Fridays for Future climate strikes are back at Town Hall

Climate Action Muskoka has resumed its Fridays for Future climate strikes, which were on hold due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

A handful of protesters were in front of Town Hall on Friday, June 19 to remind passersby of their message.

Climate striker Lesley Hastie shared a written statement that began: “Oil and gas companies and banks are lobbying for bailouts from the Federal Government. They currently also receive $3.3 billion in subsidies every year. Nobody should be paid to pollute. Instead those who provide social benefits should be rewarded with subsidies…this is sound economics. So, let’s have subsidies to insulate our homes and other buildings and this will create many new jobs. Let’s have subsidies for solar panels on our roofs and for electric school buses.”

Hastie included a list of suggestions for what could be done locally, including the following:

• “Let’s reduce expensive and gas-guzzling transportation and buy more food grown locally, and grow our own in community gardens and our own backyards. One-third of the food produced in the world is not eaten, and this food waste produces eight per cent of greenhouse gases. Food waste is unconscionable when people here in Huntsville are going hungry.
• Let’s compost and put nutrients back into the soil.
• Let’s try and consume less for a simpler society that uses fewer of the world’s resources.
• Let’s reduce our energy use by a degree or two, and turn off lights.
• Let’s repair not replace.
• Let’s ask the Town to plant more trees and make some of them fruit trees.
• Let’s ask for more pedestrian areas and make this town a place for people not cars.
• Let’s ask for electric transit.
• Let’s buy goods made in Ontario and Canada.”

Fellow protester Christine Rivière-Anderson, who carried a sign that read “climate change = social injustice for many”, added that people are ready for change, particularly in light of the current pandemic and recent anti-racism protests. She said that social justice and climate change are irrevocably linked and any new policy must take this into account.

Climate Action Muskoka (CAM) is a non-partisan group of citizens concerned about climate change in Muskoka. The organization began its climate strikes in Bracebridge last fall and Gravenhurst in January, with Huntsville following suit in early February. During COVID-19 restrictions, they encouraged people to hold digital strikes on social media or pop-up strikes on their own street—both still options for those trying to avoid contact with others. With Muskoka now in Stage 2 of the Province’s reopening strategy, CAM are once again holding climate strikes in Huntsville, Bracebridge and Gravenhurst every Friday from 11:30-12:30, with those attending asked to observe physical distancing guideline and remain two metres apart.

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