An Open Letter About Another Open Letter and What Happened/s Next

On it’s way… my friend at the post office

To all of you who supported and were part of my Walk to Waken the Nation, the Ottawa Climate Emergency Camp, and the petition from those ventures…

To make a long story short, the petition is finished, it’s en route to the prime minister, and I wish I could hug you all.

To make a short story long, I have been trying for far too long to deliver a petition to the prime minister calling for prompt and effective response to the climate crisis. My efforts to this end included more phone calls, emails, and letters than I will ever be able to remember let alone backtrack through or even find. It also included walking for six months in 2019 from Calgary to Ottawa and camping in a tent across the street from the prime minister’s office window through three and a half months of that seriously crazy 2019/20 winter. Members and supporters of the Camp were terrorized by right wing extremists, but also visited by ministers of parliament as well as activists from other cities, provinces, and countries. The pandemic shut down the Camp along with everything else in mid-March 2020, and though we intended to return, it was never viably possible.

I kept trying to arrange to deliver the petition, and several of us discussed that more than a few times, but it’s been clear for quite a while that it’s not going to happen the way I’d hoped (or even something vaguely resembling that)… but it does need to be delivered, out of respect for the over 4000 people who signed it, as well as those who didn’t, and for the planet.

I’ve decided to do it as simply as possible.

The petition and signatures have now been mailed to prime minister Justin Trudeau, with an brief cover letter )in addition to the petition letter itself) explaining what it is and why it’s been sent. It’s also been cc-ed to Elizabeth May (MP, former GPC leader, respected environmental activist), Chrystia Freeland (deputy PM, minister of finance), and Stephen Guilbert (minister of the environment), with the request that one of them please present it properly.

Meanwhile, another thing that’s become clear is the fact that I am not good at that kind of activism. I’m very good at a lot of things, and in more interpersonal kinds of activist work. Writing, talking, sharing ideas and possibilities and carrying them around till they find the right connections to go happen… learning how to live more closely with the Earth and sharing that… painting, growing things, changing the small things around me and letting the ripples spread… political manoeuvring – not so much. So I’m going back to the kinds of things I am good at.

I’m a gypsy… and I’ve got a boat, and people who matter to me and are part of all I do, and a world to help change by being the odd little rolling catalyst I am.

Thank you for being part of that. It means the world.

With hope and determination,

Ann

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