In a few weeks, the question of whether Hamilton should host private cannabis stores goes before the city’s planning committee.
Within the year before marijuana was legalized, the number of marijuana dispensaries operating in Hamilton had nearly tripled. With nearly 80 dispensaries popping up around the city, Hamilton had the most dispensaries per capita across Ontario, a testament to how huge the weed market really is in our city.
Right now, the only legal way to buy recreational cannabis is through the Ontario Cannabis Store’s website. Come April 2019, the province will roll out a tightly regulated, private retail model which will see the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario granting licenses to private retailers.
Until then, effectively speaking, cannabis dispensaries in Hamilton are illegal and unregulated. But what will happen to the remaining 21 dispensaries that the city has left?
In a presentation in January 2018 by Supt. Ryan Diodati, head of Hamilton’s police’s investigative services, Supt. Diodati noted that nearly 130 hours of staffing time had been invested in one investigation that had taken place in December 2017.
In many cases like this, that same dispensary could reopen the next day, ultimately demonstrating that overall, raids and closures resolve to be ineffective ways to shut down the climbing number of dispensaries across the city.
Municipal governments have until January to opt out of private cannabis stores within their jurisdictions, and there has been lots of talk within city council as to what will happen in April 2019.
Many councillors have put forward their concerns about the fate of dispensaries in the city. Namely Ward 4 Councillor Sam Merulla, who put forward a motion surrounding the fact that a lack of sustainable revenue sharing from the province in relation to the retail sale of cannabis to municipalities will amplify the regressive downloading crisis in Hamilton.
Considering the effect of nearly 130 hours of police staffing time that goes into one investigation and considering just how obsolete this work really is in shutting dispensaries down, where do we go from here?
Is there a reasonable point in shutting down the remaining dispensaries in Hamilton if they have the resources to open up again within hours? Is there a point to reallocating resources from our police department towards something that has proven to be ineffective?
As of April 2019, storefront dispensaries will have to be licensed by the province, but there will be no cap on the number of outlets within the city. Instead of wasting resources, energy and money on eliminating existing dispensaries within Hamilton, providing these businesses with a license would mean a more accessible and regulated approach to legalization.
The city’s planning committee will decide whether they want to host private cannabis stores on Dec. 11.
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by Ruchika Gothoskar
Doug Ford, Ontario’s new premier, has set out guidelines that give Ontario universities until Jan. 1, 2019 to develop a free speech policy on campus, a hot-button topic among the Progressive Conservative party after several high-profile incidents involving speakers with conservative views.
McMaster is no stranger to such engagements, after the highly contentious appearance of controversial psychology professor Jordan Peterson at McMaster in 2017, when his lecture was shut down by protestors.
The PC government made it clear that Ontario colleges and universities must come up with free speech policies that “include a definition of freedom of speech and adhere to principles based on the University of Chicago Statement on Principles of Free Expression”.
The University of Chicago’s document currently states that colleges and university are places for open and free discussion, that institutions should not shield students from ideas they disagree with or find offensive and that university or college community members cannot obstruct the freedom of others to share their views. Should Ontario post-secondary institution fail to implement this policy, they risk facing major funding cuts.
The reality of this situation is that we have had this conversation before, many times. McMaster began creating an anti-disruption policy in 2017, a draft that outlines acceptable methods to protest appearances by polarizing figures. The document was created by the university's committee on protest and freedom of expression in response to an increasingly polarized political and social climate where protests on campus are becoming more common place.
The question now is not whether or not McMaster will adhere to Ford’s demands on free speech policies, simply because we know that McMaster’s already been eager to shut down disruptions and allow for “free discussion” from the jump. What needs to be thought about now is who this policy is hurting, and what kind of dog whistle is embedded in the creation of policies like these.
Implementing school wide policies that do not allow for things like trigger warnings or safe spaces are ultimately harmful for everyone involved. These content disclaimers and spaces allow for individuals to decide how or if they want to engage. For people who experience trauma, such as sexual assault or attempted suicide, unexpected re-exposure to traumatic events can provoke a strong negative emotional response, impeding on their ability to learn and interact appropriately.
