LAST GENERATION
Last Generation Canada responds to injunction from Montreal airport, invites conversation on recent disruptions
Today, supporters of Last Generation Canada released a letter to President and CEO Yves Beauchamp and other representatives of ADM Aéroports de Montréal inviting them to have a conversation about the group’s recent disruptions at Montreal’s Pierre-Elliott-Trudeau International Airport. The letter comes after a recent injunction leveled at the group by ADM, which prohibits Last Generation Canada from holding any sort of action or protest at the airport, as well as encouraging others to do so. The complete text of the letter follows below.
Last week, Last Generation Canada supporters caused considerable disruption at the airport for three straight days. On July 24, supporters glued their hands to the road, blocking access to the departures area. The next day, two supporters threw washable pink paint at the entrance to the departures area. On July 26, three supporters glued their hands to the road, blocking access to the airport’s arrivals area.
The actions are part of Oil Kills, an international uprising in support of the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty Initiative, with ongoing actions in ten countries across North America and Europe. Last week, some 270 flights were canceled in Frankfurt, Germany, and air traffic was grounded, as well as at Cologne Bonn airport. In Norway, three people cut through chain-link fences and sat near the runway, stopping flights departing from Oslo Gardermoen airport.
Last Generation Canada is demanding that the government sign a legally binding treaty to stop extracting and burning oil, gas and coal by 2030, as well as supporting and financing other countries to make a fast, fair and just transition. They’re also calling on the government to create a permanent national firefighting agency that employs 50,000 full-time firefighters and a citizens’ assembly with legally binding power to decide how to tackle the climate and ecological crisis.
In the letter, Last Generation Canada invites airport reps to meet to discuss the need for civil resistance and the rationale behind the group’s actions.
“In normal times, such disruptions would be wholly unacceptable. However, we are facing extraordinary circumstances. Canada has been engulfed by devastating wildfires, with entire regions evacuated and burned down. Scientists across the world have been calling for an end to fossil fuels, and are collectively panicking due to government inaction on a crisis they warn will ‘kill 1 billion people by the end of the century.’” – Last Generation Canada
Last week’s disruption at the airport happened alongside a massive wildfire that devastated Jasper and continues to burn amidst hot, dry conditions. Many other communities in Alberta and British Columbia remain at risk. It also followed news that last Sunday and Monday were the hottest days ever recorded. Experts say continuing to pump fossil fuels into the atmosphere will ensure extreme unnatural weather events like these will increase in severity and frequency.
It’s clear – governments and fossil fuel companies are waging war on humanity. Continuing to extract and burn oil, gas and coal will kill millions of innocent people and destroy whole nations. We have to stop them. Join the international uprising taking nonviolent collective action to defend humanity. We refuse to die for fossil fuels and we refuse to stand by while millions are murdered. Our governments must sign a Fossil Fuel Treaty. We ask everyone to join us in the resistance. We have a plan. Are you in? Sign up for an action or find our donate link here.