Photo Courtesy of Kelsey Savage & John Woods, Real Talk

On paper, Alison Klein is a serious academic with a master’s in interdisciplinary studies focused on adult education and disability. Meet her at one of the Real Talk’s free public events (affectionately known as “pizza parties”), and she’ll be the first to greet you as a peer facilitator and make a joke—sometimes with anatomically correct models at the ready.

“I go, ‘Look, a present’, and then just walk away,” says Klein with a smile. “I have kind of a funny side.”

Founded and managed by sexual health educator John Woods, Real Talk is an initiative based in Metro Vancouver that supports people with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD). Woods has worked in community living spaces, schools, and sexual health organizations since the early ’90s, both in Canada and in London, UK. He saw the urgent need for sex education tailored to the IDD community, and a slew of intersectional barriers rooted in eugenics. Now, in between pizza parties and Q&As, Real Talk works with the community living sector to support providers and those with cognitive disabilities.

“Step five is getting the public to acknowledge and affirm that folks with intellectual disabilities could be LGBTQ,” explains Kelsey Savage, Real Talk’s project developer. “Step zero is the general population believing that folks with intellectual disabilities have a sexuality at all.”

Since its founding in 2017, Real Talk has grown to include both certified sexual health educators and peer facilitators with lived experience, ensuring its initiatives are driven by community needs. While the disability rights rallying cry “nothing about us without us” has existed for decades, Real Talk remains one of the few accessible sex-positive resources that centre self-advocacy. It provides an extensive library of YouTube videos addressing common questions around sexuality and disability. Savage also oversees Connecting Queer Communities (CQC), a social group for 2SLGBTQIA+ folks with cognitive disabilities to connect across the Lower Mainland both in person and online. People often attend both Real Talk and CQC events, and several have joined Klein as peer facilitators themselves. As facilitators, honouring education and community could mean helping someone explain orgasms to their partner one day, and being with someone’s deepest traumas the next.

“It’s happened a number of times at our events, where people have discovered they’ve been taking birth control and it’s been called a vitamin, or they’ve had an IUD and they didn’t consent to it,” says Savage. “There’s already a lot in the room before you step into it.”

As Real Talk works across communities to expand its outreach, what’s needed to ensure the future of good sexual health education is clear: government-sponsored education and publicly funded accommodations and support so people with cognitive disabilities have an equitable pathway to become sexual health educators. “I want to ideally work myself out of a job,” teases Savage.

“Earlier, I was mostly around staff and disconnected from my community,” Klein says. “I hope Real Talk is a starting point, and that sex education can be taught in schools to kids from all different backgrounds, so they all have a frame of reference [for] each other.”

Image courtesy of Dopamine Montréal.

A pride flag flaps defiantly in the wind above a welcoming front porch. A basket of free naloxone kits hangs on the front door. On the wall upstairs, a poster reads “Activities to avoid dying sad/to make you happy” and lists acupuncture, bowling, and picnics.

This is the home of Dopamine Montréal. Just like its namesake, Dopamine uptakes and releases a rush of essential resources to those who use illicit drugs. But the organization operates under the spectre of the law: Clients, many of whom are low-income or houseless, struggle to access employment, housing, and security as long as drug use is criminalized.

Montreal is considered a progressive urban centre, located in a province with relatively strong social services like universal daycare and subsidized college programs. When it comes to tackling the overdose crisis, though, the city is in traction. According to the Public Health Agency of Canada, 541 people died from an opioid-related drug overdose in Quebec in 2022, an increase of nearly 20 percent from the year before. Emergency interventions in the city of Montreal were reportedly four times as frequent in 2022 as they were before the pandemic. These numbers paint an incomplete picture, however. CACTUS Montréal, another harm reduction organization that serves the Gay Village, recorded a 350 percent increase in overdose deaths in the city from 2019 to 2022—about one per day. According to their numbers, as of this January, the rate has jumped to two per day.

Harm reduction groups such as Dopamine and CACTUS are filling the gaps in community care. Established in 1994 amid the HIV/AIDS crisis, Dopamine serves the Hochelaga- Maisonneuve neighbourhood through a day centre located in a converted home and a supervised injection site (SIS) a few streets over that operates from 8 p.m. to 1 a.m. After what CACTUS says was a decade-long bureaucratic process involving loads of paperwork and city approval, the SIS opened in 2017 alongside CACTUS Montréal’s.

Dopamine was founded on three core values: humanism, accessibility, and solidarity. The words reinforce that Dopamine is part of a political struggle against the conditions that create poverty and lead to people being incarcerated for drug-related crimes.

Executive director Martin Pagé knows how the cycle works; he’s seen it firsthand through his personal experience and through Dopamine’s staff, several of whom used or continue to use their services. “We are par et pour,” he says, both by and for the community. Criminalizing drugs pushes the market underground, where products are cut with riskier substances, such as often-deadly fentanyl or carfentanil, at variable concentrations. Once someone’s drug use is made legible through a criminal record, barriers to housing and employment get even taller. “It’s the exact opposite of what they should be doing,” Pagé says. Without safe, controlled injection sites that provide sterile tools, the risk of contracting HIV or Hepatitis C grows significantly.

At Dopamine, academic experience and lived experience are both valued and essential to fostering trust with clients. Intervention coordinator Yanick Paradis has worked at Dopamine for 18 years, with 12 years of street work experience. Many staff and casual employees are users themselves, Paradis explains. “We involve the people who visit the organization at different levels,” he says. “We will compensate people for their work, no matter what kind, whether it’s lawn mowing or a service offer…Ideally, our group is led by the community.”

As the organization has a history rooted in the AIDS epidemic, an integral part of their community mandate is to make health services accessible. Dopamine runs a drop-in medical clinic every Tuesday for their regular clients. Though it’s not a totally effective alternative to Quebec’s crumbling health-care infrastructure, the clinic focuses on preventive care and follow-ups for those who face barriers to access. “We reflected on how we could bring community health closer, and have health care that gives people positive experiences,” Pagé explains.

Pagé says the pandemic exacerbated every problem the community group sees. Clients are in increasingly precarious housing situations; the social safety net is eroding and organizations like theirs represent the last threads. And sex workers, immigrants, and trans people all find themselves at the intersection of socioeconomic instability and government negligence.

