As Canada Day approaches, it’s worth taking a moment to reflect on what our country has had to offer to the global environmental movement. We should be proud — because Canadians have made significant green contributions to business, academia, policy, and science.

No list of Canadian greenies would be complete without David Suzuki, of course. As a television broadcaster and writer, he raised our awareness as to The Nature of Things and the problem of climate change. He has received 22 honourary degrees and The David Suzuki Foundation has become a watchdog organization that is respected around the world. His daughter Severn Suzuki is an activist in her own right who electrified the 1992 World Summit in Rio De Janeiro at the age of eleven, by making a passionate deputation demanding that children’s voices be heard as we consider how our actions determine their future.

And of course, there is Greenpeace. This Vancouver non-profit sprang out of the consciousness-raising hippie movement of the sixties and seventies. Its founders brought a media-savvy, in-your-face kind of activism to the battles against whaling, old growth clear-cuts, nuclear power, and genetically modified foods.  And Pollution Probe in Toronto created a model for public interest environmental groups that has been copied around the world.

Canadians have also been pioneers in passing tough and effective legislation that protect both our own natural world, and the planet at large.  In the 1970s, Ontario passed two pieces of legislation, the Environmental Assessment Act and the Environmental Protection Act, that are still considered to be among the toughest worldwide. More recently Ontario passed the Endangered Species Act, created a greenbelt around Toronto, and introduced The Green Energy and Economy Act.

Ontario is not the only Canadian to pioneer progressive environmental legislation. Out west in British Columbia, the very first carbon tax in North America was introduced only a year ago. And our Atlantic provinces, along with Quebec, were the first to create a Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative with their neighboring New England states.

Our federal government has also made great strides in developing technologies for a cleaner greener world. Engineers from Natural Resources Canada developed world-class software to develop renewable energy called RETSCREEN. It’s available for free download in 35 languages and is currently used by NASA, among many others around the globe.

So this Canada Day, as you fire up your barbecue and sip on your Alexander Keiths beer or your Niagara Reisling, meditate on all these achievements and be extra proud to be Canadian.