Furthermore, the threat of cut funding is one that hits home for many. Playing around with an institution's funding is a bold declaration. Many, if not all, post secondary institutions admit students, hire staff and create boards on the sole and main expectation that they can honour employment contracts or periods of study. This makes non-compliance with the free speech policies high risk, putting not only students’ livelihoods at stake, but also administrators’ and educators’.
Realistically, when implemented, policies like these do nothing but reduce advocacy for minority groups and the left hand political spectrum, leave students without a voice and further silence those who already come from marginalized backgrounds. Activist and writer Nora Loreto says it best, “free speech is freedom from reprisals from the state. This [policy], instead, is a stunning attack on the free speech of anyone in the university of college community.”
Oftentimes, when individuals speak out on acts of oppression, such as sexism or ableism, they are told that they are being politically correct. This ultimately derails the conversation and forgoes an opportunity for a mutually beneficial learning experience, counterproductive to the nature of university. With political correctness and trigger warnings, we are still able to have difficult conversations. And we should; being uncomfortable is often necessary in learning as it means we are challenging what we know and critically engaging with what is presented to us. Adopting a politically correct perspective ensures that these conversations are constructive and that we recognize our words for what they are: impactful.
Voting may change drastically in Hamilton, as the Ontario Municipal Board votes on how the city ought to divide up the city’s ward boundaries.
The discussion began earlier this year after city council hired a third party consulting firm to review the current ward boundaries and how they interact with population distribution throughout the city.
The firm created a series of different suggestions based on their own research, but city council ultimately scrapped these suggestions in order to adjust the boundaries themselves. They have focused their efforts on ensuring suburban residents have more representation in city council.
Local citizens have taken issue with this process, some accusing the councilors of gerrymandering, or the process of dividing up geographic areas to give a politician more political control.
One of the main issues at hand focuses on whether ward 1, which includes Ainslie Wood and Westdale, should be split up and absorbed into ward 13, which is the ward representing Dundas.
Joey Coleman, a local journalist, has expressed concerns about splitting up the student vote throughout two different wards.
"We are affected the exact same way by decisions made by council, and often times, disproportionately so. These may range from issues regarding by-law enforcement, to housing regulation, and investments or divestment in transit."
Chunky Ibe
President
McMaster Students Union
“The Dundas councillor has no reason to effectively represent student interests as the students are a small segment of ward 13 with their potential votes (even if they voted at the average of 40 per cent, which they do not) diluted among 30,000 residents of Dundas,” Coleman wrote in an analysis from Oct. 11.
At the Oct. 25 OMB hearing, McMaster Students Union president Chukky Ibe spoke against the ward 1 split, arguing that the McMaster is a cohesive community of interest.
“We are affected the exact same way by decisions made by council, and often times, disproportionately so. These may range from issues regarding by-law enforcement, to housing regulation, and investments or divestment in transit,” Ibe said. “This community is first of campaigned too, and then disproportionally targeted, and scapegoated for political gain.”
Within his delegation, Ibe referenced the specific issues affecting students, such as transit and policing which affect students disproportionately.
“When the major bus route is altered through McMaster, or service reduced in the summer, it is this community that feels the brunt of it. When our councillor Johnson worked to increase the presence of student by-law officers patrolling our neighbourhoods, it is our students that pay fines close to 700 dollars,” he said.
Ibe expressed particular concern about the student neighbourhood’s access to city funding, particularly the Area Rating Reserve Fund. This $1.5 million fund is given to wards 1 through 8 in order to help facilitate local infrastructure projects.
If the ward 1 split is approved, students who live in ward 13 will lose access to this project, as the largely suburban area of Dundas does not receive this funding, instead relying on property taxes to pay for these projects.
“Taking away a significant part of our community will weaken the incentive, elected officials have to heed the concerns of their constituency. We lose our critical mass in one regions, and in the other region, our population becomes deeply insignificant, further entrenching this negligence by council on the issues that matter to us,” Ibe said.