As paramedics administered naloxone a record high of 291 times in the city in 2022, according to Radio-Canada, drug testing has become one of the most crucial services Dopamine and CACTUS have to offer. Data gathered by CACTUS reports that Montreal’s Gay Village is at the epicentre of the overdose crisis in Quebec. But municipal and provincial governments are not treating it that way, though there’s precedent to do better. British Columbia was granted a federal exemption to decriminalize possession of illicit substances weighing less than 2.5 grams in January of this year, while the city of Toronto began the process of applying for the same exemption in 2021. Long-progressive Edmonton, often subject to Alberta’s conservative political lean despite its ability to operate separately, tabled a motion to decriminalize drugs within the city. Over 100 harm reduction groups across the country support the Canadian Drug Policy Coalition’s proposal to make all drugs legal for personal use nationwide— but fierce opposition from some premiers, municipal governments and lobbyist groups makes it unlikely to move forward.

In the summer of 2022, Mayor Valérie Plante told the CBC that she supported the idea of decriminalization in Montreal. Her administration has yet to apply for the same exemption.

The municipal government’s vague response illustrates just how easy it is to shirk responsibility for a manufactured crisis. “We are actually in a worse situation than we were [in] the HIV pandemic,” says Jean-François Mary, CACTUS’s executive director. “Because actually, in those days, there was a real partnership between public health and community organizations.” In the 1990s, a Quebec coalition representing 31 community organizations gave presentations to a federal committee to advocate for increased funding and support. Now, Mary says that public health officials are detached from the reality of intervention on the ground, hindering their approach to resource allocation.

“They talk, we die,” is the slogan CACTUS and Dopamine jointly rallied behind at a protest in early April. They are pushing for decriminalization, increased funding from Quebec’s public health division, and a non-prohibitive approach to the overdose crisis. “And Valérie Plante is talking,” says Mary. “But what are they doing? What have they done?”

CACTUS provided the municipal government with the paperwork to apply for the exemption, according to Mary. In an email to This, the city’s media relations office referred to a non-partisan motion adopted by city councillors in 2021, asserting that they were in favour of decriminalizing simple possession and calling on the city to apply for the exemption. But they did not confirm that an application was in the works. They did say the “[police] will continue to apply the law.”

People working on the ground know that prohibition won’t help those already pushed to the margins. “An important saying in harm reduction is if you can’t help, then at least try to do no harm,” Pagé says. Whether Montreal’s policymakers will heed this duty of care remains to be seen.

Photo courtesy of Dana Prieto.

Glazed in black, the beauty of Dana Prieto’s hand-crafted ceramic vessels forces the viewer’s attention—but what they wouldn’t be able to tell at first glance is that the artwork may contain traces of arsenic, cadmium, and mercury.

Prieto, an Argentine visual artist based in Toronto, describes the vessels as an “inhospitable gift,” made with soil from the contaminated territories of Belén and Hualfín, in the province of Catamarca. The vessels will be gifted to the CEOs and corporate social responsibility executives of Canadian mining companies operating in the South American region.

Contaminants to the land and water in Belén and Hualfín seep from Bajo de la Alumbrera, the country’s first open-pit gold and copper mine that has been in operation since 1997. Although the mine had been set to close in March, it will now remain open for another decade. Bajo de la Alumbrera is owned by Glencore, headquartered in Switzerland, and two Canadian companies: Goldcorp and Yamana Gold.

The vessels, titled 1:10000 (the scale of the vessel in relation to the mine), are 3D models of the mine, created to scale. A disclaimer at the bottom of each cup reads: “Handmade with soil affected by Bajo la Alumbrera mine.”

“They can fill out the rest of the narrative,” says Prieto.

The soil was provided by Silvia Delgado, a Buenos Aires-based ceramic artist and activist. Delgado has extracted clay from Belén for many years and mentored Prieto in the construction of the vessels. “I consider ceramics to be part of that ancestral time where domestic and ritual uses of objects had a strong social bond,” says Delgado. Unlike most ceramics, however, the luxury aesthetic of the vessels is intended to appeal to a CEO.

The act of sending these vessels is more important to Prieto than what actually happens to the gift itself. In the gallery space, the vessels are displayed on wooden boxes under a spotlight. The lights are dimmed, and the walls painted a dark grey. Inside each box is a quote engraved in gold leaf from the 2017 book Arts of Living on a Damaged Planet: “Death may not, after all, be the end of life; after death comes the strange life of hauntings,” it reads.

To illustrate the immediacy of the gift, 150 boxes with Canadian postage surround the gallery, accounting for all potential recipients across the country. On the wall, a stencil made with ink made from the contaminated soil reads: “Handmade with soil affected by Canadian mining companies.”

“I hope that works like this can make a call to the heart, because such profound devastation has wounded our land, corrupting the human soul and our existence,” says Delgado.

When people talk about fantasy worlds, they often mean worlds populated with dwarves, elves, and magic. But in a way, stepping onto the convention floor of the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada (PDAC) conference did feel like a fantasy. As the biggest mining conference on Earth, it’s frequented by some of the wealthiest in the world. It’s a place where smoked salmon and fancy cheeses lie heaped on trestle tables, free for the taking. Where dark-suited white businessmen modestly acknowledge the opportunities they create for “the Indigenous.” Where mining companies advertise investments in their projects by offering up entire countries like they’re new brands of kombucha. Try Ecuador!

Standing in crowds of laughing, mingling geologists, mining engineers, CEOs, and government representatives, it was genuinely hard to remember where they got their power and wealth, thousands of miles away.

The Mining Injustice Solidarity Network seeks to do just that. MISN brings attention to the aspects of mining many would rather not think about: human rights abuses, environmental destruction, and lawsuits and tax evasion. 

And this year, they did it through a treasure hunt. Participants showed up to a bar near the event, and coordinators from MISN handed them a series of questions to ask specific company representatives. The “hunters” then plunged into the conference.

“It’s a very different world than my own,” said Clay Barnett, who participated in the hunt.

While MISN organized the treasure hunt to function as a “creative disruption,” Barnett said he wasn’t out to antagonize. “I’m not an obtrusive person. I was in some ways just trying to understand the world that those people are inhabiting. I think I shook them up more by wearing my jeans than by asking my questions. They’re all wearing these suits… you know, the ‘I have money, so do you, let’s make more together’ look. That vibe is very strong. I don’t hate that. It’s interesting.”

On the floor at PDAC, the world’s largest mining conference. Photo by Caitrin Pilkington.

The hunt directives ranged from asking lighter questions to more challenging, complex inquiries. “I think the most fucked up thing isn’t what is seen here, but what is absent,” said Emily Green, collective member of MISN. “For example, there was a big spill last year, [but the company involved] is not here this year. One of the questions in our treasure hunt is to look for a mention of that oil spill. And it’s a trick question, because you will not find that anywhere.”

