Photo by Seniors Climate Witness.
Eleven members of the Seniors’ Climate Witness were arrested on Parliament Hill in Ottawa today as they called on “the Government of Canada to reject new fossil fuel pipelines, uphold its climate commitments, respect Indigenous rights, and invest instead in a safe, clean and livable future.”
The Canadian Press reports: “Several seniors were arrested on Parliament Hill and charged with trespassing Tuesday [September 22] as they called for stronger government action to address climate change. Members of a self-described ‘climate caravan’ tried to deliver hundreds of photos and stories about the effects of wildfires and flooding to MPs’ desks in the House of Commons.”
Shortly before being arrested, Eric Schiller stated: “I have solar panels on my roof. I’ve got an electric car. I ride my bike. We’ve all got to do this. We can do something, but it’s got to be massive change. And the government — some government in the world — has got to take hold of this and say, ‘Hey guys, we can’t go as usual.’ ‘We’ve got to take the bull by the horns and say, this has got to change.”
Earlier this month, CTV News reported: “Co-founder Michael Polanyi helped organize the caravan – an idea that first came about during the peak of Canada’s wildfire season. Around the same time, Ottawa announced it would refer Alberta’s West Coast Oil Pipeline proposal to the Major Projects Office, Polanyi said.”
Polanyi has also previously noted: “[The climate caravan] grew out of widespread concern this summer about the wildfires. …The stark juxtaposition of seeing those devastating climate impacts on Canadians, and then also seeing the federal government moving ahead to spend billions on a new pipeline that will make the climate crisis worse, is what got a few of us together on a call two months ago.”
In an interview with Joan Baxter, Polanyi explains: “We have over 200 photos [of the people, places, communities, and living things we love and want to protect from climate change] and we want to deliver those to the House of Commons. We want them put on the desks of MPs so that when they’re debating whether to spend billions of dollars to construct a new pipeline that will lock us into fossil fuels for decades and exacerbate the climate crisis, they have in front of them the vivid reality of loss and struggle and harm that’s being caused by the climate emergency.”
Corporate Knights has noted: “The [West Coast Oil Pipeline] announced in July by Prime Minister Mark Carney and Alberta Premier Danielle Smith [would cost between $35.2 billion to $43.7 billion]. The two governments would hold it as equal partners, with development led by the federally owned Trans Mountain Corporation along the existing Trans Mountain corridor and would carry about 90% of the cost.”
The Government of Canada’s Major Projects Office (MPO) says: “The proposed pipeline would transport one million barrels per day of crude oil.” The Canadian Climate Institute estimates the West Coast Oil Pipeline would produce an average of 20 megatonnes a year in new emissions.
Earlier this month, the United Nations Environment Program reported the world will soon exceed the safe limit of 1.5 C above mid-19th century temperatures agreed upon at the COP21 climate summit in Paris in 2015 meaning decades of increased weather-related disasters, rising seas, extinctions and melting ice and glaciers.
The UN said it wants policymakers to limit excessive warming and then bring the temperature back down to the agreed-upon threshold.
Last year, Mary Lawlor, then the UN Special Rapporteur on human rights defenders, stated: “People all around the world have been calling for climate action for decades. As they have been ignored, and the climate crisis has spiralled, they have found new ways to organise and advocate, including through civil disobedience.”
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