The OMB has previously voted that students count as a community of interest. In Nov. 2013, the OMB voted that the main student neighbourhoods in Kingston were their own cohesive communities. The OMB will release their decision as soon as possible.
Some Hamiltonians may be receiving a little extra money with the basic income pilot’s first run underway.
The pilot program was introduced in April 2017 and is currently being held in Hamilton, Lindsay and Thunder Bay. Eligible individuals could receive $17,000 a year. Those in couples may receive up to $24,000 a year.
The program is set to last three years so that the government may study its effects before deciding to implement it province-wide. The effects will be studied by a third-party team of researchers, which includes McMaster experts and academics.
Basic income is a form of social security where the government offers a small sum of money to all those eligible once a month in order to ensure families are able to afford basic necessities. If implemented throughout the city, all those eligible will receive a cheque, which the government feels is simpler than the current social assistance programs where individuals must apply.
The program hopes to alleviate major stressors that affect vulnerable workers, improve health and education for those living on low incomes. The program will be measured in terms of improvements in fields such as, but not limited to, food security, housing stability, education and training, employment and healthcare.
The history of basic income is one fraught with successes and failures. When first introduced in the United States in the 1960s, it came under fire from a multitude of groups whose criticisms ranged from lowering workers’ morale to distracting focus away from improving infrastructure. The results of the first pilot program in the United States during the Nixon administration found its results to be inconclusive.
Meanwhile in Canada, the Manitoba National Democratic Party, in conjunction with the incumbent Liberal government, launched a pilot program, which had successes in Winnipeg and Dauphin from 1974 to 1979. Critics still held reservations, though, and the program was abandoned.
One of the main critiques of basic income stems from its shift in focus from austerity measures that would shift wealth within the country. On the other side, other critics argue that basic income would reduce the drive for people to work.
The program hopes to alleviate major stressors that affect vulnerable workers, improve health and education for those living on low incomes.
The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives is largely in favour of the program, arguing it will assuage the burden placed on those living on lower incomes, especially with respect to healthcare.
“Of these social determinants of health, the most influential is income. Income is often referred to as the ‘determinant of the determinants’ because it influences access to other essentials for good health, such as where people can afford to live and how far they can go in school,” argued physicians Ryan Meili and Danielle Martin in an essay for the CCPA’s report on basic income.
In addition, the same report found argued that a basic income would improve the livelihoods of seasonal workers, who largely make up the rural workers in Canada.
“Overall, a basic income promises to help us come to terms with our economy and job market as they actually exist — not as they exist in the imaginations of orthodox and neoliberal economists — seasonal fluctuations and all,” argued Karen Foster, a sociology professor at Trent University, in the same report.
Meanwhile, the Northern Policy Institute argues that the policy, while effective in alleviating some stressors, will not sufficiently pull people out of poverty, which is the main goal of the basic income program.
“Consequently, it makes no sense to eliminate other social programs that have more specific goals, such as healthcare, job training, subsidized daycare and so on. Employment Insurance and the Canada Pension Plan are self-financed and serve very specific purposes in the economy — insuring against short-term job loss, and saving for retirement,” read the report.
As the program rolls out, only time will tell whether or not basic income can solve all the problems that it hopes to.
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Last week, McMaster University hosted a guest class talk with Art Eggleton. Besides currently serving as a Canadian senator representing Ontario, Art Eggleton was the longest serving mayor of Toronto, leading the city from 1980 to 1991. He has also held several distinguished federal government posts, notably as president of the treasury board and Minister of Infrastructure from 1993-1996, Minister for International Trade from 1996-1997, and Minister of National Defense from 1997-2002.
Senator Eggleton was invited to give a class talk for Prof. Todd Alway’s first-year Canadian Politics course on Nov. 8.
“I think it is in some respects more valuable to have an actual practitioner to come in and talk about his or her experiences,” Prof. Alway explained.
Eggleton stressed the big changes in restructuring the Senate with the new liberal government.
“[The Senate] is transforming itself from the kind of partisan institution that it has existed for a long time into one that is less partisan and more independent and more reflective of Canada,” he said.
