Dan Fumano: Vancouver climate strike mixes festive atmosphere, dire message
Credit to Author: Dan Fumano| Date: Sat, 28 Sep 2019 02:29:45 +0000
Surrounded by music, dancing and laughing on a sunny Friday afternoon, Landon De Silva was angry.
“I don’t want my kids to have to suffer and wear gas masks just because a few dumb people got into office,” De Silva said, a noticeable edge in his voice. “I wanted to be here because I demand urgent action to address the climate-change crisis.”
But in order for De Silva to be there Friday, he needed his dad to pick him up at recess.
The father and his 12-year-old son caught SkyTrain in from Surrey to the plaza outside Vancouver City Hall, for the local edition of the global climate strike that drew crowds of millions in cities across the world.
Asked if his teachers at Tynehead Elementary were OK with him skipping school, Landon replied simply: “We didn’t tell my teachers.”
“But his mom’s OK with it,” his father Robbie clarified.
Robbie De Silva said neither he nor Landon’s mother had ever been involved much in activism.
“This is all him,” Robbie said. “He’s very passionate … I’m very proud.”
Landon has been disappointed, he said, by the actions and inactions of world leaders on the climate issue.
“The Paris Agreement was good,” the Grade 7 student said, referring to the multinational climate accord signed by 195 nations in 2016. “But (U.S. President Donald) Trump pulled out of it after he took office, and that was a horrific mistake.”
Friday was a mix of a festive, party atmosphere and dire, angry messaging. The crowd included infants, grandmothers and teens with very modern haircuts.
Samantha Lin, a 17-year-old in Grade 12 at Prince of Wales Secondary, and her friend Naia Lee, a 16-year-old in Grade 12 at Churchill Secondary, helped organize Friday’s event in Vancouver, along with their cohorts in Sustainabiliteens, a local group of Metro Vancouver youth, most of whom are still in high school.
Friday’s global event happened to fall weeks before Canada’s next federal election, and during the week of the Union of B.C. Municipalities’ annual convention. At the convention, elected municipal officials from around the province voted to call on the B.C. government to lower the voting age to 16.
This idea, Lin and Lee agreed, would be good. Both of them would love to vote next month if they could, they said. They declined to say how they would vote, citing the non-partisan nature of Sustainabiliteens.
Megan Barker and Natalie Low, both 14, left Ladner around 8 a.m. to travel by bus and SkyTrain to city hall. They packed into a bus with about 20 of their classmates from Delta Secondary School, carrying colourful signs. Drivers passing by honked at them to show support, Barker said.
Others arrived at city hall by bike, stroller, bike stroller, skateboard, foot and at least one unicycle.
A pair of teen girls in the crowd discussed a boy’s hair, which they agreed was “super-cute.” Less than a minute later, they were discussing U.S. coal exports.
Vancouver’s event was, by all accounts, very large. Shortly before 3 p.m. the Vancouver police estimated the crowd at 50,000 people. Soon after, the police estimate had been adjusted to 80,000. By 5 p.m., Vancouver Police Chief Adam Palmer tweeted out that roughly 100,000 “peaceful and thoughtful people” had participated in the event.
“So proud of our city,” Palmer wrote.
Walking over the Cambie Bridge, Green Coun. Michael Wiebe noted: “There’s a lot of people here who aren’t normally in large rallies, these are people that don’t normally go out and chant. But this has gotten to a point where their kids are bringing them out here.”
One gentleman with a white beard wore a sign around his neck that indicated Friday marked his first protest, because, it said, “It’s never too late.”
The crowd marched over the Cambie Bridge into Downtown Vancouver, and to its destination outside the main branch of the Vancouver Public Library. After a series of speeches, the formal part of the event wound down and crews began disassembling the stage. At 5 p.m. sharp, West Georgia Street was open to car traffic again.
As the crowd dispersed, the Sustainabiliteens talked about their plans for the evening: a pizza party.
Lin stood back and took it all in.
“It’s so exciting,” said Lin, a little tired. “Hundreds of thousands of people across Canada and millions of people across the world are all waking up and realizing it’s a priority.”
After that, Lin had a busy weekend ahead. She had a Saturday shift at the Greek restaurant where she works part-time, and she had calculus homework.
But after the whirlwind of the last few weeks gearing up for Friday’s rally, Lin figured the Sustainabiliteens would “take a little bit of a break this weekend from organizing.”
The break won’t last long, though. The teen, who had organized an event with her friends that drew 100,000 people to shut down a big chunk of the downtown core of Western Canada’s largest metropolitan region, said: “We’re talking about our next strike in November, and how we need to start thinking of a venue already.”
“On Monday, we will get back to it,” she said.