But why use a treasure hunt to push these issues to the fore?

“Public actions can become empty rituals,” says Green. “In our four years of attending PDAC, our strategy has included rallies, but we don’t want to default into an activism ‘formula.’ We want to think strategically about what our goals are.”

The questions were an invitation to consider the challenges of those impacted by the mining industry, and show that people are paying attention.

Emmet McAleer is from Greencastle, Ireland, a place officially designated as an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. It’s ecologically unique, home to rare species such as the parrot mussel. It’s also soon to be affected by a major gold mine project. McAleer travelled from Ireland to the PDAC out of his own pocket. He explained that the cyanide processing plant and waste dump for the project will be located less than a kilometre from his community’s local primary school and playground.

He strongly disagrees with widely touted notion that mining benefits the areas where it happens. “The financial rewards will go almost exclusively to this company. There’s a small tax that will go to the Queen, but almost nothing that will go back into the local economy,” he said.

“We’ll be left with this wasteland. This toxic dump. We’re a place with a lot of rural agriculture, a lot of families. It will be a massive threat to our way of life if this company is allowed to come in and do what they want here. It’s frustrating when you’re arguing a point that feels so clear, to be made to feel like your worries mean nothing.”

It was easy to get the sense at PDAC that not all mining offences come as a result of outright cruelty, but a lot of ignorance. An executive involved in a mine in Ecuador said in a talk: “We arrive in these places where there’s nothing but trees. We leave with fully functional mines and business opportunities. And that’s something I feel good about.” He smiled, nodded, and stepped down to rapturous applause.

The treasure hunt felt like a powerful way to ask the questions affected communities want asked, and include their voices in a place where their worries are too-often disregarded, overlooked, and explained away. In places where the truth can feel so different depending on who you ask, the most important thing we can do is to keep asking the questions.

Indigenous students lead an opening ceremony and land acknowledgement during the three-day camp-out at New Brunswick’s Mount Allison University. Photo by Lauren Latour.

On a February morning in 2017, Tina Oh and more than 50 students are waiting impatiently in Mawita’mkw, a small gathering space for Indigenous students and community members at Mount Allison University in Sackville, N.B. Anxious chatter fills the room until suddenly, it’s silent. “It’s time,” Oh tells them, and the students, dressed entirely in black, follow her lead and file into the halls. As they make their way through the building, the group begins singing quietly to calm their nerves. “People going to rise like the water, going to calm this crisis down,” they chant. Their voices grow louder and more confident, echoing as they march through the doors to Tweedie Hall in the student centre. Within seconds of arriving in the room, they collapse suddenly on the hardwood floors.

Suit-clad policy makers stand in surprise, moving to the sides of the space, and watching on with with crossed arms as the students lay limp for nearly an hour. The group is staging a “die-in”—a protest representing the lives endangered by the devastating effects of climate change and the fossil fuel industry. The group has interrupted a board meeting with a set of demands: They call on the administration to cut Mount Allison’s financial ties with the top 200 publicly traded fossil fuel companies within the next five years; they urge them to establish a sustainable and transparent investment policy.

After some muttering among board members, it becomes clear they will be agreeing to no such thing. Holding hands and chanting, the students stand their ground. They are not leaving the building until their demands are met. “We are demonstrating today against the inaction and the violent silence that this board has demonstrated to us,” Oh says. “Understood,” chair Ron W. Outerbridge tells her, and the board members shuffle out of the room, trying not to step on the bodies in their way.

“Being an advocate for climate justice has always been mandatory for me, especially as a woman of colour,” says Oh, a philosophy, political science, and economics student who was born in South Korea and grew up in Edmonton. Most of Oh’s relatives still live in South Korea, where many rely on agricultural work for their livelihood. In recent years, floods, typhoons, and droughts caused by climate change have had a severe impact on the country. That damage is echoed in the devastation caused by recent climate disasters around the world—hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and Maria, wildfires across North America, earthquakes in Mexico, and monsoon rains across South Asia.

The divestment campaign at Mount Allison, Divest MTA, began in 2013. It is one of more than 30 active divestment campaigns on campuses across Canada. The groups are calling on their schools to remove investments from the fossil fuels industry and buy into students’ futures by directing new funds in sustainable industries. As campaigns gain momentum, organizers are turning to public, often radical actions to spread their message and sway administrative bodies.

Students at Mount Allison participate in a die-in to protest divestment on campus. Photo by Lauren Latour.

On campuses from coast to coast to coast, divestment organizers are behind one of the most ambitious efforts to fight climate change in Canada. Universities hold a unique position as leaders in thought. Subsequently, organizers believe institutions’ commitment to divestment will tarnish the fossil fuel industry’s reputation in the public consciousness, rendering the industry untouchable.

The divestment movement speaks to a growing understanding that individual commitments to environmentalism no longer suffice in the efforts to tackle climate change. Organizers also know they cannot rely on performative promises of sustainability from governments and corporations. And for many leaders on campus, channelling people power through grassroots collective organizing—and figuratively dropping dead in front of authority figures—is the only way to hold major institutions accountable, effect change, and secure our rights.

***

Fossil fuel divestment has roots in the student movement, beginning on campuses in the United States in 2011. More than 100 educational institutions, many based in the U.S. and U.K., have since committed to divestment. The campus movement has also grown into something much bigger, reaching a vast range of influential establishments, including governments, religious organizations, and philanthropic groups. To date, more than 800 institutions have divested $5.5 trillion from the fossil fuel industry globally.

Divestment is part of the intersectional climate justice movement, which recognizes climate change is an ethical and political issue that disproportionately affects Indigenous people, people of colour, women, poor nations, and LGBTQ folks. The divestment movement is also largely driven by young people, generations who will be disproportionately burdened by the effects of climate change. Members of Divest Dal emphasized this point in fall 2016, when 30 students occupied an administration building on Dalhousie campus to receive stick-and-poke “birthmark” tattoos. Each person was marked with a three-digit tattoo representing the amount of carbon in the air in the year they were born. Climate scientists agree that 350 parts per million (PPM) is the safe limit for a healthy climate. Laura Cutmore patiently waited her turn and tried not to flinch as the needle dug into the skin of her wrist, marking her with a small 356. Last year, the amount of carbon dioxide in the air passed 400 PPM.

