Activists from eight Council of Canadians chapters will be in Quebec City this Saturday to demand that provincial premiers take real action to address climate change. The Montreal, Fredericton, Moncton, York University, Toronto, Ottawa, Northumberland and Mid-Island (Nanaimo) chapters will all be at the Act on Climate march which is expected to attract thousands of people.
Fredericton-based New Brunswick Energy East campaigner Mark D’Arcy and I will also be there.
We are all hoping to be able to meet at the south-west corner of Avenue Louis-Saint-Laurent and Grande Allée Est by 12:45 pm that day. That location is at about the half-way point in the assembly area for the march. All Council of Canadians supporters who will be at the march are more than welcome to join us there.
The protest is being called because premiers and territorial leaders will gather in Quebec City on Tuesday April 14 to discuss climate change in advance of the pivotal United Nations climate summit this December. Quebec premier Philippe Couillard invited his provincial and territorial counterparts to attend this summit on climate change to “pave our way to the Paris conference of 2015 with concrete commitments.”
The overall message of the protest is:
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Yes to climate protection -
No to expanding Canada’s tar sands and pipelines -
Yes to just, green, renewable energy.
Council of Canadians chairperson Maude Barlow says, “Premiers need to get on the right side of history, reject extreme energy projects and help pave the way to more equitable, sustainable ways of being.”
We will also be saying, “A study in the January edition of the journal Nature put our challenge plainly: Canada must leave 85% of the tar sands in the soil in order to help the human race avoid catastrophic climate change. That means no new tar sands pipelines. No Keystone, no Energy East, no Kinder Morgan, No Northern Gateway. Build even one, and we torpedo our chances of stopping global warming. We stand on the edge of a precipice, and a lack of political will threatens to send us over it. Our Premiers need to choose. We cannot protect the climate while expanding the tar sands and approving new pipelines.”
We also have a message for the premiers who don’t intend to participate at the April 14 summit. On April 8, Halifax-based Council of Canadians organizer Tori Ball joined with a coalition of twenty-four groups and attempted to present Nova Scotia Premier Stephen McNeil with a letter urging him to attend the meeting in Quebec City. Her blog on that action can be read here.
Ball will be at the solidarity action taking place in Halifax on Saturday. Solidarity actions will also be taking place in Edmonton, Calgary, Toronto, Peterborough, Saint John, Prince Rupert, Vancouver, Fort Langley, Victoria, and Kitimat. For further information on those actions, please click here.
If you are considering going to the march in Quebec City tomorrow, all the information about it can be found here.
Further reading
ACTION ALERT: Tell your Premier to #ActOnClimate!
Council of Canadians supports the Act on Climate march, April 11 in Quebec City (February 2015 blog)
Canada’s premiers and territorial leaders need to grapple with the issue of climate change (January 2015 blog)
85% of tar sands must stay in the ground to limit climate change to 2 degrees Celsius (January 2015 blog)
