By: Olivia Sherman, News Writer
Content warning: mentions of forced assimilation
On Friday, September 15, thousands marched across Vancouver as part of a global initiative, Global Fight to End Fossil Fuels, to protest against climate change. The march started at Vancouver City Hall and ended at the Vancouver Art Gallery, where song, dance, and speeches took place. Vancouver’s climate strike joined dozens of countries and hundreds of cities around the world in protesting fossil fuels, pollution, and climate inaction.
Co-hosting Vancouver’s strike was the organization Sue Big Oil, an initiative to hold politicians and lobbyists accountable for consequences derived from fracking and oil. The David Suzuki Foundation, Fridays for Future, For Our Kids, and other organizations were part of the fight.
Marissa Nahanee, a Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish) and Nisga’a Indigenous ambassador, opened the rally at the art gallery with a traditional Sḵwx̱wú7mesh welcome, and led the crowd in a celebratory song. Between speeches, musical artists performed in solidarity with protestors. Performances included hip-hop, folk, and a drag show from Vancouver drag queen Batty Banks.
Severn Cullis-Suzuki, co-founder and executive director of the David Suzuki Foundation, showed solidarity with the protesters. At age 12, Cullis-Suzuki spoke out against climate change at the 1992 UN Earth Summit, and her advocacy has spanned her whole life. “We’re here today, along with our [family] around this earth, to call an end to fossil fuel supremacy,” she said at the September 15 rally. “Humanity is now in uncharted territory.”
To extract liquefied natural gas, deeply-embedded rocks must be injected with high-pressure “fracking fluid” to gain the oils within. There are 25,000 fracking wells across BC, which require freshwater from local lakes and rivers to make fracking fluid. A spokesperson for the BC Oil and Gas Commission told The Narwhal that natural gas companies used over 4.2 billion litres of water in 2020. A 2021 study from the University of Toronto found that these chemicals, when released into the environment, can “cause or exacerbate health problems including birth defects, cancers, and asthma.”
Fracking companies often receive drilling credits, which cover part of the drilling and completion costs for wells, and can reduce royalties. According to Wilderness Committee, “14 of 15 of the top fracking companies in the province receive more in drilling credits than they pay in taxes and royalties.”
“We want politicians to show some political courage or get out of the way,” said Janelle Lapointe, an Afro-Indigenous climate activist and interim director of public engagement and mobilization at the David Suzuki Foundation. She continued, “The BC NDP and the federal Liberal government are telling us they believe the crisis, they understand the severity of the crisis, yet they’re meeting with oil and gas lobbyists every single day.”
Lobbying is the act of influencing the decisions of a government toward the interests of an individual or private group, such as oil and fracking. Though this persuasion is considered legal, environmental activists have had concerns about external influences over politicians for decades.
“Even though a lot of us are here today out of fear, out of sorrow, frustration, and uncertainty, I hope we leave with a lot of love in our hearts, and lead with love,” Lapointe noted.
Lifelong Indigenous environmental activist, Cedar George Parker, elaborated on the need for love and hope in the face of fear. “This really is a story of hope to move on and continue on.” He added, “It all comes down to hope.”
He described how growing up on a reservation and being taught to protect and respect the world around him allowed him to grow up surrounded by love. “We really need to Indigenize the policies that Canada put in place to assimilate and put us down,” Parker stated. “We need to humanize our education system, we need to humanize the way we think, we need to humanize the way we look at the land, look at the water, and a way we can be prosperous.
“Be brave as you can be with every footstep moving forward. Be brave as you can be when we’re standing up to [the] industry [ . . . ] standing in the face of fear, because our youth are worth it.”
