‘There is no Planet B’: thousands of people march in Montreal to protest against climate change

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Thousands of Montréal residents, mostly young people, holding signs reading “Wake up Mr. Trudeau” and “There is no planet B” gathered at Mount Royal and then joined in an energetic global protest for climate justice that spread across miles through the streets of the city center on Friday.

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They were part of the first major Fridays for Future face-to-face strikes, started by Swedish teenage activist Greta Thunberg, to take place since the pandemic began and which drew similar crowds in more than 1,500 cities. Thunberg attended a massive demonstration in Berlin on Friday.

While nowhere near the size of the mega-march that overtook Montreal in September 2019, when Thunberg, just 16 years old at the time, led some 500,000 people in a call to action on climate change, Friday’s march was significant as the city’s first major city. Large-scale environmental protest since COVID-19 suffocated outdoor congregations.

Many attendees, most of them masked, said they were motivated to participate because the recent federal elections left them with doubts that Canada’s political leaders are taking the issue seriously.

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“I think the biggest threat to our health in the 21st century is the climate,” said Audrey Claveau, a pharmacist and member of the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment who came to the mountain. His little daughter was holding a hand-painted cardboard sign that read “I love dinosaurs, but I don’t want to end up like them.”

“I think it will affect a large part of the population,” Claveau said, “the elderly, the asthmatics, the ones with health problems, so it’s important to say that. And the government is not acting fast enough. “

Claveau wants emissions to be drastically reduced between now and 2030, and government subsidies to oil and gas corporations to stop.

Jenna Deer-Frainetti attended the 2019 monster rally at the age of 15. Now a student at John Abbott College, he came back because “I don’t want to live on a burning planet,” he said. “Things are not moving in the direction we wanted. There are more of the younger generation who are getting involved, but I don’t think our government is doing enough. Especially with the recent elections, I don’t think anything is being done. “

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He wants stricter carbon taxes to be put in place, drinking water to be available in all Indian reserves, and the sale of single-use plastics to be banned.

Friday’s march in Montreal was organized by the Racial Justice Collective, Solidarity Across Borders, the Student Coalition for Environmental and Social Change, and Pour le futur Mtl.

Organizers emphasized the idea that marginalized groups and developing nations suffer the most from the effects of climate change. Abdoul Kane, a spokesman for Solidarity Across Borders, said the message is finally getting through.

“There is a large segment of the population that has a new consciousness and has decided to stand up to show other Canadians what we are doing as a country: it is destroying the Earth and creating famines and many problems in the world.” Kane said. “I think this is a good start to be able to start showing people that what we are doing is not good.”

After the speeches, the protesters walked down Parc Ave. and then west on Sherbrooke St. in a protest that was mostly peaceful. Montreal police reported three arrests: one for mischief, one for assault on a police officer, and one for threats.

As the protesters walked in the sun on an unusually warm day in late September, their posters, featuring images of the Earth on fire, countered the optimistic tone of the march.

Among them, a protester carried a sign with a single word: “Panic.”

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