To date, more than 800 institutions have divested $5.5 trillion from the fossil fuel industry globally

“Getting a tattoo doesn’t seem very radical compared to the damage that’s being inflicted on the earth,” says Cutmore, who has been organizing with Divest Dal for about two years. A handful of people got tattoos after learning about the severity of the issue, and there was so much demand, Divest Dal had to set up another session at a later date.

Back in New Brunswick, student activists have taken on less permanent methods of action—writing and presenting reports to board members, hosting a sit-in at a local MP’s office, and staging a vigil in protest of the Kinder Morgan pipeline. But after years of lobbying, Divest MTA’s actions left administration unmoved. The group opted for an even more in-your-face demonstration than a die-in. Last March, they organized a three-day camp-out, occupying the lawn of the school in protest. They stayed put amid -10 C temperatures and a massive blizzard; many tents collapsed in the middle of the night. When Robert Campbell, the school’s president, refused to acknowledge the group’s presence, more than 80 people took the protest to the steps of his office, demanding a meeting.

Hours later, after they refused to leave, Campbell agreed to meet with Oh and another student. He disagreed that it was his role to recommend divestment and left soon after. Crestfallen and exhausted with no idea what to do next, Oh burst into tears. Much of the group cried with her. As she was taking down the camp, Oh started feeling significant pain. She realized that sleeping on the ground had aggravated a severe prior internal injury from a car accident. Later, at the ER, a doctor told her she should have been bedridden with agony days earlier; only the adrenaline kept her going.

Out west, Sadie-Phoenix Lavoie, a Two-Spirit Anishinaabe land defender from Sagkeeng First Nation, is a member of the divestment movement as a former student at the University of Winnipeg. Lavoie grew up with a deep connection to the environment, fishing and hunting with their family since they were young. But that environment is under threat. Located at the mouth of the Winnipeg River, 120 kilometres northeast of Winnipeg, Sagkeeng has been deeply affected by industry pollution and development projects, leading to the erosion of reserve lands and a decline of fisheries. Lavoie organized with Divest UW because they believe the school’s ongoing investment in fossil fuels is upholding colonizing behaviour. “It’s disrespecting Indigenous land rights, the right to denial of consent to pipelines, and Indigenous knowledge of what sustainability means,” they say. “It’s just a huge slap in the face for Indigenous students who want to come to a university where the school is respecting them and their connection to the environment.”

“I wanted to make it known that they didn’t break me. They weren’t going to silence me in any way”

The work done by divestment organizers is not restricted to the campus bubble. In October 2016, Lavoie, Oh, and Cutmore were three of 99 young people arrested on Parliament Hill as part of Climate 101, a youth-led mass civil disobedience in protest of rumours that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau planned to approve the Kinder Morgan pipeline. Two weeks later, Lavoie and Oh attended COP22, the United Nations Climate Change conference in Morocco, where they were part of a group of youth holding Canada accountable to its international environmental agreements. Lavoie also had a high-profile confrontation with the prime minister, standing behind him at a town hall in Winnipeg with a banner that read: “Water is Sacred / No Pipelines!” While there, Lavoie and a handful of other young people interrupted him to ask about the lack of Indigenous consent for government-approved resource extraction projects. Trudeau gave a short speech—in a tone Lavoie describes as condescending—about the importance of listening to each other respectfully and asked for permission to continue speaking. Gaining applause from people in the crowd, Trudeau told the young people that if they didn’t allow him to speak, he would have to ask them to leave. “I thought it was really ironic that he was asking for consent to speak but he was denying our right to consent to refuse these pipelines,” Lavoie says.

Lavoie graduated in October, but their work is far from over. When they crossed the stage to accept their diploma at graduation, Lavoie held up a banner that read, “Stop Funding Fossils.” “I wanted to make it known that they didn’t break me. They weren’t going to silence me in any way even though I was leaving the university,” they say. “I will never give up.”

***

Despite mounting pressure from students and alumni, Canadian post-secondary institutions have been hesitant to jump on board. After five years of organizing across the country, one major post-secondary institution has committed to full divestment. In February 2017, after a brief four-month campaign, Quebec City’s Laval University agreed to redirect its endowment fund investments in fossil energy elsewhere, including into renewable energy.

Alice-Anne Simard, who founded ULaval sans fossiles, says their campaign was similar to others across the country: They reached out to students, wrote letters and petitions, compiled researchbased reports, and gained support from student associations. She credits the victory to student involvement and one powerful administrator’s genuine commitment to sustainability. Most of all, administration at Laval recognized the value of bragging rights: The school can say it is the first university in Canada to divest, a claim to sustainable leadership that boosts their image.

Now Simard is encouraging other campaigns to organize, noting how bad it will look for a school to be the last to do so. This could be the reality for schools that have refused to address or flat-out reject divestment. The University of Toronto, McGill, and Queen’s are among schools whose boards of governors have considered and voted down tabled motions to divest. When McGill turned down divestment for the second time in 2016, it stated that there is no proof it would have a real-world impact.

A sign from the Mount Allison camp-out, where dozens of students set up tents in freezing temperatures to protest. Photo by Catherine Dumas, Radio Canada Acadie.

Some post-secondary institutions have responded by creating alternative investment policies. In 2017, UBC reversed its prior refusal to consider divestment, investing up to $25 million in a fossil-free fund over the next two years. A year earlier, the University of Ottawa committed to “shifting” its fossil fuel investments to reduce its carbon footprint by 30 percent by 2030. And in 2015, Concordia University agreed to redirect half of its $10 million investment in fossil fuels elsewhere. But divestment organizers refuse to consider these steps victories, believing a rejection of full divestment undermines the idea of institutions distancing themselves from fossil fuel companies. Lavoie, for example, calls UWinnipeg’s plan to create a sustainable investment policy and optional fossil-free fund for donors a greenwashing measure taken to avoid concrete change.

When Canadian universities reject divestment, they frequently cite a fiduciary duty to students and shareholders, stating divestment would compromise the financial well-being of the school. Katie Perfitt, the Canadian divestment organizer with 350.org, an online organization that supports grassroots campaigns to oppose international oil, coal, and gas projects, says this financial argument has become the most prominent reason why universities refuse to reject divestment across the country. She hesitates to bring money into the divestment conversation—the purpose of the movement is to focus on and bring justice—but notes that some research shows divestment can be healthy for financial assets. A report by Genus Capital, a B.C. investment firm with a fossil-free investment division, shows that fossil-free funds performed just as well— sometimes better—than funds invested in the industry.

