About 300 people gathered at Montreal’s Jeanne-Mance Park on Friday to mark the Global Day of Climate Action.
The day is part of the Fridays for Future movement which encourages children around the world to join a global online school strike on Friday.
During the protest, climate change activists gathered to demand politicians take action to confront the crisis.
According to Shi Tao Zhang, one of the march organizers, there are four demands:
- Achieving carbon neutrality by 2030
- Decolonization and giving Indigenous people their land back
- Status for all migrants and refugees
- Defunding and ultimately abolishing the police
“There cannot be climate justice without social justice,” said Zhang, a spokesperson for Extinction Rebellion.
“During the pandemic, it’s become clearer than ever than marginalized communities … are the first to suffer from the pandemic and also from the over-policing that has begun with the curfew and with the mask mandate.”
Simon-Pierre Lauzon, a substitute teacher and member of Socialist Alternative, believes social and climate issues are “the same problem.”
“It’s the problem of the government that is only active for the economy, for profits, for companies and owners,” Lauzon said. “Whereas workers, people who rent, people like us, students, we’re always getting the short end of the stick.”
Activists say the pandemic and its restrictions slowed down their agenda but added that once restrictions are lifted, they plan to be “more active than ever,” Zhang said.
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