Trudeau, we were arrested for protesting Kinder Morgan, and we’d do it again in a heartbeat
By Laura Cutmore, student organizer with Divest Dalhousie
Exactly 3 months ago, 99 youth were arrested on Parliament Hill last October protesting the Kinder Morgan pipeline. I was one of them.
We went to Ottawa to teach our Prime Minister a lesson. Justin Trudeau ran on an election platform of being a “real climate leader” and we were there to remind him that climate leaders don’t build pipelines.
The climate math is simple: we cannot expand fossil fuel production if we’re going to stay within 1.5 degrees of global warming. That means no new pipelines, and a rapid shift to renewables.
When Trudeau announced the approvals for three massive fossil fuel projects: the Kinder Morgan and Line 3 tar sands pipelines and the Pacific Northwest LNG project, he waged a war on the futures of young people in this country and around the world.
Yesterday Trudeau announced he wholeheartedly supports Drumpf’s decision to resurrect the Keystone XL and Dakota Access pipelines. He also claims he “misspoke” when he said we need to phase out the oil sands — a necessary action to avoid unimaginable climate chaos.
Well, on that day back in October, 99 young people penned letters to Trudeau affirming their commitment to take action to stop these pipelines in their tracks — on the backs of their Parliamentary trespassing tickets.
Both Drumpf and Trudeau, in approving these pipelines, are acting in climate denial. Our futures and the future of our world requires our leaders take climate change seriously.
Well, Trudeau, yesterday also happened to mark the day that the 99 #climate101 arrestees’ bans from Parliament Hill ended.
We’re not letting you get away with your climate denial and we’re definitely not letting you build any more pipelines.
Expect to see us again soon.
