DEMOCRACY

To tackle our overlapping crises of climate change, racism and inequality, the people need real power.

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DEMOCRACY

To tackle our overlapping crises of climate change, racism and inequality, the people need real power.

Read More
Watch Video

VIEWS
250K

TWEETED BY
Jeremy Corbyn

VOICEOVER BY
Danny Glover

THE VIDEO

BACKGROUND

Winning system-level change means building power both inside and outside of the government.  

Inside the halls of power, we need social movement-backed candidates pushing bold policy solutions. Out in the streets, we build outside pressure through movements that are powerful enough to pressure governments to act.

We animated this “inside / outside” strategy of social change in a 2-minute video with Danny Glover, because we see it as a key approach to governing in the face of the climate crisis.  We simply cannot achieve the speed and scale of change we need without massive policy changes fueled by federal spending.

While The Leap was always a non-partisan project, it was never an apolitical one — The Leap Manifesto launched during a federal election in Canada, and we encouraged all parties to address its demands.  

In 2016, over a dozen riding associations brought resolutions endorsing The Leap Manifesto to the floor of the Canada’s New Democratic Party federal convention, causing a major rift within the party over the Manifesto’s line “There is no longer an excuse for building new infrastructure projects that lock us into increased extraction decades into the future,” which conflicted support for new pipeline projects.

In February 2018, we invited key organizers from Bernie Sanders and Jeremy Corbyn’s insurgent campaigns to deliver a message loud and clear to the NDP federal convention in Ottawa: radical politics are not a liability for the progressive left in Canada, but rather a path to power.

Courage to Leap, co-organized by The Leap and Courage, brought over 450 people together at the Museum of Nature in Ottawa — and over 5000 more via livestream — to share that transformative political vision and to experience first-hand the innovative mass organizing techniques that our friends in the US and UK have deployed to such thrilling effect.

In 2018, we organized against Doug Ford’s efforts to bring Trump-style politics to Canada. And in 2019, we pushed for the Green New Deal during the Canadian federal election, partnering with 350 Canada’s Our Time campaign on our coast-to-coast tour, and exploring each parties’ stance on the GND through the Change Everything podcast.

We’re proud that many of our team members have engaged in political organizing outside of The Leap, and gone on to political work afterwards. In 2020, our colleague Rajiv Sicora joined U.S. Congressperson Jamaal Bowman’s policy team, and in 2021, our co-founder Avi Lewis announced his intention to run in the next Canadian federal election.