it felt emblematic of the Canadian govern- ment’s position on climate change. It was an emotionally exhausting process especially because there was a lot of effort from the fed- eral government’s lawyers to dismiss the case. Tere was a refusal to shoulder any re-
sponsibility. In their statements they were always careful to say that they were not di- minishing any of our experiences, and that in fact they understood our concerns. How- ever, they continuously refused to accept the idea that the federal government would be at all responsible for the impacts of climate change on Canadian youth. Te implication being that they don’t have any reasonable control over the impacts of climate change in this country. It was during this time that the government purchased the Trans Mountain pipeline. If we accept the very basic premise that climate change is human-caused, we should also accept that at the very least we have an obligation to try to mitigate its im- pacts on youth and future generations.
EC: You highlight some important lessons, including the incredible impacts of your aunt’s activism in Guyana. What inspires you to keep going?
CL-L: Te legal team, the journalists that I met along the way, people that I still work
with, who took the time to not just listen to young people talk about their experiences with climate change and climate advocacy, but also to teach us. Tere were people who helped me with my media training and gave me the skills to speak in public. I am very thankful to those people because I don’t know where I would have learned those skills otherwise. I worked with a very kind lawyer, Joe Ar-
vay, who was an undeniably important figure in Canadian law. He worked on PHS Com- munity Services Society v. Canada, which allowed the only legal safe injection site in North America at the time to stay open. His work also influenced Canadian labour laws, marriage equality, and Charter rights
for
many people in this country. Joe was just a very wonderful person to know, and he was quite outspoken about this climate lawsuit. He died a few years ago in 2020, but he was a big part of our community, and his advice was invaluable. Te people I met through this lawsuit are
still people that I’ve maintained very strong relationships with. To me, community isn’t about where I go to school or what I do. It’s surrounding yourself with people who are concerned about the issues that matter to you and care for your future as you do
theirs. Tat’s definitely what allowed me to keep going.
EC: Across different social justice move- ments, social media has been a catalyst for community organizing. For many young people, friends in virtual spaces are equally as important as those in person. How do your online or virtual and in- person communities intersect?
CL-L: For me, the early days were really shaped by what was going on online. During the climate strike movement, online spaces were where young people primarily found their voices. It’s really easy to express your opinions online. It feels less consequential, and you feel like you have more of an audience. It’s very tangible – you can see how many people view a story on TikTok or Instagram, you can see who likes it, who reshares it. But I think that there are limitations to
what you can do online. I think that it’s re- ally easy to forget that things that feel really real on Instagram, or Twitter or TikTok might feel less consequential when you’re sitting in a room with somebody and when you’re faced with a person who is maybe more complex than who they follow and what they post. I definitely had to learn that, and I think
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people will continue to have to learn that as social media takes up a bigger and bigger part of our lives. I have always had a private Insta- gram account, and I remember in 2018 when there were a lot of young people finding their way into climate activism, lots of people were going public and they were gaining a lot of followers. I have a number of friends who did that and still maintain a really large following and it works for them. Because of my work in the lawsuit, I was encouraged to put my social media on private, and I’m glad that I did. It also served as a reminder that it’s easy to say things online but it’s usually less im- portant than doing something in person. I think there is a lot of value in doing things for the sake of doing them and not for post- ing about it.
EC: What would you like educators to know about engaging and facilitating young people to become activists/change- makers?
CL-L: Kids are capable of more than we like to give them credit for and that’s true for cli- mate change and advocacy. Kids remember how teachers made them
feel, and to me, that sometimes falls by the wayside in school. If students feel like they have a choice and that they have the ability to
12 ETFO VOICE | SPRING 2025
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