#ClimateStrike in Pictures: Quiet, Staid Ottawa Comes to Life

Angry. Joyous. Creative. Determined. Loud. Ottawa isn’t a town that usually comes out in large numbers for public marches. For #ClimateStrike September 27, an estimated 20,000 people had other ideas.

The sense of anticipation hit before the LRT reached downtown. My first thought when I saw the sea of humanity converging around the rallying point at Confederation Park: Political types take note: If this can happen in quiet, staid, bureaucratic Ottawa, it can happen anywhere. Actually…it already is.

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My first inkling that something big was about to happen: We were walking our dog around 10 AM and saw seven students and a teacher from our local intermediate school on their way to catch the LRT to the #ClimateStrike march, signs in hand. When I headed out about 90 minutes later, the LRT was standing room only. Any guess where everyone was going?

Wellington Street in front of Parliament Hill was a sea of humanity. Eventually, the crowd packed the large, open area outside Centre Block to capacity and overflowed onto the street. “I asked a police officer how many people were in the Ottawa climate strike march. He said 20,000 people, and they had planned for 2,500,” writes The Energy Mix subscriber Diane Beckett. ” Lots of people! Babies—some only days old. Yes, I asked, because they were so incredibly tiny. As well as old people—and every age and stage in between.”

“This was youth-driven and youth-inspired, so most of our role was really assisting and helping to galvanize a group of people to help get them there,” said Ecology Ottawa Executive Director Robb Barnes.

“I’ve been to a lot of rallies, but I’ve never seen anything with that level of energy before,” Barnes said. “And half of it was that the youth were driving it. So you would have babies in strollers and parents, with 12-year-olds dashing through the crowd holding signs and having a great time. It was a pretty intoxicating mix, where the level of enthusiasm was really high. That palpable energy was one of the most remarkable things about the day.”

Staffers outside Export Development Corporation headquarters in downtown Ottawa watch the march from the sidelines, with at least one of them waving and taking pictures. EDC withdrew its support for international coal projects earlier this year, but still offers lavish loan guarantees for oil and gas: C$62 billion between 2012 and 2017, compared to only $5 billion for cleantech businesses.

A thumbs-up for the crowd from a construction crew at the corner of Slater and Kent. Global Climate Strike says 73 unions around the world endorsed the coordinated series of marches, a list that included the Canadian Labour Congress.