On a boat to Iqaluit, Steven Guilbeault and Reese Wainman talk climate

Where will a disillusioned former federal environment minister and an Inuvik teenager find common ground on climate and politics?

Steven Guilbeault and Reese Wainman joined Cabin Radio from the deck of the MV Ocean Nova this week, where they are two participants in a Students on Ice expedition from Nuuk, Greenland to Iqaluit.

Guilbeault, a former Greenpeace activist, was the federal Liberal environment minister from 2021 to 2025. After moving to Canadian Heritage, he quit Mark Carney’s cabinet last November over a federal oil sands pipeline deal with Alberta. He then said in May he would step down as an MP, accusing Ottawa of severely weakening its stance on climate change.

Wainman, who is Gwich’in and Inuvialuit, is one of the NWT’s top young curlers and was a flagbearer for the territory at this year’s Arctic Winter Games in Whitehorse. In a biography published by Students on Ice, she describes herself as having “a strong connection to the land and my family’s roots.”

For 12 days, they are among 60 youth and 35 adults on the North-to-North Expedition, which Students on Ice – a youth leadership foundation – hopes will “strengthen cooperation across the Arctic through learning, dialogue, and relationship building.”

Much of the trip focuses on climate, which is something Guilbeault and Wainman each want to talk about.

Guilbeault thinks the federal government is getting it wrong. Wainman thinks her community might need to pay more attention.

Here’s our conversation. You’ll be able to get this as a podcast a little later in the week.

This interview was recorded on July 14, 2026. The transcript has been lightly edited for clarity.

Ollie Williams: Where are you both?

Wainman: We’re crossing the Davis Strait from Greenland to Northern Labrador.

Steven, tell us what’s going on.

Guilbeault: Reese and I are part of this expedition from Students on Ice about awareness around issues like climate change, but also reconciliation. More than half of the youth participants are Indigenous.

We left Ottawa last Friday, made it to Nuuk, and we’ve been on the ship since late Friday evening, sailing the southwestern coast of Greenland. As Reese just said, we’re now crossing into Canada.

Reese, you are no stranger to the Arctic. You live in it. Why did you want to be a part of this?

Wainman: I see a lot of these issues with climate change first-hand. Being here and talking to people from different Arctic regions has been super interesting.

There are so many people here that have so much to offer, and there’s such a huge age range with everyone here. Everyone is at different stages of life and there’s so much to learn.

Walk me through your experience during an average day on that boat.

Wainman: The past few days we’ve been waking up docked, then we go out in the Zodiacs and tour around, look at icebergs, go onto the land. We’re being offered different workshops every day with all the educators – I think there are 30-something educators on the trip.

Today, we went on a workshop visiting hot springs and doing geochemical measurements on the hot springs. And we also went in the hot springs.

Guilbeault: We visited Norse ruins on that island with a guide who is from a community nearby. We had some whale meat. It’s a wide range of topics that both the participants as well as the educators get to go through every day.

This trip is taking place in a broader geopolitical moment of flux. Steven, what relevance and what message do you see in this trip? What do you want the politicians who you spend a lot of your time around to hear and see from this?

Guilbeault: For a lot of people, climate change is not something that’s necessarily very tangible unless they live in an area that gets evacuated because of forest fires or they’re victims of floodings. For a lot of Canadians, and frankly a lot of people around the world, it’s not something they can feel easily.

We were at the mouth of a glacier yesterday that’s more than 200 million years old and that has receded. It has basically melted by more than a kilometre in the last 20 years. You could actually see where it would have been. We were in Zodiacs, where the glacier would have been 20 years ago, and now it’s so far away that probably, in another 20 years, it won’t be there any more. Bearing witness is an important part of this expedition.

Reese, to what extent has climate change been a factor in your life in Inuvik?

Wainman: I always use this example: at my family’s cabin, the land has been receding so much over the past few years. I don’t even know how much longer it’s going to be there.

I’ve been to a lot of land-based learning camps and I’ve learned so much, and it’s made me so much more aware of my surroundings at home, and it’s honestly changed my perspective on a lot of things.