Perfitt also notes that the fossil fuel industry is on the decline. The Canadian oil industry currently relies on $3.3 billion in government subsidies a year. On a global scale, the expense of sustaining the fossil fuel industry is staggering—and on the rise. According to one report, subsidizing the global fossil fuel industry cost $4.9 trillion in 2013. By 2015, the cost rose to $5.3 trillion.

Those numbers account for government policies that lower the cost of fossil fuel production, raise the price received by producers, and lowers the price paid by consumers. But they also reflect broader costs, such as expenses related to global warming and deaths from air pollution. As the push for green energy grows, even the CEO of Shell has stated during a conference that public trust in the oil industry “has been eroded to the point that it is becoming a serious issue for [Shell’s] long-term future.”

The goal of the divestment movement, however, has never been to affect fossil fuel companies’ bottom line. “The idea isn’t that we’re trying to bankrupt them. We’re trying to stigmatize them in the public realm,” says Perfitt. “So many institutions in our world are complicit in the climate crisis by remaining tied to the fossil fuel industry. We want to expose those relationships, and bring an issue that otherwise would have not been in the public realm to light.”

***

In some places, these relationships are more evident than others. When Emma Jackson walks to class at the University of Alberta, she is bombarded by reminders of the institution’s intimate ties to oil companies. Hallways in academic buildings are covered in gold plaques boasting the names of major donors: Imperial Oil, Encana, Enbridge, Suncor.

“Everywhere you turn, you’re surrounded by donor walls dominated by oil and gas companies, student organizations branded by Shell, and corporate representatives who have been invited into academic departments as guest professors,” says Jackson.

It isn’t just U of A. Most postsecondary institutions are entangled with the industry beyond their investment portfolios. Oil companies regularly donate to universities across the country, funding research, scholarships, and fellowships. At UWinnipeg, Enbridge Pipelines Inc. funds a scholarship specifically for Indigenous students. Last August, Dalhousie announced a $2.2-million donation from Irving Oil to revamp the school’s engineering and architecture campuses; the donation will also fund more than $700,000 in scholarships, including co-op opportunities with the New Brunswick-based company.

In Edmonton, climate organizers were met with violent criticism—even death threats—from pipeline supporters

Katie Perfitt says one intention of such sponsorship deals on campuses is to “train our minds to think about those companies as just a natural part of our life. The fossil fuel industry wants to maintain control of the way we think about climate change and its relationship to the industry.” These deals also come with a more explicit ability to influence campus life. Leading up to Dalhousie’s 2014 vote on divestment, the school’s Dean of Science told media a representative from Shell threatened to withdraw academic funding if the motion passed. A Shell spokesperson later downplayed the concerns.

In October 2017, an investigation of the University of Calgary’s establishment of the Enbridge Centre for Corporate Sustainability revealed a professor lost his position as director of the centre after he disclosed his opposition to Enbridge’s Northern Gateway pipeline.

It also named a “troubling” conflict of interest involving the school’s president, who at the time held a highly paid position on Enbridge’s board. The sponsorship came with a commitment from the university that it would “enhance Enbridge’s reputation.” (Enbridge denied this in a statement, calling it a “no-strings-attached” pledge.) The investigation called for an overhaul of the board of governor’s approval process, transparency in its decision-making, and stricter regulations on corporate gifts and sponsorships.

Jackson moved to Edmonton to pursue a master’s at the University of Alberta after nearly four years of organizing with Divest MTA. She says doing climate justice work is hard no matter where you are, but she finds it particularly challenging in Alberta, where ties to oil companies are pervasive.

There is interest in divestment on campus, but it’s one of the most difficult places to sustain momentum in Canada. One of the main challenges in Edmonton, Jackson says, is not that people are ardently pro-oil, but that they have “resigned themselves to the degree of influence the industry holds in the province and feel powerless in the face of it all.”

Because of the environment in Alberta, Jackson and other climate justice organizers in Edmonton are focusing their energy in areas other than divestment—in particular supporting Indigenous land and water protectors. Because of its proximity to the oil sands, Jackson refers to Edmonton as “ground zero of extractivism” in Canada. “Every pipeline that is being fiercely contested across Turtle Island can be traced back here,” she says. “So I think it becomes a question of how we can use this geographic position to our advantage.”

After it was announced that Energy East was killed, Jackson and a small group of activists dropped a “No Kinder Morgan” banner from the High Level Bridge to dispel the myth that all Albertans support the project. It was praised as a “beautiful action” by climate organizers, but was also met with violent and condescending criticism—even death threats—from pipeline supporters online.

Jackson says backlash is common when organizing around climate justice, but she has never received such a hateful response as after the banner drop. She thinks the reaction speaks to many workers’ fears about the industry losing ground. “It’s hard to contend with fear when it manifests as such violent anger,” she says. “But if we can find ways to cut through that and have people believe us when we promise they won’t be left behind, then we’ll have won.”

***

The anger and violence directed at those fighting the fossil fuel industry is far from confined to the west coast. Back at Mount Allison, Tina Oh can relate to Jackson’s experience. In 2016, she was followed home and videotaped by a member of the community in Sackville who is pro-oil and offended by Oh’s advocacy work. The person had confronted Oh before but never to such a physical extent. Terrified, she called the police. An officer told her that police get videotaped all the time, but they don’t complain about it.

“It was one of the last things you’d want to hear after being so scared and so removed from the positions of power that police are in,” says Oh.

Despite her fear and trauma, Oh can still make sense of the experience. “A lot of the attacks we get are from people who would be personally affected if we had a carbon-free future because the industry employs a lot of people and those people have mouths to feed,” she says. It’s personal for Oh too—she has family and friends who have been, and still are, employed by the Alberta oil industry.

She stresses that the climate justice movement is not forgetting about the workers of the industry, but making sure they’re being taken care of, too. Working to include industry labourers, she says, is just one way the divestment movement can improve.

Perfitt believes it could take a long time before we know the lasting impact of divestment campaigns in Canada. She knows campus organizers who have been working on this for many years are frustrated because they feel like they are not winning. “But as someone who has been in it for five years, I am constantly in awe of how powerful the movement has been and how transformative it’s been for hundreds of organizers,” she says. “One of the legacies of the campaign is that there are now hundreds of more people involved in the climate movement.”

Oh counts herself among that frustrated and exhausted group. But she says the Canadian campaigns’ collective tiredness has bonded them, and that connection has given them the momentum to go forward.

“The point of escalation is to escalate,” she says. “And after what we’ve been through, we have to keep going.”

Photo by Christopher Curtis/Montreal Gazette.

