More than 1,000 Canadian youth gathered on Parliament Hill Oct. 24 to send a clear message to the Canadian Government: immediate action to stop climate change and to create new green jobs must be taken.
This marked the largest youth gathering for climate change in Canadian history as part of Power Shift 2009, a four-day environmental conference of intensive social and ecological justice education, hosted by the Canadian Youth Climate Coalition.
Power Shift participants took part in a massive demonstration on the Hill co-ordinated with the International Day of Climate Change.
Throughout the weekend, participants were involved in a number of workshops, MP meetings and panel discussions with key speakers.
Sariné Willis-O’Connor, a third-year McGill student and co-founder of Greenpeace McGill, was thrilled with the event.
“I think it’s really important that Canadians get involved with this. . . . Everyone needs to know about it, and climate change is an issue, it’s a social issue not just an environmental issue.”
Though the majority of students at the event shared Sariné’s anti-climate change belief, Andrea Bass, a third-year Carleton student, felt differently about the issue.
“I don’t think that we need to change climate, I think we need to do something about what we’re doing right now to protect ourselves from future climate change,” she said.
“So we should be investing money in maybe stopping the use of oil but we don’t need to be doing it for the purpose of changing the actual climate because I think it’s a natural process that’s supposed to occur.”
Power Shift is just one of the many international events being organized in anticipation of the crucial UN climate negotiations taking place in Copenhagen this coming December.
Students filled the Hill at the end of the demonstration and motioned clocks with their hands while chanting “Tick!” to inform Prime Minister Stephen Harper that he is running out of time to make a difference.