Gavin MacRae photos
Comox Valley Students ‘Stand up, Fight Back’ for Climate Action
A jovial yet determined crowd of student strikers and adult supporters over 250 strong marched through downtown Courtenay Friday, to demand action on climate change.
The protest started with a rally at Courtenay City Hall.
The crowd cheered as speakers said it was time to “stand up and fight back” against fossil fuel interests and insufficient government action.
“We are here today under a unified cause to protest climate change,” said Nalan Goosen, a co-organizer of the event.
Speaking through a megaphone, Goosen said investments in the tar sands and other fossil fuel infrastructure make Canadian banks culpable for climate change.
To showcase this, the demonstration traced a serpentine route through the downtown to pause and protest at CIBC, Bank of Montreal, and Scotia Bank.
Outside CIBC the crowd chanted, “No more coal, no more oil, keep the carbon in the soil!”
At Bank of Montreal the rallying cry was, “What do we want? Climate Action! When do we want it? Now!”
Finally, the Scotia Bank received, “Corporate greed we must fight, polluting earth is not a right!”
The crowd also made a stop at the office of MLA Ronna-Rae Leonard, where she and MP Gord Johns spoke with the demonstrators.
Both politicians gave short impromptu speeches on the importance of protecting the environment.
Students put questions to Leonard and Johns about increasing climate education in the school system, protecting old-growth forest and marine areas and fighting the Trans Mountain pipeline.
The answers met with some applause, and Goosen said he was hopeful Leonard would bring the demonstrators’ concerns about old-growth logging to Doug Donaldson, BC’s Minister of Forests. Goosen was also hopeful Johns would echo the students’ concern over the climate crisis in Ottawa.
The protest ended with a return to City Hall.
Students said all but two schools in Comox and Courtenay were represented among the protesters.
“The turnout was amazing,” said Mackai Sharp, a co-organizer of the protest. “The last two events had under 35 people.”
Sharp and Goosen are leaders of the Comox Valley-based Youth Environmental Action, which planned the protest. The group has a separate arm for adults named Adult Allies for Youth Environmental Action.
”This will not be our last protest, said Goosen. “We don’t have very long to solve the climate crisis, so this movement of youth empowerment is essential to our health and survival.”
Gavin MacRae is the assistant editor of Watershed Sentinel, which is a publishing partner of Decafnation
SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER
BC forest march: Tell Premier Horgan to implement Old-Growth Review Panel advice
Premier John Horgan should keep his promise to implement the recommendation of the Old-Growth Review Panel and place a moratorium on logging old-growth trees in British Columbia, say participants in the BC Forest March
Blowing smoke: Campaign to overturn wood stove bylaws called misleading, ineffective
The woodstove industry has launched a campaign to overturn restrictive bylaws in the Comox Valley, but local government leaders say they are unmoved and a new study suggests woodstove testing is fatally flawed.
Enter your favorite tree into Comox Valley Nature’s annual contest by April 1
Comox Valley Nature is taking nominations for the Tree of the Year until April 1.
Free webinar lectures on herring and the protection of natural shorelines in the Salish Sea
Comox Valley Nature present free webinar lecture on the importance of herring to the Salish Sea ecosystem and the effects of hard shoring our coastline
Did you know: We drink Canadian beer out of American cans, where’s the logic in that?
During the recent aluminium tariff “trade war” between the US and Canada, the lowly beer can became a sign of the entire debacle. It began on August 6 when the US announced a ten per cent tariff on aluminium from Canada.
Wildwood: A community model for creating jobs and revenue within ecological parameters
A small charitable society has restored a heritage home and property with the help of local government into a self-sustaining and job-creating destination for people from all over the world. It’s a possible model for Mack Laing’s property and home
Another environmental dilemma: Do biosolids pose a public health risk?
Comox Valley electoral area directors told land applications of biosolids pose a danger to humans and a legal risk for the regional district, but the CVRD has invested heavily to produce a more highly treated Class A composting product
Contemplation in action — a friend remembers Father Charles Brandt
A reflection on Father Charles Brandt by Bruce Witzel, chair of the Brandt Oyster River Hermitage Society
Cycling has boomed during the pandemic, but do we have the infrastructure to make it safe?
The pandemic has created a bicycle boom, but do we have the necessary infrastructure to make cycling safe?
New Comox Valley society hopes to preserve Bevan Trails forest along Puntledge River
The Bevan Trails, a popular Comox Valley recreation area on the Puntledge River, faces the threat of logging. But a newly formed local society hopes to preserve the Puntledge River forest in perpetuity
Protests just keep being recycled. Remember the early 1970s “Hell no, we won’t go” but they did go. Remember the protest to stop the pipeline which turned into “lower the gas prices” and cost money to clean up the garbage dump the protesters left behind? Now the youth protest where parents dropped off their kids via a gas guzzler with every child having a cell phone in their pocket. When you block traffic and cars are sitting idling – tell me again how serious you are about climate change. It’s show time!
A response from and a presentation to the school district board of education is conspicuous by its absence. Where are the school trustees and senior administration on the issue and the action by students?
Comox Valley has to be impressed that our young people are expressing interest and concern about their future.
A response from and a presentation to the school district board of education is conspicuous by its absence. Where are the school trustees and senior administration on the issue and the action by students?
A friend living in the USA had a chat with some locals about Trump. Here was a growing consensus there. I would submit that the same is true in the Comox Valley. What our SD needs is a healthy dose of student democracy.
Here is what was sent to me:
We had a discussion on the importance of a free press yesterday in the discussion group. Oddly enough, one factor which members raised as a contributory factor in the Trumpian attacks on media is the lack of civics education in US schools – the population does not know the relationship between the media and good government. – and the lack of training in critical thinking skills. Seems to me I heard similar complaints in Canada over the years.