The march began in 2011 in response to municipal shortcomings in Toronto. “Back in those days Rob Ford was [the mayor] and trying to make cuts to things like social housing and Wheel-Trans and TTC [the transit commission] and a lot of those changes were really impacting the disability community,” says founder and co-organizer Melissa Graham. “We weren’t seeing ourselves reflected in all of the movements and activist activities that were going on.”

In subsequent years, the march has still aimed to raise awareness of many of the same issues: housing, transit, and low- and unpaid labour. The conversation has also expanded in recognition of how race, gender, and class intersect with disability. According to Graham, this year’s speakers reflect “a better understanding of who gets to speak, and why.”

Although the Toronto Disability Pride March has a small core group of organizers, the strength of their approach is in building relationships with other activists to extend the spirit of the march all year long. In addition to supporting increases to the minimum wage, the Toronto Disability Pride March collaborated with the Alliance for Equality of Blind Canadians to promote the Sidewalks for All campaign. The goal is to make cities more accessible by ensuring a minimum 2.1-metre pedestrian clearway on sidewalks.

Disability awareness consultant Andrew Gurza attended in 2012 and remembers the event as cold and sombre. As a queer disabled man, Gurza says, “when I think of pride I think of a celebration, something festive.”

Since that time, the event has moved from October to September in hopes of better weather but the focus is still on highlighting issues that disproportionately affect people with disabilities. Graham stresses that it’s a march, not a parade. However, Gurza sees a need for celebration: “We can embrace our disabled identities and enjoy it…sometimes I think we just need to have a party for ourselves.”

Positivity was back on the agenda for this year’s march, which culminated in a celebration of Beverly Smith, a Toronto Disability Pride March co-organizer and anti-poverty activist who passed away in November 2016. To honour her work, the march concluded with performances by comic Courtney Gilmour and hip hop artist Mohammed Ali. The inaugural Beverly Smith Community Engagement Award was given to longtime disability pride supporter and emerging artist Romeo Dontae Pierre Biggz.

Reflecting on the late Smith’s legacy, Graham noted, “one of the things that she was really good at was recognizing people who are making an effort in the community but who aren’t getting noticed.” As an event run both for and by people with disabilities, the Toronto Disability Pride March recognizes not just individual artists and organizers but a community of identities too often defined by shame and stereotypes originating outside of disabled experiences.   

Saturday’s march made disability visible in Toronto, but disability pride is a growing and global movement. Richmond, British Columbia, hosted the province’s first disability pride event in June while thousands attend New York City’s annual Disability Pride Parade, which started in 2015.

For Graham, one of the best things about the march is that it gives people with disabilities an opportunity to be seen and heard: “Disability activism that took to the streets used to be something that people did just to get the curbs cut and access to schools…so in a way it’s bringing back an older method of organizing and revamping it for 2017.”

But it’s hard to celebrate when we consider how much work still needs to be done to make this country one that supports and encourages its minority communities. Indigenous women and girls in Canada still go missing and are murdered regularly. Black men are still harassed, violated, and even killed by police on our streets. And, most recently, in our very own industry, professionals have made a mockery of appropriation, with some of the most influential players calling for a prize in its name.

In our July/August issue, we shed light on many of these issues. But we felt it wasn’t enough. So, we reached out to Indigenous writers and writers of colour, asking them what they think of Canada 150. It is crucial that we hear from these voices, which have so frequently been silenced or ignored in discussions about 150, our country’s industries, and what still needs to be changed.

This feature is a living document—it is intended to grow and change with time. If you are a person of colour or an Indigenous Canadian, please send your own thoughts on Canada 150 to editor@this.org, and we’ll include them here.

This isn’t just a time to celebrate. It’s a time to reflect, to resist, and to enact change.

–ERICA LENTI, editor 

Canada 150 is a moment to celebrate the 150 ways that Canada has let me down. 150 catcalls. 150 tranny slurs. 150 Canadian white boys terrified of intimacy. 150 conversations about the problems with “the natives.” 150 poetry readings with racist poets. 150 therapy sessions for intergenerational traumas from genocide. 150 Starbucks coffees. 150 white guys on Twitter telling me to die. 150 excuses for colonial excuses. 150 dead Indians everywhere every day without no end in sight.

But let’s be honest with each other? We come to each other in pieces. Canada is not a whole being. So let’s celebrate 150 kisses down my neck. 150 chances to start again. 150 days of medically supervised hormone replacement therapy. 150 days of a gender and name change without complication. 150 breaths sleeping beside a Canadian boy I love. 150 snowflakes in Calgary. 150 steps up a mountain in Banff. 150 moments to change society. 150 Indigenous women getting up and making it through. 150 words in Anishinaabemowin. 150 years of resistance. 150 plays of Feist. Canada, let’s talk about the 150 ways you break my heart but don’t forget the 150 ways you hold me together.

–GWEN BENAWAY, Annishinabe/Métis poet

There’s always something that’s made me anxious about CanLit. It’s the same thing that makes me anxious about Canada 150, though until recently I hadn’t been able to put my finger on it precisely.

I am Tuscarora of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy. Canada as a nation depends on my repression; or better still, my assimilation; or best of all, my disappearance. Though the treaties my ancestors negotiated and signed are the legal basis of this country, my ancestors’ existence has also been incredibly inconvenient to the national narrative. Canadians want to think of this country as good, moral, polite—better in a thousand ways than their louder, brasher neighbour to the south. It’s a nice fairy tale when you’re a certain kind of child, the kind that claps and dances during Canada Day celebrations, staring at the flag with reverence and wonder. That flag is why you are here, after all. That history is why you are here.

It’s why I’m here, too—trauma trailing me like a killer, taunting me every time I have to Google translate a language that’s been beaten from my blood as per national policy. I have never believed patriotic fairy tales; after all, Canada has never been good, moral, or polite to my people. Therefore I do not celebrate Canada’s Confederation. Instead I celebrate the ways my own nation has survived despite every Canadian attempt to destroy us. That celebration can’t be collapsed into a single moment, a “birthday”; it’s ongoing, never-ending—a resistance far older than Canada’s 150 years.

This brings me to the issue of CanLit. The literature of a nation builds that nation up: letter by letter, line by line. Each book a brick making it sturdier, more legitimate. When that nation continues to deny its hand in colonialism and, further, refuses to address it, how can I in good conscience agree to be part of its national literature? The fact that my work can be branded “CanLit” even as I’m writing about my people, for my people, on my peoples’ land feels like another attempt at assimilation, another denial of my identity, my sovereignty as a Haudenosaunee woman and writer. In this country, at this time, I must agree to be swallowed up by CanLit. There is no space for me otherwise.