“The Senate is a part of the constitution of the country—it is part of the architecture of governance, and it should get more attention because I think it can do some very useful things and better reflect the needs of the population than perhaps it has in the past with new changes that are coming about with new independence.”
This guest talk with Senator Art Eggleton serves as a means of extending beyond textbook material. Having students hearing about the experiences of an actual politician is a good complement to the course content. After all, who better to ask about the Canadian Senate than a Senator himself?
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Every March, past and present MSU student leaders, University administrators and some members of The Silhouette, get together for Student Recognition Night, an evening that highlights achievements and successes in student politics and service provision. Apart from the awards ceremony, one of the most anticipated parts of the evening is the current MSU Board of Directors’ Swan Song — a humorous and final goodbye from the President and the Vice Presidents of the MSU that has traditionally been used to poke fun at student politics, sing a couple self-deprecating lines and throw a few (welcome) jabs at our coverage.
Unfortunately, this year the song crossed the line from humorous to offensive. Although much of the song was funny and light-hearted, I have two issues with it: the individual attack towards a student activist, and the way it ridiculed the efforts of student activism, specifically the pro-Vice Presidential election reform campaign team and the Student Mobilization Syndicate.
Addressing student concerns of increasing tuition rates and groups that have requested that the MSU be more active beyond its role with OUSA, the song included lines like, “They say that tuition has doubled; maybe because they’ve been here for 10 years,” and in the same vein, “They’re now on the SRA; at least I’ll soon be gone.” For anyone involved with the MSU, the identity of the person the BOD was referring to is very clear. It’s also well known that this person is also a mature student who used to attend McMaster and has now returned for reasons that we’re not aware of and which frankly are none of our business. Whether their choice to leave was because of financial reasons, health reasons, or simply a matter of personal choice, whatever angle you decide to look at this line from, it is extremely offensive.
The person in question is also, as the song gives away, a new member of the Student Representative Assembly. The lines only create unnecessary and damaging animosity between the executive branch of the MSU and its governing body members, which should expect more respect from the BOD. There is a difference between inside jokes and personal attacks towards people you don’t engage in constructive dialogue with. That the person was also not present (or invited) to Student Rec Night makes the whole thing even more uncomfortable.
Beyond the personal attack, I was also disturbed at the willingness of the Board to ridicule the efforts of student groups whose goals are to push for change within the MSU. I’m not arguing that their stances are good or bad, but students should feel free to speak their mind about how they want to govern their student union without being ridiculed. For example, one line from the song about the VP reform petition was: “VPs-at-large they tried to file a petition once or twice… by once or twice I mean maybe a couple of hundred times.” It later added, “It’s too bad you lost VP to some Yik Yaks and memes… 21 votes,” referring to the small number of votes the pro-reform side lost the referendum by (a sad 0.3% under the two-thirds majority needed). What good does it do to ridicule the efforts of students with good intentions and students who want to improve the democratic process of our union? The BOD are the people in power. Whether you choose to respect their opinions or not, they still hold a lot of ground. Ridiculing student movements creates a hostile environment that discourages people from expressing opinions that the larger voices within the MSU might look down on.
Before anyone messages us to let us know that we don’t get the “point” of the Swan Song, that it’s meant to be in jest, let me assure you that we know. We know that it is meant to highlight the sometimes ridiculous and immature nature of student politics, and give the BOD a chance to respond to criticisms they’ve faced throughout the year. But it is not meant to be malicious or attack individual people. It’s not meant to discourage student activism, especially not activism that doesn’t align directly with how the MSU sees itself. The petitions and activist groups get attention because they speak to people — the numbers speak for themselves: both in the number of people who signed the VP reform petitions and those who voted in favour — and the last thing the MSU should be doing is making people feel that they will be ridiculed for wanting to make a change or be involved. Though the Swan Song does not take away from this BOD’s accomplishments, it ends the year on a sour note.
