It is with great pleasure that I introduce Maggie Knight.

Maggie questioning David Suzuki at the Impact! Youth Conference on Sustainability, Sept 24-27/09 in Guelph, ON

Maggie is a U2 BASc Environment student minoring in Economics. She has been involved with many environmental initiatives on campus, including Greening McGill, The Plate Club, the McGill Food Systems Project, Gorilla Composting, and Journalists for Human Rights. Maggie is also in her third year working for SSMU as one of their Environment Commissioners, where she helps connect and support sustainability initiatives on campus, runs a website representing sustainability concerns to Administration, and works on SSMU sustainability policy such as the recently passed Five Year Plan for Sustainability.

If that juggling act isn’t impressive enough, then she is also currently doing an internship with Professor James Ford.  This research entails increasing awareness about the impacts of climate change in Canada’s North and the lack of adaptation measures to help communities cope with the already significant changes they are experiencing.

Maggie focuses a lot of her attention on the issues surrounding climate change, and is involved with one of the biggest Canadian youth movements for the climate. Most recently, this brought her to Ottawa for Powershift Canada in the biggest gathering for the environment ever recorded on Canadian soil. The following interview should leave you impressed and ready to step up to the challenge as Maggie has.

How did you first get involved with Power Shift Canada and Why? Did you know about the Powershift movement in the USA before Canada’s?

I’ve been involved with the youth climate movement, primarily through the Sierra Youth Coalition, for several years. In the winter of 2009, I coordinated the McGill delegation to Power Shift US. It was such an inspiring experience to see how much we all grew from that experience and how many new ideas we brought back to Montreal, so I jumped at the opportunity to get involved with bringing Canadian youth together for Power Shift Canada. I decided I could best help out with Recruitment because I love talking to people, building capacity, and communications—and I already had connections with many people across the country through SYC! I ended up coordinating a team of over 200 people in every province and territory, supporting them with their outreach, fundraising, and logistical efforts.

Could you explain Powershift is 2 sentences?

On October 23-26, 2009, the Canadian Youth Climate Coalition brought nearly one thousand young people from every province and territory together in Ottawa for two days of awesome workshops and strategy sessions, which, on the third day, culminated in a day of major lobbying on Parliament Hill. Students, young workers, young parents, indigenous youth, immigrant youth, rural youth, and urban youth shared ideas, built skills; action planned, and performed a Flashmob dance on Parliament Hill where hundreds of us performed. The energy was amazing!

Maggie Knight (front, left) leading a dance rehearsal during Powershift Canada, October 2009. (Photo credit:Hodan Jeelal)

We all grew and strengthened a national network of youth holding our government accountable for its climate inaction, and lobbied for a viable green job economy and climate justice for all.

How was “Climate Day: Fill the Hill”?

Climate Day: Fill the Hill was extraordinary. It was wonderful to have so many people together, representing so many different groups all pressuring our government to take real, science-based action. We telephoned Stephen Harper en masse and filled up his voicemail! Huge props to my friend Gracen Johnson, the U of Guelph student who spearheaded the event.

What was the most discouraging aspect of the Powershift conference?

The media coverage was probably the most discouraging. There was extensive coverage of a few protesters in the Public Gallery during Parliamentary Question Period (they were participants in Power Shift, but the action itself was the spontaneous choice of the individuals rather than an organized protest by any group), leading many people to dismiss climate activists as rowdy and disrespectful.

If our media was less interested in spectacle and bloody noses and more interested in constructive, collective action, they would have known that on the same day, Power Shift participants held more than 70 meetings with their Senators and MPs and that youth from every province and territory had worked hard to fund-raise to come together for three days.

Why is Climate Change such a pressing issue for Canadian youth? Why do we need the PS movement in Canada?

We need a broad-based coalition bringing us all together for climate  justice—students, young workers, First Nations, immigrants, northern,  coastal, rural, urban—because the forecast for the future isn’t looking so rosy. Today’s youth will be very much alive when we start experiencing more major and widespread impacts of climate change. Those of us who live in the North already see these changes every day. Those of us who live on islands may see their houses swallowed up by the ocean. Those of us who live in cities may face huge shortages of food and water as agricultural yields and precipitation patterns change. Those of us from rural areas may see traditional crops fail and industries collapse.