But my writing isn’t Canadian. My writing is Indigenous. My stories are Indigenous. They will never build up the nation dedicated to tearing my own nation down. I can’t celebrate CanLit as an institution any more than I can celebrate Canada 150. I can admire Canadian writers and their work, consider them friends and allies in my struggle to assert my right to be myself. I can be a friend and ally to them in their struggles to assert their rights to be themselves. But my literature can never and will never be Canadian. It is forever and always Indigenous, and should be considered such.

No matter how many “birthdays” Canada celebrates, Indigenous people, Indigenous literature will always resist. So will I.

–ALICIA ELLIOTT, National Magazine Award-winning Haudenosaunee writer

My relationship with Canada Day has always been a layered one. The reasons that brought my family and I here in 1996 remain true—the freedoms and opportunities Canada has provided me with were what my parents had hoped for in moving us here. And yet, I am always faced with the uncomfortable truth that the chances I’ve been given here were chances ripped out of the hands of Indigenous communities that face genocide, occupation, and forced assimilation. I know that I am an immigrant who continues to face racism and misogyny in a country that parades its apparent progressiveness; a settler on stolen land where systemic violence continues to be perpetuated and white supremacy upheld; a citizen in a place that gave me a brighter future. Patriotism has always been too simple, too violent in its erasure of these intersections to appeal to me. Canada 150, with all its flair, frills, and excellent PR, is yet another oversimplified display of the deeply complicated issue on what it means to be Canadian.

–HANA SHAFI, regular This contributor and artist

An Unsettled 150

When Chief Dan George gave his “Lament for Confederation” in 1967 in front of 32,000 people at Empire Stadium in Vancouver, he said, “My nation was ignored in your history textbooks—they were little more important in the history of Canada than the buffalo that ranged the plains. I was ridiculed in your plays and motion pictures.”

His address, his words carry weight today, 50 years on, as Canada as a nation state celebrates Canada 150. His lament is a timeless reminder of the dispossession and theft of land, the suppression of culture and languages, and the patriarchal control over Indigenous reality that still stifles young Indigenous lives and dreams in this year of “celebration.”

The word “reconciliation” is bandied about so much that the word itself has pretty much lost its meaning, has become a cliche masking the absence of responsibility in Canada coming to terms with its Indigenous past and, most damning, its Indigenous presence.

To this day, the federal government refuses to implement the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP). Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada (INAC) has spent over $500,000 in court fighting the rights of Indigenous children who live on reserves, in defiance of the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal. Boiled water advisories exist on close to 100 reserves. And the list goes on.

When First Nations, Métis, and Inuit peoples are asked to celebrate Canada 150, what exactly are we being asked to celebrate? The continuance of the status quo? Police forces that remain both negligent and unaccountable in the violence perpetrated against Indigenous women, children, and men? The underfunding of languages and education? The lack of health services for communities in Nunavut and the North?

For Indigenous peoples, whether to partake in Canada 150 celebrations is an individual decision. I retain no disrespect for those who decide to partake, in whatever fashion. However I am one of those who will not be celebrating. The alternative is not to simply stand aside and try to ignore the “festivities” but to critique them, to point out the hypocrisies, to celebrate those activists and artists who are living examples of survival, who are giving hope to youth, who are living, loving, and creating outside the Canadian colonial framework.

It is people like Inuk grandmother Beatrice Hunter, only recently released from a men’s prison in Nova Scotia for defending her land; Cindy Blackstock, who tirelessly lobbies and fights the injustices of the bureaucratic system that denies a future to Indigenous children; and the late George Manuel, who famously said, “As long as I am leader, our position is not going to change from that of our forefathers. I do not want the responsibility for selling the rights of our children yet unborn.”

These are the kind of Indigenous leaders that Canada should be celebrating, not fighting.

No doubt, in the celebrations to come, there will be First Nations, Métis, and Inuit artists showcased. There will verbal acknowledgments of traditional lands in speeches. There will be an effort to present a rosy mosaic of what Canada would like to think it is. But until there is real movement to address injustices, to recognize and implement Treaty Rights, to ensure the safety of women, children, and men, to implement the UNDRIP, to return stolen lands, it is an escapist party that leaves a colonial hangover in its wake.

Uncloaking the settler mentality is not easy nor can it be done by saying sorry or uttering platitudes of reconciliation and hiding the reality with cosmetic actions. It is a serious engagement to establish a new relationship. Until that happens, my heart is with those activists, land protectors, and artists who are doing their best to unsettle Canada 150. May they walk in beauty.

–PAUL SEESEQUASIS, writer and author of the forthcoming book Blanket Toss Under Midnight Sun

Diversity in media, 150 years on

Canadian media is still far behind in telling diverse stories and hiring more diverse journalists. We’ve made some advances, but we don’t get to pat ourselves on the back. Diversity has become one of our industry’s favourite talking points—we love to go on about why we need it, what we should do and how we should do it—and yet it seems we’re reluctant and unwilling to incorporate it into our static media landscape. Worse, Canadian media giants speak empty words on diversity with little understanding of its value or purpose.

Take for instance this year’s National Magazine Awards, which opened with a compelling speech by Indigenous writer Alicia Elliott on the need for powerful media key players (who are almost all white) to make room for writers of colour. However, nearly all of the gold and silver NMA winners were white, and no stories about diversity, or by diverse writers, were awarded.

Take for instance the Toronto Star’s attempts to address anti-Black racism by offering journalist Desmond Cole a column. Except the louder he championed for basic rights for Black Canadians, the more apprehensive the Star became, until Cole decided to leave. The defence was that journalists cannot hold activist affiliations; for some unaddressed reason, talking about anti-Black racism is a political agenda, yet far-right (and plagiarizing) columnists and their harmful ideologies are protected under their right to “freedom of speech.”

Take for example the calls for diversity in publishing, and yet we are still struggling to get our books into the hands of publishers.

Take for instance the hungry chase producers who want our painful stories for the five o’clock news, then add guests with opposing views to attack and trivialize our own experiences on national television, which they innocently claim is for the sake of “having a debate.”

Do we actually want to advance inclusion, or do we just like how it sounds? We don’t get choose what parts we want to incorporate into our newsrooms, because being a person of colour is an emotional, spiritual, metaphysical experience that is difficult, beautiful, complex, and Canadian. Without these stories, we fail to represent a large majority of Canadians. So where are those stories in the mainstream media, and where are the people who get to tell them? Unfortunately, that’s not for us to decide.