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By: Emma Mulholland
With the end of the academic year approaching, students are beginning to look for summer jobs and employment opportunities in places ranging from retail to research. The government of Ontario, however, wants to give students the opportunity to become entrepreneurs over the summer, through a program known as Summer Company.
“The goal of Summer Company is to introduce students to the world of entrepreneurship … to [help students] turn a hobby into a business idea … [and] to provide training and mentoring to the students so that they get a greater understanding of the business world,” said Dragica Lebo, Business Development Officer with the Hamilton Small Business Enterprise Centre.
Students apply to the program with a potential business idea and can receive up to $3,000 of funding from the provincial government to support their business. In the application process, students state how much money they initially require to start their business. According to Lebo, “no matter what the business is, all students have the same rules and regulations … the province will only give $1,500 so anything beyond that has to come from the student … if a student needs more … they will need to supply it themselves, or prioritize what they need … they have up to $1,500 [though], so we really try to help them take advantage of the whole $1,500.”
“Most of our students who participate in this program have never taken a business course before. Most of them just have a hobby or an idea … and want to see if it can be a viable company.”
After successfully completing the program, which requires students to attend training sessions, meet with local business mentors and properly keep track of receipts and invoices, students can receive an additional $1,500. Whether or not students decide to continue their business after the program ends is usually dependent on the situation, says Lebo. Many students who participated in the program in Hamilton continue part-time during the school year, and then pick it up again the following summer.
Several McMaster students who went through the program have also continued their businesses, either full time or part time. “The most helpful part was probably the connections that [Summer Company] helped us to establish … they put us in contact with people that could help with the legal aspects [of the business],” remarked Dylan Kiteley, a former participant who used the support of the program to establish a permanent retail location for his company, Oracle Nutrition.
In addition to providing financial support for students, Summer Company also aims to provide students with mentorship and business literacy skills. Summer Company itself sees a wide variety of business plans, but a common theme is that many students applying to the program do not have business backgrounds.
“Most of our students who participate in this program have never taken a business course before. Most of them just have a hobby or an idea … and want to see if it can be a viable company. This program gives them the opportunity to test the waters out,” explained Lebo. Bi-weekly meetings with community business leaders offers students everything from moral support and encouragement, to practical advice on navigating the business field. “[The mentor’s] role is to assist and guide the students from beginning to end of their companies within the program … to encourage the students in the world of business … and to help them through each phase and ensure that the [students] are on the right track,” said Lebo. Several prominent community leaders from a variety of fields, including McMaster professors, have volunteered time during the summer to work as mentors in the program.
Summer Company has been running in Ontario since 2001, and while it is open to students from age 15 to 29, Lebo notes that an interesting demographic shift has been taking place in the past few years. “About five years ago [the program] was very college or university [student] dominated … but in the past few years it’s been very 50/50 [between high school and post-secondary students] … I think that the entrepreneurial bug is embedded in students in a younger age … there are more business classes in high school than before … a lot of [high school] students are showing interest … they see that they can apply what they know, try something different, and see what it’s like operating a business.”
As classes come to an end and the hunt for summer employment begins, with a little help from the Ontario government, some students will be spending the summer hoping to break into the business world.
Photo Credit: Kareem Baassiri/ Photo Contributor
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The end of reading week and the return to midterms and papers is never pleasant. However, the end of first week back from the break for Ontario universities was punctuated with a surprise from the provincial government. With the release of the budget for the upcoming year, the province introduced a free tuition policy for low-income students.
According to the budget, students from families with a collective annual income of $50,000 or less are entitled to a grant that covers the average cost of tuition in Ontario. “If you're a student coming from a low-income family and you're paying average or below-average tuition, that's where that free tuition designation comes from,” explained Spencer Nestico-Semianiw, VP (Education) of the MSU, and President of the Ontario Undergraduate Student Alliance. For university students, that grant is worth a little over $6,000 a year while college students will see a grant of around $2,000.
The money required to fund this initiative is already being used within the postsecondary education sector. The government is repurposing several smaller grants, including the Ontario Student Opportunity Grant, the Ontario Student Access Grant and the 30 percent off tuition grant. However, the majority of the funding comes from the elimination of the tuition and education tax credit, something OUSA has advocated for over the course of the last decade.
