Climate activists spray paint PMO, want feds to create national firefighter agency
Posted Feb 7, 2024 01:22:32 PM.
Last Updated Feb 7, 2024 01:22:37 PM.
A climate action group is demanding that the federal government create a national firefighter agency to deal with the upcoming fire season.
Previously known as On2Ottawa, activists with Last Generation Canada covered the front of the Prime Minister’s Office with pink spray paint on Wednesday.
Ottawa police they arrested five people at the intersection of Wellington Street and Metcalfe Street for blocking traffic and charged them with mischief. Police said they may lay further charges.
The activist group wants the government to fund 50,000 professional firefighters to deal with Canada’s wildfires and create a citizen’s assembly with legally binding power to “decide how to tackle the climate and ecological crisis this year”, the activists wrote in a release.
Last year, the group smeared paint on artwork at the National Gallery of Canada and blocked traffic downtown while making similar demands.
“200,000 Canadians had to evacuate their homes last summer,” said Ben Holt, who took credit for spray painting the office in the release. “Entire communities were burned to the ground. And yet our government has done nothing to mitigate the impacts of the climate crisis.”
On Tuesday, one of the group’s supporters set fire to an empty stroller outside of Parliament Hill.
The group said they are being spurred by Canada’s worst wildfire season on record and vowed to continue demonstrations and disruptions during the week and onwards “until their demands are met”.
