Hundreds of thousands of Montrealers are expected to march on Sept. 27, along with cities across the globe in a worldwide environmental movement.
The international protest will be the second happening in 2019. Back in March, over 150,000 individuals marched the city, according to the CBC.
According to Jacob Robitaille, internal coordinator of Concordia’s La Planète s’invite à l’Université (LPSU), Montreal is expecting a much greater participation rate on Sept. 27.
“According to the numbers, it looks like we stand to have yet again the largest march of any one city in the whole world,” said Robitaille. “Berlin is expecting about 300,000 people, but as it stands, we have people coming from across the country, some from New York and across the world.”
Environmental activists such as Greta Thunberg and David Suzuki are expected to speak.
Many schools and universities cancelled classes for the day. However, Concordia only cancelled classes from 11:45 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. as stated in an email to all Concordia students and faculty members. According to Robitaille, this measure is a “double-sided edge.”
“It doesn’t send a straightforward message and added that they are still investing in fossil fuel, it doesn’t sound like they truly support us but they’re only doing it to stay safe,” said Robitaille.
That didn’t stop student associations from organizing events in preparation for the march. The Fine Arts Student Association (FASA) hosted a banner making session with all recycled materials at Concordia’s art hive.
“We wanted to create a place for students to discuss [environmental issues] and feel comfortable creating, but also being able to express their feelings in preparation for the march,” said FASA’s finance coordinator, Clara Micheau. “A lot of that passes through creation in the Fine Arts faculty and that’s how the workshop event came up.”
FASA has been working on many environmentally-friendly solutions in the faculty like using more recycled materials in classes. However, they hope Concordia provides more resources to attain their sustainability goals.
“There are a lot of departments that get a lot of education before classes even start on how to use materials wisely,” said FASA Student life coordinator, Daisy Duncan. “But there are no policies on that. I think the Fine Arts faculty should take a position on that.”
On top of the LPSU and FASA’s implication in the protest, Concordia created a fundraiser to create an award “for an undergraduate student who demonstrates leadership in developing solutions to the climate crisis, for a safe climate future,” as read in the fundraiser’s website.
Feature photo by Britanny Giuseppe-Clarke
