning to CAPE, I’m reminded of the unique strength we bring: a community of physicians committed to environmental justice, whose voices carry both scientific credibility and deep moral clarity. 

Regardless of next week’s electoral outcome—and I hope many of you will join me in casting a ballot on Monday—I look forward to working with this community to collectively envision a healthier future.