The federal government and its relationship with the North have changed significantly. We now have talk of billions of dollars in investment in things like defence, major projects. At the same time, the messaging from the federal government around climate change has receded a bit. Steven, you were central to a lot of this for the past couple of years. How do you analyze what’s happening in that relationship between Ottawa and the North right now?

Guilbeault: It is somewhat of a paradox that at the same time we’re starting to invest more in the North – you talked about infrastructure, we could talk about housing – we’re going back on many of our commitments to fight climate change.

Some people will say, “Well, you know, Canada is a small country. What does it matter if we don’t do our fair share when it comes to fighting climate change?” Well, people should remember that Canada is one of the top 10 overall greenhouse gas emitters in the world although we’re only 40 million people on a planet of almost eight billion, so what we do in Canada matters.

As environment minister, I would always say: “How can I convince other countries, say China or India or others, that they need to do their fair share if we – a country that has a lot of wealth, a lot of natural resources – don’t do our fair share?” And that’s where I respectfully disagree with the prime minister.

I don’t think climate change is something we can ignore. We can try, but climate change won’t ignore us. We are seeing now, year after year, tens of thousands – if not hundreds of thousands – of Canadians being impacted by climate change, and putting climate change on the back burner will just make it worse.

Reese, you are growing up in a community that stands to gain from these billions of dollars in funding that are being talked about. That’s wrapped up in the bigger picture of how we balance that with concerns about the climate, and the change that northerners see around us the whole time. How do you think about all of that?

Wainman: I definitely see a lot of lack of education in my community around these sorts of issues. I find myself having to go out of my way to learn about all of these things. Like the highway that’s being talked about, I don’t see my community being super educated on all of these topics.

Steven, was there a way to invest in the North that would meet your goals for how Canada should address climate change, while meeting the North’s goals for how people earn money and, frankly, feed their families?

Guilbeault: Absolutely. I think we can ensure we make those investments that are necessary in the North while continuing on a path to reduce our climate pollution. These two things can and in fact should go hand in hand.

Not doing our fair share when it comes to fighting climate change will mean more climate change in the North. It will mean we will have to put more monies to help people and communities like Reese’s community adapt to the impacts of climate change, which will continue growing unless we and others do what we’re supposed to do.

So, in a way, we’re not helping the North by trying to help the North. That’s why I felt I had to leave both cabinet and now my seat as a member of Parliament.

Are you resigned to the fact that climate’s going to be on a federal back burner for the foreseeable future?

Guilbeault: I’m afraid so. I would like to tell you it’s just a phase and it’s going to change. But we’re seeing so much backsliding when it comes to climate change policies, and such a pivot toward fossil fuel development.

Just a little over a year ago we were in the middle of an election campaign, and the Liberals ran on a platform which outlines our commitments, our promises to Canadians, and “pipeline” wasn’t mentioned once in that document. Climate change was mentioned 28 times. I helped write this platform.

All of a sudden now we’re seeing this pivot from government, which I can’t explain, which is why I’m leaving. And I think there are a lot of people in Canada who are wondering what is happening.

Reese, how long are you on the boat?

Wainman: Today is day four. I think it’s seven more days. Twelve days total. It’s been amazing so far, everything we’ve done.

Guilbeault: I second that.

Wainman: Once we go to Canada, we’re going to be visiting the Torngat Mountains. Then we’re ending the trip in Iqaluit.

Guilbeault: As environment and climate change minister, I’ve been to the Torngat National Park. It is one of the most beautiful places I’ve seen on Earth, and we’ll get to spend about three days there meeting people on the ground, learning more about the impacts of climate change and how communities are finding solutions to adapt, to be more resilient. I’m very much looking forward to that next leg of the journey.

Reese, you obviously have a big opportunity with this trip to become a part of something and then take this experience on and do something with it. What do you want to do with it?

Wainman: Take seeing the Greenland ice cap, for example, which I know meant a lot to a lot of people on the trip – thinking about what it looked like in the past and what it’s going to look like in the future.

All the students on this trip, we’re the ones who are going to decide what that looks like. Giving younger people opportunities like this is a really big key in the future for the Arctic.