“That was something that we are absolutely ecstatic about because we're now using the money that was previously used for tax credits, which wasn't up-front, it was going more towards higher-income families and students who didn't need it and so now the money's being repackaged and put into the hands of students who need it most,” said Nestico-Semianiw.
For long-term advocates of affordable tuition, the new budget marks a significant victory.
“These were recommendations that OUSA has clearly had in our policy papers for a number of years and we've seen a large number of those recommendations in this budget … For any student that was benefitting under the 30 percent off tuition grant previously, they are still going to be receiving at least the same amount of money now and the students who need it the most are going to be benefitting even more,” explained Nestico-Semianiw. He added that the OUSA’s advocacy week in December launched a renewed interest in discussing tuition in the province.
Despite the perks, the free tuition plan has left many skeptical. Some articles published misleading headlines implying the total erasure of tuition, and others raised the concern that the constant inflation of tuition means that the $6,000 calculation will likely be inaccurate just a few years into the future. The calculation of the grant also only considers the base price of tuition. Universities and colleges require students to pay mandatory fees beyond the cost of classes, including books, student union membership fees and living expenses.
Additionally, the new grant is calculated based on the average tuition for students in general arts and science programs, meaning thousands of students, such as those in engineering programs whose parents make less than $50,000, might still have to cover some of their own tuition depending on the amount of money they are granted.
“These were recommendations that OUSA has clearly had in our policy papers for a number of years and we've seen a large number of those recommendations in this budget."
Despite the concerns that have been raised, Nestico-Semianiw stressed his excitement over the policy changes. “To be completely frank they're absolutely fantastic,” he said. “Obviously [OUSA is] going to continue working with the government to make sure that tuition is affordable for students and that it doesn't outpace what we've seen in this budget … [but] I'm optimistic that we'll be able to work so that the next tuition framework doesn't lessen the impact of these changes but that's a conversation that still has to happen.”
While the new tuition policy is something for OUSA to be proud of, work remains to be done. The organization is currently occupied with helping the Ontario government finalize the specifics of the new grant. This will be followed up by more work on the new tuition framework, a task OUSA began to work on in January — a letter-writing campaign asking for a tuition freeze was one of their first advocacy efforts related to the framework.
For his part, Nestico-Semianiw thinks these are positive changes and hopes that his successors in the organization will continue to advocate for affordable tuition. “I think this opens up another very good conversation, but I think the next student executive will have to have those conversations too.”
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From Feb. 26-28, approximately 150 McMaster students gathered at the David Braley Health Sciences Centre to discuss and find solutions to global issues.
Acting as delegates representing nations around the world, the weekend was the first large-scale effort in hosting a Model United Nations at McMaster University. Model UNs serve as both a conference and simulation to allow students to immerse themselves in numerous complex issues that they can debate and learn about from other students.
Saad Ejaz was one of these students and a delegate for the United States at the Economic and Social Council, one of three groups that discussed recommendations on economic, social and environmental issues.
“ I learned a lot from this conference ... all the delegates that came were well-informed about their topics,” he said.
“I had to defend different topics that I didn’t necessarily agree with, topics that certain countries had strong stances on.”
Each student delegate was assigned a country whose stances they had to defend. In preparation for the conference, they had to research its policies and produce a paper on the subject.
Teddy Saull and Ramya Kancherla, the Secretary General and Director General at the conference, respectively, echoed the value of defending an unfamiliar country’s position; in many ways, this was the cornerstone in hosting a model UN.
“The reason why it is important ... is because it provides the opportunity for student dialogue through a mechanism they haven’t [used] before,” said Kancherla.
“When you’re given a country to represent that isn’t necessarily aligned with your own views, it truly allows you to empathize and get a better understanding of views that may not be similar to your own,” she said.
The conference was the latest milestone in the Perspectives on Peace initiative that McMaster President and Vice-Chancellor Patrick Deane has worked on with Saull since late 2014.
