Climate demonstration: several hundred people marched towards the National Assembly

Several hundred climate demonstrators took to the streets to march towards the National Assembly on Friday afternoon in Quebec.

The group left Parc des Braves a little after 3 p.m. taking Chemin Sainte-Foy.

Five years after the 2019 protests, the Regional Climate and Social Justice Coalition is calling for a just transition and faster action in the fight against climate change.

This coalition unites social groups in Quebec to mobilize the population around accelerating the fight against climate crises, reinvestment in public services and a just transition for communities and workers.

An emergency

“It’s been 5 years since there have been major demonstrations across Quebec for people to wake up to climate action and government inaction. We really want to demand major changes now. There is no way to wait,” explained François Proulx-Duperré of the Conseil central Québec-Chaudière-Appalaches (CSN).

“In recent years, governments, businesses, people with power have not put money into the climate crisis. Conversely, we have created new, more polluting projects. We want this to be treated as an emergency. “We have to do something together,” added Naélie Bouchard-Sylvain, from the Regroupement d’enseignement populaire en action communitaire of the Quebec and Chaudière-Appalaches regions.

Insufficient

“We see that things are progressing, but really not enough,” mentioned Anaïs Gousse of the association of social sciences students at Laval University (AÉSS).

Traffic was disrupted for at least an hour on the approximately 2.5 kilometer route.

SPVQ police officers were present in very large numbers.

The peaceful demonstrators arrived at the Tourny fountain around 4:15 p.m. However, a heavy downpour chased away some participants.

“We will never be silent! Tank battery sellers. It’s indecent. Where is the cash? We are going to mobilize and we are going to act,” said a disgruntled participant into the microphone.

“Our institutions are complicit in the climate crisis,” shouted another angry young man.

Around 5 p.m., there were only around fifty citizens left there.

On September 27, 2019, nearly half a million people accompanied activist Greta Thunberg in the streets of Montreal. Some had even argued that it was “the largest demonstration in the history of Quebec” while the procession stretched for more than four kilometers.