Thousands of students mobilized this Friday afternoon as part of the “World Day for Climate Justice”. Demonstrations take place in Montreal, Quebec, but also in Joliette, Sherbrooke and Rimouski.
Spring promises to be busy for many students like Camille Fogelson-Ballard. On Tuesday, she participated in the demonstration for free education, on April 1 she will march for climate justice and this Friday, the spokesperson for the Student Coalition for an Environmental and Social Shift (CEVES) is one of the students who will meet in Mount Royal to demand greater climate justice and also the defense of Indigenous territories.
Shortly before 2:00 p.m., hundreds of students arrived in front of the statue of George-Étienne Cartier. They sat down on the road and the SPVM police officers had them clear Park Avenue peacefully. Several SPVM vehicles and police officers on bicycles are present.
The convergence of struggles is at the heart of this student movement which promises to make itself heard more and more in the coming weeks.
“There are plenty of students who are mobilizing across Quebec, across Canada, then all these struggles, they really intersect,” explained Camille Fogelson-Ballard to The Canadian Press before Friday’s march. , adding that “there is no climate justice without solidarity with the first peoples”.
According to CEVES, nearly 75,000 CEGEP and university students were on strike on Friday.
The groups Climate Justice Montreal, Pour le futur MTL, Extinction Rebellion, Mobilizing For Milton-Parc, CEVES and Mashk Assi are among the organizers of the demonstration which will start at the foot of Mount Royal.
On its Facebook page, the Mashk Assi collective indicates that it was founded by “Ilnuatsh and Peskotomuhkati hunter-gatherers”.
Montreal protest organizers support the struggle of Wet’suwet’en protesters against the Coastal Gaslink and Transcanada pipelines in British Columbia, and the battle waged by members of the Pacheedaht community who oppose the logging of ancient forests. on Vancouver Island.
The list of their grievances also includes the construction of a graphite mine in Saint-Michel-des-Saints, an ore used in the manufacture of certain lithium-ion batteries for electric vehicles.
The organizers of the event are also calling for a moratorium on moose hunting in the La Vérendrye wildlife reserve.