BREAKING NEWS: Our house is on fire!

Ashley: Student Activist standing with Greenpeace Canada.
to me

Nelson,
Our house is on fire. We need to wake up.

Just before dawn, alongside Greenpeace activists, I’ve welcomed federal cabinet ministers back to the House of Commons with a fiery demand to reject the Teck Frontier Mine.

If built, the massive Teck Frontier tar sands mine would be one of the largest — and possibly the largest — tar sands mine ever built. And the Trudeau government has to decide whether to approve or reject it anytime now. Don’t you think it’s time for us to move away from fossil fuels? Reject Teck Frontier now.

From Russia to Australia, 2019 was marked by gigantic and unforgiving fires. Reducing life to ashes, destroying homes and habitats, scarring minds with images that cannot be forgotten, the flames of the climate crisis are now very real and they are getting closer.

Now is the time for shock and awe, to be righteous as we demand respect for climate promises our government has made. No one is fooled: existing laws are not strong enough and industries and corporations can’t just snatch what they want from nature. No one is fooled when politicians say pipelines are built to finance a clean energy transition. No one is fooled when in the "era of reconciliation", violence is used against indigenous people to serve greedy interests. No one is fooled by the promise that we can reach carbon neutrality by 2050 and still build a project as destructive as the Teck tar sands mega-mine.

I will not stand by and do nothing. I can no longer accept this.

Our democratic duty isn’t something we exercise just every four years, but we must exercise it on a daily basis. And when our government goes off the rails, we need to put it back on track. There are only 10 days left to convince Justin Trudeau's cabinet to do the right thing and reject Teck Frontier.

Email Justin Trudeau’s cabinet and challenge your friends and family to do the same. Trudeau is under enormous pressure from oil lobbyists to approve this project and there is not much time left to get him to make the right decision.

When I think of all the struggles, mobilizations, and energy that we are putting into solving the climate emergency, I tell myself that the worst that can happen if we win is that we will gain a fairer society, thriving ecosystems that are abundant with life, clean cities and healthy populations. To gain all of this, I will put myself out there with great pleasure and take the risk to stand up for what I believe in.

And this is why I am here today.

Thank you for all that you do.

Ashley
Student activist