Burnaby environment groups join climate strike

Hundreds of people joined the Vancouver Climate Strike on Friday, Sept. 20. The strike started at Vancouver City Hall and marched to Robson Square in front of the Vancouver Art Gallery, where participants gave speeches and set up booths. British musician Billy Bragg gave a musical performance at the strike. 

Tsleil-Waututh elder and environmental activist Rueben George started the event with a welcome speech. George has defended and supported environmental issues for decades, including his opposition to the Trans Mountain Pipeline project. Last year, he published a book about his experiences titled It Stops Here: Standing up for Our Lands, Our Waters, and Our People.

“The colonial system that created the residential schools is still the colonial system that we’re dealing with today. But it’s not just First Nations people now. It’s each and every one of us because if you go against the industry in Canada and you’re right, they’ll still say you’re wrong,” George said. “They will always listen to industry unless you rise up and say something, and the time is now. The time is now. It is scary what we’re looking at and what the future looks like when, just a short six weeks ago, there were 435 fires in British Columbia, over 50,000 fires globally.” 

Two Burnaby grassroots organizations, For Our Kids Burnaby and Burnaby Residents Opposing Kinder Morgan Expansion (BROKE), joined the climate strike on Friday. Kinder Morgan was the original owner of the Trans Mountain Pipeline and Tank Farm before the Canadian federal government bought the project in 2018 for $4.7 billion and renamed it. The recent pipeline expansion project cost the Canadian government around $34 billion. 

Roslyn Hart, a member of BROKE, spoke with the Beacon about her hopes for the future and the importance of the strike. Hart has been a Burnaby resident for over 40 years and has opposed the Trans Mountain Pipeline for decades. 

“I think overall, the climate strike is for people to recognize that this is not going to get better. Our governments keep taking pledges saying they’re doing the right things environmentally—and I’m thinking about the provincial and federal governments—then they turn around and expand fossil fuel development,” Hart said. 

Hart said that the City of Burnaby has been concerned about the pipeline and tank farm expansion for years, but the federal government and Trans Mountain have constantly overridden the city’s attempts at mitigating the harmful effects of these projects. 

“Many times, the old NEB, the National Energy Board, which is now the CER, has overridden the city,” Hart said. “One of the more recent actions of TMX in putting in the pipeline in Stoney Creek was they closed off a greenway which people were using to get to work. Some of the kids at Burnaby Mountain Secondary were using it to get to school, and for a number of months, they couldn’t access it, so we had an information area there to explain to people what was happening. And somebody said to me, ‘Oh, it’s the City of Burnaby that’s doing this.’ No, just the opposite. It’s the federal government that is doing this, and the City of Burnaby tried to stop it.”

Kate McMahon, team lead at For Our Kids Burnaby, joined the strike with her two children. In February 2024, For Our Kids Burnaby succeeded in convincing the City of Burnaby to join several municipalities in the Lower Mainland in the Sue Big Oil campaign to hold large fossil fuel companies responsible for the environmental and financial costs the cities will incur as a result of fossil fuel companies’ activities. She said the climate strike is important in reducing anxiety among children and youth.

“It’s also a great opportunity for empowering the kids, and we can advocate for their future together,” McMahon said. “I think being able to stand up there, use their own voices in a safe place, and seeing the adults around them advocating for their future...and teaching them how to use their own voices. I think this is a good way to counter anxiety, which is caused not only by worry about what the future holds but by seeing the inaction of their leaders as well.” 

She agrees with Hart that the city has made progress on environmental issues. 

“We were part of the campaign that helped to encourage Burnaby to adopt the highest level of the zero carbon step code. Burnaby is one of the leading municipalities in terms of adopting it at its highest code. Vancouver used to lead it, but there’s a bunch of municipalities, including Burnaby and Port Moody and a few others that are now leading in that,” McMahon said.

Hart said that dialogue, communication, raising awareness, and educating the younger generation are some of the ways to combat climate change. 

“I’m deeply, deeply concerned because the world’s heating up. We’re seeing more and more wildfires. We’ve had the heat domes coming in. My son actually has a friend whose mother died in the heat dome,” Hart said. “I think the best we can do is just keep trying to raise awareness. The needle is shifting a little bit, but the fear is that it’s too late. So that’s why raising awareness, having people come up…We want to be able to change things before it gets as terrible as it can be. And I don’t believe in giving up because if you give up, then we are doomed.”

This piece was made possible by the Local Journalism Initiative.

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