THUNDER BAY — Students are continuing to call on Lakehead University to end its relationships, sponsorships and contracts with Canada's five big banks, saying they invest heavily in fossil fuels.
Over a dozen students met on Wednesday for a documentary night to view Yintah, which discusses the nearly 14-year resistance of the Wet'suwet'en to building pipelines on the their unceded territory.
Rachel Portinga, Climate Justice Lakehead's treasurer and a PhD candidate for health sciences, said they're showing this film, in particular, because sometimes some of the paused pipelines are sold and picked up, which has happened recently with the Prince Rupert Gas Transmission Pipeline.
"They're still trying to drill and pipe the natural gas elsewhere, putting all the ecosystems at risk and also not following the actual sovereignty of the Wet'suwet'en," said Portinga.
"So we're here to say that we don't agree with that, to educate folks using the film and then, to put together… a banner… to educate students and then share that with the Lakehead University more broadly."
She explained it is important to educate and inform youth to make their own decisions as they will be around for a very long time, making decisions that influence not only themselves but their communities and future generations.
"Our lives will be undoubtedly affected by climate change," said Portinga.
Whether or not people are concerned about it, she said youth will be impacted by it throughout their whole lives, including in their food systems, supply chains, health care access, the flooding that may happen in a home they may buy, if they're going to have children and what world their children will live in.
"That all really heavily influences youth today and so … education is the first big piece of that," said Portinga.
"And then also, of course, Turtle Island is Indigenous lands and a lot of that was stolen or coerced away from people and so they're deeply interconnected, right? Capitalism and settler colonialism and the whole concept of extracting carbon sources and then burning them is connected to how we treat people and how we treat the land."
There is a lot of uncertainty not only in the world of climate change but also politically and looking at decisions being made at all different levels of government in Canada and abroad, said Portinga, it's easy to feel overwhelmed.
"It's easy to feel fearful or maybe angry and concerned and all of those emotions together. And I think it's easy to turn into ourselves and say 'This is going to be rough and to ride it out I have to protect myself and that means I'm not going to engage,'" said Portinga
However, she said her biggest message for youth is that engaging with others who are also concerned and taking action together is not only a grounding experience but also being in a community, they will feel stronger, braver, more courageous, more informed and more hopeful.
"Showing up is the biggest thing and I know it's hard when you've got exams and you've got papers and you've got finals and you've got stressors in life, personal (or) professional," said Portinga.
However, youth or not, getting out, talking to people and engaging is going to be the thing that actually helps in times of uncertainty, she added.
"Following us on socials (and) joining the club officially through the LUSU directory, those are ways they could do that through a student club on campus," said Portinga.
"But those things also exist in the community more broadly and so there are many ways to do that."
