Earth Day 2022: Demonstrators target capitalism in Montreal rally

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Chanting “We want climate justice — now!”, hundreds of demonstrators took to the streets of Old Montreal and the downtown core Friday afternoon to mark Earth Day.

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Leaving from Montreal’s city hall, the protesters, mainly young students with a smattering of older adults and babies in strollers, wound their way through downtown Montreal to arrive at Montreal’s stock exchange. The destination was deliberate, as the theme of this year’s Earth Day, celebrated every April 22 worldwide since 1970 to bring attention to environmental concerns, was the drive toward a more equitable sharing of wealth to combat the negative effects of climate change.

“One of our demands this year is to cap wealth in order to invest in a social safety net,” said Shirley Barnea, co-spokesperson for Pour le futur Tiohtià:ke (Montréal), one of the organizers of Friday’s march.

“As climate changes, more and more people will be vulnerable to its effects and we want to support those who will be suffering from that, whether it’s having their homes destroyed by flooding, or who have more illness because they’re suffering from heat waves, or losing their jobs because of how climate change is affecting the economy.”

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Higher taxes for the ultra-rich would also serve as a form of climate equality, said Barnea, a 17-year-old student at Collège Ste-Anne, because they have much larger carbon footprints than the less wealthy who consume and travel less. At the same time, richer countries have an obligation to contribute more to the push to limit climate change because they have historically produced more carbon emissions, she said.

The crowd, which numbered around 500 at its outset from city hall, was considerably smaller than the estimated 500,000 who filled the streets of Montreal in a September 2019 march for climate justice when global activist Greta Thunberg joined. Last September’s climate march in Montreal drew several thousand participants.

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Québec solidaire co-spokesperson Manon Massé, one of the few politicians present on Friday, said the global pandemic had put a damper on recent demonstrations, but not on the ardour of environmentalists.

“I think the pandemic had its effects everywhere, and people were busy taking care of their basic needs,” Massé said.

“That being said, I’m not worried about our youth. Right now there’s a movement of students across Quebec pressing the federal government to include in its carbon emissions count Canadian oil that is used outside of the country. … Maybe not everyone is out today, but the young are up for the fight. It’s the challenge of their generation.”

Quebec has done a good job by banning all oil and gas development, Massé said. But the fact it is moving forward with adding highways and tunnels that will only increase traffic, and failing to crack down on large corporate polluters who flout environmental laws indicates it is still far behind, she said.

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While most demonstrators bore signs calling for the reining in of capitalism or banning of fossil fuels by 2030, or to just be more aware (“Look up, ostie” read one banner), others had more pointed targets.

Roxanne Barbe Minville, a 29-year-old medical technician student, bore a sign saying “Animal exploitation is ruining our planet.”

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“We talk about saving the planet, but using fewer animal products is one thing we can do on a daily basis that would have an immediate effect,” Barbe-Minville said. “The exploitation of animals is one of the leading causes of greenhouse gases in the world today, be it because of deforestation, which leads to more carbon in the air, or the creation of more methane.”

Animal-based agriculture like the growing of soy to serve as feed is another major cause of deforestation and global warming, she noted.

“We talk of recycling, or of composting, but the way we exploit animals and the effects it has rarely spoken of,” she said. “People need to think about that.”

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