–ETERNITY MARTIS, associate editor at Daily Xtra

Reconciliation is not a matter of ‘burying the hatchet’

In light of Canada 150, many leaders and citizens alike are taking this time to acknowledge both Canada’s past and hopeful future. Many are celebrating the country’s victories, while recognizing the violent history. It is with no doubt that Canada has made a great deal of progress in terms of improving relations with Indigenous peoples. However, this is debatable when examining the unsolved problems that exist at present.

A few prevalent issues are the over-incarceration of Indigenous peoples, the health and suicide crises among communities, and the government inaction regarding the epidemic of missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls. It is hard to believe that a country appearing to be so keen on solving various issues would spend hundreds of millions of dollars on Canada Day celebrations, while there are communities without clean drinking water, for example.

The common settler’s stance on reconciliation is that it is only a matter of Indigenous peoples “shrugging off” their intergenerational grudges. However, this mentality only acknowledges the Canada that settlers think exists, not the Canada that truly exists. This outlook is a dangerous one, as it upholds the claim that there is little improvement to be made for Indigenous peoples, and that the country has every intention of making these improvements.

It is easy to get caught up in the government’s “sweet talk” and lose sight of what is truly going on. Once you take a step back and sincerely recognize the current, growing issues surrounding Indigenous peoples, it is impossible to think of reconciliation as a matter of “getting over it.” Reconciliation must involve solving the key problems that affect Indigenous peoples by genuinely listening to what we have to say. This must start with admitting that Canada is not postcolonial, and putting an end to land claims. We cannot focus on the future of Canada until the issues of our past no longer affect those being ill-treated.

This year, I am not interested in settlers whose feelings are hurt by protesters on Canada Day. I am not interested in those who have the “it happened, get over it” mindset. Until the country has taken the proper steps to reconciliation, I will not celebrate a holiday that is built on the genocide of my people.

–LAURYN MARCHAND, Métis student at Dalhousie University

Fed up, Bachmann started a local campaign in his home of Penticton, B.C., after garnering attention from a Facebook post lamenting the lack of spaces to change his son. The public response, says Bachmann, has been encouraging. He’s been invited to speak at a council meeting and says community members often stop him on the street to congratulate him for taking up the cause.

“I feel like I can make a difference,” says Bachmann.

Still, the oft-overlooked problem is proving slow to resolve. Meanwhile, south of the border, the issue is gaining traction, with the help of celebrity exposure from the likes of Ashton Kutcher. Shortly after becoming a father, Kutcher realized what many men and their families do and had the platform to draw mass attention to the issue.

And before leaving the White House, former president Barack Obama signed the Bathrooms Accessible in Every Situation Act, requiring all federal public buildings in the U.S. to install baby changing tables in both women’s and men’s washrooms within the next two years.

Canadians continue to push for their country to follow suit. This fight was recently taken up by six online petitions nationwide. Mississauga, Ont.’s Elizabeth Porto started a campaign for changes to be made to the building code in the province. She finds it discriminatory, especially when there is a change table in the women’s washroom and not the men’s in the same location. “Baby change tables in all Ontario restaurants or any other business required to have public washrooms should be a right, and not viewed as a courtesy,” Porto states in her call to action.

Indeed, there is no reason for spaces to assume the mother is always the one changing their child. The lack of changing spaces in male-designated bathrooms becomes even more problematic for same-sex dads, single dads, and transgender parents, who are constantly running into trouble finding a clean, safe place to change their children’s diapers. “Canada claims to be a world leader in the promotion of gender equality and human rights,” Porto notes. “If this is true, then let’s make the change.”

Photo of the author, by Paul Salvatori.

It’s been a year since I took my final police escorted ride to hear Judge William B. Horkins deliver the verdict for the Jian Ghomeshi trial. Lucy, Witness 3 (still under publication ban) and I gathered in the Victim/Witness Assistance Program (VWAP) room accompanied by lawyers and friends to hear the outcome of this much publicized trial. Although I was never invested in the outcome, the suspense was getting to me and everyone else in the room. We hugged with anxious smiles in support of each other. We were crawling to the finish line after publicly getting torn to bits, but there was still more to come.

All of us were ready for the not guilty ruling. What we weren’t prepared for was the ruling that was written with such ignorance around memory and expected behaviour after the trauma of sexual assault and then delivered with condescension. The ruling was read not only to us, but to the entire country. That in itself holds a lot of stress.

Before the trial, my knowledge relating to sexual assault was limited to personal experience, but I was cognizant of the rape culture that was known to show up when reporting. Unfortunately, I’ve learned that many non-activists also have limited understanding of the process and unconsciously buy into the rape myths. Yes, reporting is difficult—and were you drinking?

Never having faced the justice system with a sexual assault complaint like this, I was unaware of the complex challenges facing complainants in police stations and courtrooms every single day. I was consequently thrown into a crash course on Reporting and Testifying at a Sexual Assault Trial 101, which everyone fails. I found out the alarming realities that all the others and I would be facing in a courtroom. A shocking eye opener.

That horrible day was the day I truly decided to fight back. I launched ComingForward.ca. Its launch intentionally coincided with the verdict to hold myself to my intention to help others. I was alone through the Ghomeshi trial and I wanted others going through the process to have a welcoming space to read stories, get resources and support.

A Year In Review

It’s been a year since the ruling, and although there have been many challenges, this is not going to be where my focus rests. Instead, I am choosing to celebrate my accomplishments to keep the momentum going and contribute whatever I can.

Since starting Coming Forward I have:

• had countless survivors of sexual violence share their experiences with me when they had no one to talk to
• learned of the many issues with reporting and testifying against sexual violence with different demographics
• connected survivors to resources
• arranged a meeting in Ottawa with Status of Women
• supported survivors through trial
• participated in numerous protests
• danced in a flash mob for sexual assault
• given many media interviews
• written articles
• given keynote speeches at conferences
• and lastly, met some of the strongest and most inspirational people that I have ever known who have changed my life for the better.

I’ve only just begun.

This trial has opened up many conversations all over the country and is giving attention to many who have been working tirelessly trying to get reform. We now have judges being held to account for their lack of understanding of sexual violence and how it relates to the law. We have journalists revealing the realities of reporting to police across the nation. We even have a sold-out play about sexual violence. Add to that a prime minister that is giving back the funding for these issues that the previous government took away.

The conversations didn’t die out after the trial as we feared. If anything I think they are picking up momentum, speed, and volume But we have only just begun. There is still much to do. Maybe this is the beginning of a new paradigm for how we treat sexual violence.