When walking near Jeanne-Mance Park last Friday, or anywhere downtown for that matter, the blocked roads and crowds with quippy signs chanting over megaphones were hard to miss.
Montreal’s annual climate march, held on Sept. 29 and organized this year by Rage Climatique—a coalition of environmental groups in the city—drew throngs of students to the George-Étienne Cartier Monument, where the march began. Their message: Denouncing inaction and apathy in the face of a rapidly deteriorating planet.
This year’s strike comes in the wake of a summer marked by record-high temperatures across the globe and millions of hectares of land scorched in forest fires across Canada. An estimated 50,000 students went on strike last week in Quebec to advocate for climate action, with tallies of Montreal’s protest hovering around 1,000 to 1,500 attendees according to the Montreal police department. The march marked the culmination of a week of activities organized by Rage Climatique, which included walk-outs, arts events, documentary screenings, and workshops.
As a part of the Friday strike, environmental activist groups at McGill organized their own gathering, marching independently before joining the protestors at Jeanne-Mance. One of these groups was Divest McGill, which was founded in 2012 with the intent of pressuring McGill to divest its endowment from fossil fuel companies.
“I think Divest will be here at every annual strike,” Lola Milder, one of the group’s members, said. “We want to use this moment to engage people and have conversations with them and hand out flyers, to mobilize people beyond today.”
Greenpeace McGill, a club aiming to promote day-to-day acts of sustainability on campus, also participated in the strike.
“This march is important for multiple reasons: For environmentalists to gather together and connect, for people witnessing to learn about this cause and why it’s important, and to demonstrate to leaders that there is a large body of people continuing to fight for change,” Greenpeace McGill wrote in a statement to The Tribune.
Gathering first at Roddick Gates with Divest leaders donning yellow construction vests and waving hand-made signs, the McGill student groups merged with others from Concordia University and Dawson College. Milder explained that McGill and other anglophone schools in the same area of the city have historically participated in such marches together.
“We see it as a moment for coming together and feeling the urgency of action,” Milder added.
The groups could be heard chanting as they made their way down Sherbrooke accompanied by Montreal police; “climate justice is what we need, not millionaires, not corporate greed” was a popular call, as pairs of students held up large swaths of fabric painted with the text “community control, not oil, not coal.”
The Tribune spoke with students from all three educational institutions as they made their way through the city, reflecting on what had driven them to join the march.
“Advocating for our future is more important than going to class, it’s more important than going to your day-to-day job, because it’s what’s dictating our lives,” said Liam Greig, a U2 Science.
The group turned from Sherbrooke onto Parc Avenue, marching toward Jeanne-Mance where the larger Rage Climatique protest was waiting. Stalled car drivers and nearby construction workers honked and waved in support, as did onlookers peering down and clapping from a double-decker sightseeing bus.
Amy Janzwood, an assistant professor of political science and environment at McGill, was present at the protest.
“Research into the effectiveness of climate marches is still in its infancy, but early findings show promise, particularly in terms of influencing public support,” Janzwood wrote to The Tribune.
The Fridays for Future movement, which began in 2018 with Greta Thunberg’s school strikes in protest of government inaction toward the climate crisis, was the impetus for Montreal’s first annual strike in 2019. According to Janzwood, the movement “breathed new life” into climate activism.
“It has successfully connected movements advocating for climate justice, rapidly mobilized millions of new activists, and cultivated a sense of urgency and collective consciousness commensurate with the scale of the climate crisis,” Janzwood wrote.
At Jeanne-Mance, the majority of participants were young people—mostly university and CÉGEP students, as well as younger teenagers, some as young as fourteen.
“Even if we try to get our voices heard the government seems to still do nothing,” attendee Cynthia Usabwera said, in an interview with The Tribune. “It’s time for them to take actual action.”
Janzwood, too, noted the “growing sense of frustration and desperation among activists and organizers” in the past few years.
The march also appeared to become a catch-all for various other student and city organizations. Swaths of members from Socialist Fightback, a Marxist group active on McGill and Concordia’s campuses, gathered in their distinctive red shirts and apparel, while Grève des loyers de Montréal, a group protesting rising city-wide rents, stationed themselves at a table handing out flyers.
“We’re here to say that capitalism is responsible for the climate crisis, the profit motive, the market, they’re made to extract and destroy the earth,” Olivier Turbide, member of Socialist Fightback, said. “There’s no green capitalism.”
Others expressed their disappointment at this year’s turnout, specifically compared to the 2019 march headed by Greta Thunberg. Janzwood offered a potential partial explanation.
“While protests often unite participants based on a particular grievance, how protests are framed can significantly impact their effectiveness, and the use of a frame of rage may have alienated some individuals,” Janzwood wrote. “That the event took place after the Global Climate Strike organized by the Fridays for Future movement on September 15 was also notable.”
Nonetheless, enthusiasm remained high as the march took off from Jeanne-Mance. Creative signage, such as, “make love, not stores,” and, “you’ll die of old age, I’ll die of climate change,” made its appearance; others included “don’t burn my house” and “climate crisis = human rights crisis.” As the march made its way past the McGill gym, overlookers from adjacent apartment balconies called down their support, as student and city media scurried amidst the crowd.
“There’s not that many things that I feel as individuals we have power on when it comes to huge issues like the climate crisis,” reflected Gabriel Villard, B.Sc. ‘23.
For Villard, this protest felt like one of the few ways to directly contribute to change. He wasn’t the only one.
“[The march] gives us all a sense of hope in a time where it’s so easy to feel overwhelmed and nihilistic about the climate events happening,” said Ainslet Day, U0 Arts and Science. “It makes you feel like you’re not alone in the fight.”
