Within hours of climate groups sending out a media advisory about the “Canada is Burning! Raise a Ruckus Against Carney’s Climate Crimes!” protest, the Liberal Party canceled their Victoria fundraiser. By doing so the Liberal Party lost thousands of dollars. We celebrated, and protested Liberal plans for publicly funded pipelines, on the BC Legislature lawn Thursday.
“Canada is burning. If the government thinks it can ignore climate change it’s dead wrong,” said Maryann Abbs, a spokesperson for Climate Justice Victoria. “Indigenous and rural communities are at the front lines of the climate crisis and deserve our support. We must fight for climate action now.”
Pacific Caucus Liberal MPs are visiting Victoria this week. Their party plans to spend billions of public dollars subsidizing fossil fuel megaprojects across the country. Increased fossil fuel extraction would cause more deadly heatwaves and extreme wildfires.
“Instead of spending public money buying yet another destructive pipeline, the government should be investing in ways that improve the lives of all Canadians” said Justin Steinburg of the youth climate and social justice group Common Horizon Victoria.
David Quigg of Sierra Club BC spoke about the conflict between what Prime Minister Mark Carney wrote about the climate crisis before he was elected to his actions of tearing up Canada’s climate plan and subsidizing pipelines now:
In response, we gathered near where the fundraiser was to be held to kickstart a new wave of resistance against the Carney government’s regressive, anti-climate, pro-billionaire agenda.
“Last year the International Court of Justice ruled that wealthy countries must rapidly reduce fossil fuel extraction and consumption” said Eric Doherty of Climate Justice Victoria. “Subsidizing new oil and gas projects is a climate crime. Canadians didn’t vote for climate crime.”
This week wildfires are raging across much of BC, destroying communities and filling countless others with smoke.
“Amidst an ever-worsening climate crisis and as Canada undergoes a desperate climate – driven season of wildfires that has now completely erased one First Nation community, that Carney has reached an agreement with the Alberta Premier to pump a billion litres per day of toxic Alberta bitumen to the Salish sea, is just plain wrong” said Bobby Arbess, a veteran of the fight to stop the TransMountain oilsands pipeline expansion. “There are so many better things you could do with 42 billion dollars of public funds.”
The event will also support an online fundraiser for the Namagoosisagagun First Nation whose village at Collins lake was destroyed by climate-driven wildfire this month. Community members are asked to consider a donation: https://an7gc.ca/