Steven Guilbeault is a French-Canadian, schooled in political science. He is interested in preserving French culture and language. In 1992 in his early 20’s he attended Rio de Janeiro’s Earth Summit, along with Laure Waridel, Sidney Ribaux, Patrick Henn, Francois Meloche, and Beth Hunter. In 1993 on the heels of the Earth Summit, Guilbeault, along with these five individuals founded the organization “A SEED”; “Action for Solidarity, Equity, Environment, and Development”. It was incorporated as a non-profit in 1995 and officially changed it’s name to “Equiterre” in 1998. Guilbeault sat on the board non-consecutively for many years.
(Earth Summit was formerly called “UNCED”; United Nations Conference on Environment and Development. They are the group that outlined Agenda 21)
In 1997 Guilbeault joined Greenpeace Canada, in charge of their climate-change division. He was a campaign director and in 2000 was a bureau chief. In 2001 he was arrested for mischief for climbing the CN Tower in Toronto ahead of a conference on climate change.
In 2005 he coordinated the climate campaign for Greenpeace International. He resigned from Greenpeace in 2007. In 2008 he returned to Equiterre, where he stayed until 2018, before running for office in 2019.
Equiterre has been employed by the Quebec and Canadian federal governments as a certified body to conduct “energy audits”. (ironically, the Trudeau administration is currently looking at doing energy audits for private residences)
Equiterre also managed a community-supported agriculture system (CSA – also called communal Crop Sharing) of farms and consumers, including households and institutions. It is noted that CSA’s principles have many similarities to Communist ideology.
The research shows that, amongst other concerns, CSAs are not fair to farmers. They are based on the teachings of Rudolf Steiner, encouraging new forms of property ownership where land is held in-common by a community, which leases the land to farmers (very much like a tenement farm system). Steiner encouraged the idea that a network of human relationships should replace the traditional system of employers and employees. That the economy should not be based on profit. Actual profits are then to be called “rents” and trade is to be in “shares” – similar to a barter system. “Shares” of a CSA originally and predominantly consist of produce and farm products. The consumer pre-pays to the farmer and receives food in return annually. “Shares” may also be traded by “free labour” to the farm. Where have we heard all this before?
Since Guilbeault only left Equiterre in 2018, it is reasonable to assume he endorses this type of Marxist economy. From Earth Summit and Agenda 21, to Equiterre, Greenpeace, and communal CSAs, Canada’s Heritage Minister has an interesting history.