Originally started as a project under Forward With Integrity, Perspectives on Peace has grown to involve various events and speakers on understanding different cultures and issues in the world. Previous Perspectives on Peace events have recently included speakers like Marc Kielburger, a co-founder of Free The Children, and Samantha Nutt, the director of War Child Canada.
As Saull explained regarding the focus on a model UN, “it fits well with the idea of coming to know other people’s perspectives. This campaign is all about trying to complicate people’s world views and trying to come to understand the world as something that everyone sees in a different way.”
Kancherla expressed her excitement for the students at McMaster’s first model UN, having been a veteran of seven previous model UNs herself throughout high school and university.
“Those experiences through those opportunities really allowed me to get a better perspective of world issues and how that is so important in an ever-globalizing world,” she said.
Despite her experience, she said that the enthusiasm and diversity of the students surprised her, even after all these years.
“A lot of these events, it’s mainly political science students, individuals who are really passionate about these issues based on their undergraduate program. However, we had such a diverse planning team of people in Health Sciences, Arts & Sciences, Life Sciences, Communications ... it brought together a diversity of individuals.”
Photo Credit: Monish Ahluwahlia
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By: Saad Ejaz
On Jan. 26, dozens rallied outside the Federal Building in Hamilton to call on the Trudeau government to keep its promises on climate change.
The crowd carried signs and posters advocating for divestment from fossil fuels that read “Divest from oil, invest in our future.”
Leading up to the election in October and the Paris climate change conference in December, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau addressed climate change extensively and discussed the need to overhaul the National Energy board Pipeline review process. He also promised to include members of Indigenous communities in this discussion.
However, those who were present at the rally expressed dissatisfaction with the government’s actions so far.
Don McLean, an attendee, said that he along with other members of the community want the Trudeau government to be proactive on climate change.
“Promised in the election campaign, both verbally and in their platform, that they would stop this broken process of pipeline reviews … We also want him to keep his promise to the planet, which he took in Paris.”
The question the protesters aimed at the Trudeau government is simple: How can Canada be a world leader in climate change and continue the destructive environmental projects of pipeline expansions?
Hearings for the Kinder Morgan pipelines resumed on Jan. 19 despite opposition from environmental groups. The pipeline project would allow three times more bitumen across southern British Columbia through the Vancouver harbour. While the hearings for the project are underway, so are protests and rallies.
Recently, Enbridge proposed an eastern pipeline. The Energy East project is a 4,600 km pipeline that will transport approximately 1.1 million barrels of oil per day from Alberta to Eastern Canada.
The crowd carried signs and posters advocating for divestment from fossil fuels that read “Divest from oil, invest in our future.”
“We already have serious climate change, we have to keep more 80 percent of the fossil fuels that we know about in the ground. And in terms of the tar sands, we need to virtually keep all of it there […] We don’t want to see any expansion of pipelines or fossil fuel extraction. We need to go in the other direction and it is to move towards renewable energy,” said McLean.
The rally was organized by Hamilton 350, a local chapter of the national climate change organization.
A number of different organizations attended the rally, including Council of Canadians Hamilton Chapter, Fossil Free McMaster and a number of sub-organizations within Hamilton 350 such as Environment Hamilton and The Blue Dot.
Mary Ann Blair, another attendee, thinks that there is still time for positive change.
“I personally don’t believe that it is an impossible situation. I believe that it is a situation that can inspire and is inspiring great human creativity … We can’t deal with this anymore. We need to realize it’s possible. And that’s why we are here. Change is possible. We don’t have to do things the same old way.”
Kazlyn Bonner, a member of Hamilton 350, urges Hamiltonians and students to become active on the issue of climate change.
“Whether you change your specific or small habits … Whether that action is in the form of signing a petition, or writing to MPs or even going to protests and rallies, and participating in a more visible way … there’s no action that is too small,” said Bonner.
Hamilton 350 will discuss plans for the upcoming months at a public meeting on Feb. 24 at 294 James St. N.
Photo Credit: Saad Ejaz
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