Above: University students in six Canadian cities confronted leading MP in their offices to demand that our elected officials take real leadership on climate change and champion a justice-based shift toward a clean, renewable economy.
Students occupy MP LeBlanc’s office to protest tar sands expansion
About a dozen university students walked into Dominic Leblanc’s office in Shediac this afternoon demanding he sign a letter pledging substantive action on climate change.
The sit-in was coordinated with six other student protests across Canada in an effort to halt tar sands expansion. Students occupied MP offices in Victoria, Vancouver, Calgary, Toronto, and Montreal.
LeBlanc, the Liberal party’s house leader, has not explicitly addressed the expansion of the tar sands despite voting to “ensure Canada assumes its responsibilities in preventing dangerous climate change.” Student protesters said this contradiction is unacceptable.
“We continue to hear political leaders say they’re committed to action on climate change, but their support of tar sands expansion and major industrial infrastructure projects like the Energy East pipeline, run completely counter to those commitments,” said Emma Jackson, a graduate of Mount Allison University.
“It tells us that they’re paying lip service to climate action but are unwilling to take the steps that are required to drastically curb emissions.”
If built by TransCanada, the 4,600-kilometre Energy East pipeline would transfer 1.1 million barrels of crude oil per day from Montreal, Quebec to Saint John, NB. The project will jeopardize the ecological health of the Maritimes and has received opposition from indigenous activists whose land will be affected.
It would also support the expansion of the tar sands in Alberta, responsible for massive amounts of greenhouse gas emissions. Greenhouse gas emissions from producing tar sands oil are projected to hit 104 mega-tonnes of CO2 by 2020, which exceeds the combined emissions of 85 countries. According to Environment Canada, emissions from the tar sands increased 267 per cent between 1990 and 2011.
Unless action is taken to counteract this expansion, the effects of climate change will be catastrophic and irreversible, said the protesters.
The occupying students also stressed the importance of climate justice in the build-up to the Canadian federal elections in October, and the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP21) held in Paris this November. 350.org and the Canadian Youth Climate Coalition helped organize their protest as the first in the three-day Jobs, Justice, and Climate Action initiative.
“The fact that youth are staging sit-ins across the country is proof that we are mobilizing ahead of the federal election. We are coming out to the polls in October and right now, our votes are up for grabs,” Jackson said.