The Power Shift movement helps youth to stare these worrying facts in the eyes and take constructive action to avoid the worst. By bringing people together, building capacity through issue and skills trainings and lobbying our elected officials not to play games with our futures, Power Shift is building a Canadian generation that is aware of climate concerns and exactly what they can do about them.

If you had 15 minutes with Stephen Harper, what would you say to him?

I would ask Stephen Harper a number of questions, trying to understand where in his reasoning he thinks it is all right for Canada to remain an obstacle to international climate negotiations while taking insufficient action at home.

I would ask him if he understands climate science, and the serious impacts climate change could have on his or his children’s lives. I would ask him if he believes, as an economist, that hanging on to a model of resource depletion at unsustainable levels (while failing to accurately incorporate negative externalities) is likely to produce long-term economic prosperity (or whether it will rather set us up for large economic shocks in the future).

I would ask him if the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms truly applies to all citizens—would the Tar Sands still be operating if it was polluting Vancouver, Calgary, Toronto, or Montreal instead of rural northern and indigenous communities?

I would ask him if he truly believes that developing nations should contribute as much to climate change mitigation and adaptation as developed nations—given that developed nations both bear the responsibility for the majority of carbon currently in the atmosphere and have the greatest capacity to dedicate resources to climate solutions.

I would ask him if short-term political gains in the next election cycle are worth going down in history as yet another Prime Minister who refused to act in a time of urgency.

I would ask him what his faith says about acting according to his conscience and sacrificing personal gain for the good of others. I would ask him how leadership looks like waiting for the USA to decide on its climate policy and only attending the UN COP15 negotiations in Copenhagen if other world leaders do. I hope he talks as fast as I do.

What, essentially, do you think needs to happen in Canada regarding the climate issue?

I believe we need “three E’s”: education, empowerment, and ecological economics. We need institutional education about sustainability issues—I believe that, no matter how motivated by the bottom line an individual or firm is, once people truly understand climate science and the socioeconomic impacts of climate change, they are bound to act more sustainably.

We need to be changing lifestyles and informing our public, from preschool to the workplace to the old age home. Empowerment is crucial. Sustainability issues vary by geographic, socioeconomic, cultural, and political contexts. We need to empower our citizens, businesses, and elected officials to shift to sustainable systems that make sense in their local contexts, using their local skills and resources and making sure nobody is left behind (climate justice now!).

Finally, we need an economic system that can properly incorporate sustainability impacts—for starters, we need increased investment in low-carbon energy technologies (instead of subsidizing the fossil fuel sector), a viable and swift transition plan for the Tar/Oil Sands industry, stricter regulations for polluting industry (to level the playing field), and an emphasis on creating green jobs.

How difficult is it to balance activism with academia?

It is definitely a challenge to balance a full course load, two campus jobs, and significant activism! It’s definitely made my grades suffer a little, but all the enviro work I do is very relevant to my field, so I try to justify a lower GPA with the knowledge that I will be more employable—as long as I keep my grades high enough that I don’t lose my scholarships.

Maggie as a shark for Fossil Fools Day, 2009. All dressed up and getting decision makers up and on the go for climate legislation! (photo credit: Trevor Fraser)

What is your opinion on the climate activism in McGill?

We have more than 30 environmental groups at work on campus, which is fantastic. Where I see a gap is in climate advocacy. Fortunately, we have some members of the Canadian Youth Delegation to COP15 at McGill and some Power Shift participants who are working on initiatives such as Climate Crew Mondays and getting people to call their MPs to make their concerns heard.

Finally, what are your plans after McGill?

I’m hoping to work in environmental policy. I’m particularly interested in how federal and provincial legislation can support and integrate community-based solutions to sustainability issues. Different communities have different resources and challenges—different ecologies, different demographics, different skill sets. I think if we are to truly revolutionize our society into something sustainable, we need to be able to find solutions that make sense for each community, and draw on the strengths and ideas of each community to make that happen.

Mel Lefebvre

Maggie surrounded by her natural habitat in Victoria (photo credit: Frances Litman)