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Date: February 12, 2026, 1-2 PM ET
Cost: Free (Zoom Webinar)
*Please note, all registrants will be provided with a link to the recording and presentation slides following the sessions. The recording will be available for 60 days.
Join us for a conversation about the essential role of independent climate news reporting. This session is for anyone trying to build momentum for climate solutions—on the front lines, or in federal and provincial policy.
Finding a steady foothold is challenging in the midst of a global climate and affordability crisis, cascading mis/disinformation, and alarming attacks on democracy and Canadian sovereignty. Independent journalism, practiced from a base of deep energy and climate expertise, is crucial to that effort.
This session will cover:
- The line between climate journalism and advocacy—and why it matters;
- Why reliable, independent news reporting is an essential bulwark for democracy and Canadian sovereignty, an antidote to mis/disinformation, and a basis for communities to rebuild trust;
- How ENGOs and other changemakers can use climate and energy journalism as a proof point for their own work.
The session is set up to allow lots of time for questions and discussion. So bring your own ideas and experience, hopes and concerns to this hour-long conversation.
Mitchell Beer is founding publisher of The Energy Mix, a non-profit community news site and e-digest on energy, climate change, and rapid decarbonization. Mitchell traces his work in clean energy to 1977, in climate change to 1997, and delivered an October, 2019 TEDx talk on how to build wider buy-in for faster, deeper carbon cuts.
Panelists
Alex Cool-Fergus is an experienced organizer and political campaigner with 15 years of work in local and federal climate policy. She has worked on and led dozens of local political and mobilization campaigns, writes the ClimateMemes newsletter on Substack, and uses much of her time not running after her kids debating politics with anyone who will listen.
Valerie Walsh is an Information Technology instructor at the College of the North Atlantic in St. John's, Newfoundland. The youngest of 11 from Fermeuse, population 600, she values her community's ocean heritage. A passionate performer, Valerie enjoys singing and participating in community theatre, readily sharing her voice with others.
Jody MacPherson is a freelance reporter for The Energy Mix. Jody trained as a journalist, worked in public relations for 30+ years, and has had her own newsletter for more than a decade. She’s currently working on an investigative series on the proposed Wonder Valley data centre/gas plant megaproject in northern Alberta.
The DEFNP workshop series will offer tailored programming designed to match ENGOs on their decolonial (un)learning journeys. In Spring 2026 members of the ENGO sector will be able to choose one of three workshop tracks: Introduction to Decolonization in the ENGO Sector, Advanced Decolonial Theory and Application or For Indigenous Ears Only - A Space for Reflection and Action. Each series consists of four three-hour sessions.
Collectively, Decolonizing ENGO-First Nation Partnerships fosters:
Awareness of settler colonialism and the ways it potentially harnesses civil society;
Understanding about how Canadian law such as the Indian Act and the Income Tax Act has suppressed Indigenous governance systems;
Awareness that Indigenous peoples have unique inherent political and legal systems, with which ENGOs may want to form partnerships;
A better understanding about how to navigate partnerships with Indigenous communities that promote decolonial environmentalism;
A stronger sense about how to identify and explain individual and organization social locations (i.e. positionalities) as part of ethical partnership development;
Promoting the resurgence of Indigenous self-determination in the Canadian ENGO sector.
Cost: $100 (or register 4 staff from the same organization for one stream and get the 5th registration free)
70 participants max.
All registrants will be provided with a link to access the recordings and presentation slides for 60 days following each session.
Session 1: Settler Colonialism 101
Introduce ENGO representatives to the fact that colonization is a structure and not an event. Identifies key ways that colonialism moves through individuals and organizations.
Session 2: Positionality
ENGO representatives learn how to articulate their social location within a settler colonial state, and in relation to potential Indigenous partners.
Session 3: Inherent Indigenous Governance 101
Introduce the fact that Indigenous nations have their own sources of political authority that they can (and do) draw on when addressing environmental issues. Examples provided.
Session 4: Building Better Relations
ENGO representatives will road test ways they can implement previous workshop key points to re-imagine partnerships with Indigenous nations.
Cost: $100 (or register 4 staff from the same organization for one stream and get the 5th registration free)
All registrants will be provided with a link to access the recordings and presentation slides for 60 days following each session.
Session 1: Diagnosing Settler Colonialism in the Enviro Sector
Participants will be asked to share ways in which they have diagnosed and traced power in social justice movements and/or in the ENGO sector. This workshop will make space for discomfort as part of promoting decolonization.
Session 2: Inherent Indigenous Governance
A mix of advanced and introductory theory, this workshop delves into legal and political pluralism, naming the fact that Indigenous nations have their own sources of political authority that they can (and do) draw on when addressing environmental issues.
Session 3: The Nonprofit Industrial Complex
ENGO participants are introduced to theories and examples describing the Nonprofit Industrial Complex and the “Shadow State.” Purpose is to show how settler colonialism structures civil society.
Session 4: Decolonizing ENGO-First Nation Partnerships
This workshop delves deep into how ENGOs can partner with Indigenous nations beyond the Nonprofit Industrial Complex while promoting deference to inherent Indigenous political leaders.
Cost: Free
The Indigenous only space will be collaborative in nature but critical in approach. This track is a space for Indigenous folks within the ENGO sector to come together to discuss their experiences and work, with an eye to taking a position on what the sector might need to do in order to promote decolonization. Participants will use the first session to define our goals for the remaining three meetings. Therefore, session topics named here are proposals only.
Session 1: Naming the Cannibal: Settler Colonialism in the ENGO Sector
Session 2: Proposed topic: Reflections on working in the ENGO Sector
Session 3: Proposed topic: Centering Indigenous Thought in the ENGO Sector
Session 4: Proposed topic: Visioning a Decolonial Environmental Sector
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