“ WHEN I STARTED MY WORK, I FELT REALLY PROFOUND ANGER OVER THE INJUSTICES OF CLIMATE CHANGE. NOW, I VIEW MY ACTIVISM LESS AS STEMMING FROM ANGER AND MORE AS A DESIRE TO BUILD COMMUNITY. I THINK WE FORGET THAT CHILDREN BRING A LOT OF THEMSELVES TO SCHOOL AND LESSONS IN CLASS CAN LAND VERY DIFFERENTLY DEPENDING ON THEIR IDENTITIES AND PERSONAL EXPERIENCES.”


school, I was getting a science-based edu- cation. At home, I learned from my grand- father about climate change and what it means for our family in Guyana and for people from our reserve. My family leſt Guyana in large part be-


cause of the damage done by Canadian min- ing companies. I remember thinking at a young age that it’s ironic that I’m here now and my family had to pick up everything and come to Canada since Canadian companies were responsible for the disappearing re- sources on my family’s land. When I started my work, I felt really pro-


found anger over the injustices of climate change. Now, I view my activism less as stemming from anger and more as a desire to build community. I think we forget that children bring a lot of themselves to school and lessons in class can land very differently depending on their identities and personal experiences.


EC: You’re one of 15 young people who filed a lawsuit against the Canadian government for violating the Charter of Rights and Freedoms by contributing to harms done by climate change. When did you join the lawsuit and how did that come about?


CL-L: In late 2018, I was involved in organiz- ing climate strikes. It was the first time I was involved in primarily youth-based protests, where young people were voicing their opin- ions and making decisions. At the time, there were a lot of conversations among adults about climate change from a policy per- spective, like COP20. Among young people, there was a lot of frustration, anger and de- spair because it felt like the mainstream con- versation about climate change was not fully addressing the urgency that young people were feeling.


10 ETFO VOICE | SPRING 2025


I remember having really cold winters and


I remember snowball fights. Since my child- hood, things had changed faster than I could make sense of. It was commonly understood among my peers that over the course of our lives we would have to deal with a lot of un- certainty in regard to the environment. At the time the lawsuit felt like one of the few options I had. I was 14 when we began the process of


preparing to file. Initially when I spoke to my father about the lawsuit, his response was to tell me about the work my aunt had done before I was born. Tat, in the wake of one of the world’s largest mining disas- ters that saw 80 kilometres of the Essequibo River declared an environmental disaster due to cyanide contaminated effluent from the Omai mine, my aunt had been a part of a lawsuit representing the people that lived and survived off the Essequibo. In the end, it gave Indigenous people title rights to the land. Her work was later part of the basis for detailing title rights in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP). I had never known the full extent of her work; it changed my per- spective on the role of the justice system and what it can do for people. Early in the process of filing the lawsuit,


a lawyer at Our Children’s Trust explained to us their reasoning for their work representing youth. Tey explained that they felt in some way obligated to offer their help to young people, that adults have the responsibility to show young people that they care about this and want to protect them. It meant something to me, especially at the time – to be offered not just resources but solidarity and support. We spent a number of months working


on the lawsuit before it was filed in the fed- eral court. It was a slow process; these things move through the system very slowly, and


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