Students and youth across Canada are turning up the heat. We are demanding that politicians across the political spectrum get serious about climate change, with sit ins confirmed across the country in 7 offices happening now.

 

MONTREAL (July 3rd, 2015) - Today, over 20 local youth have staged sit-ins at Thomas Mulcair and Justin Trudeau’s Montreal constituency offices to call on the party leaders to commit to freeze tar sands expansion and drive a transition to a renewable energy economy in Canada.

 

Organizers have been involved in many diverse arenas of this fight, from pushing McGill and Concordia to divest from fossil fuels, to opposing pipeline projects like Line 9 and Energy East, to working with frontline communities. This diverse group of youth have come together to demand that elected officials take real climate leadership and commit to addressing these problems at their source: the tar sands.

 

“The science is clear. Expanding the tar sands is incompatible with keeping climate change within the limits demanded by science and agreed upon by governments around the world, including Canada. In addressing the heart of this problem -- the tar sands -- we are simply asking our politicians to take action that is in line with that science" explained youth organizer Sam Quigley. 

 

Kristen Perry, another organizer of the action, added that “Any politician that wants to earn our votes this fall must lay out a comprehensive strategy for jobs, justice and climate. This requires fully respecting the science by shifting our economy away from tar sands production and towards just, renewable energies that will allow us to have a livable climate in the future”. 

 

Today is the beginning of 3 days of historic action that will show Canada’s leaders that we -- student divestment leaders, Indigenous communities, youth, communities along pipeline routes, workers -- are greater than the tar sands. July 4th will see communities standing up all along proposed fossil fuel pipeline routes in Canada, and a large coalition will march for Jobs, Justice, and the Climate on the streets of Toronto on Sunday, July 5th. 

 

“The tar sands are morally and financially toxic.” says Laura Cameron. “On our campuses and in our communities, we’re asking our decision-makers to stand on the right side of history and take action to end tar sands expansion. Today, we’re asking Mulcair and Trudeau to do the same.”

 

Local organizers will be ramping up their fossil fuel divestment and climate justice campaigns this fall, helping to build grassroots resistance to fossil fuels and continuing to put pressure on university administrations and politicians to take meaningful action on climate change.

 

To read the groups' demands letters to NDP Leader Thomas Mulcair, click here

 

Contacts:

 

Anthony Garoufalis-Auger

Media Liaison for Thomas Mulcair sit-in

438-877-9007

 

Nicole Leonard

English Media Liaison for Justin Trudeau sit-in

438-830-8725

 

Louis Baudoin-Laarman

French Media Liaison for Justin Trudeau sit-in 

514-574-8705