Nanaimo, It’s Time to Draw the Line!
The following is the text from Dr. Bethany Ricker’s speech at Draw the Line Nanaimo, which took place at Maffeo Sutton Park, Nanaimo on September 20th, 2025.
Today we are drawing the line - for People. For Peace. For the Planet.
We refuse to stand by in the face of injustice.
We are here today to unite in our calls for climate justice, migrant justice, economic justice, Indigenous rights, and peace. Today communities are mobilizing across the country to demand that Prime Minister Carney and the Canadian government create a just and safe future for all of us.
These days it can be hard not to feel hopeless. Sometimes I want to scream in frustration, as our governments forge onwards with new fossil fuel projects at a time when every alarm bell is blaring that we need to stop. Here in BC, it feels like new gas projects are being approved every week - the PRGT pipeline, Ksi Lisims, and up next for expedited approval is LNG Canada phase 2. Not only are these projects a death sentence for us and for our planet, but they also steamroll over Indigenous title and rights. These projects are deemed to be in the national interest - but in whose interest? The interest of all of us, the people of this planet, or the interests of the wealthy few billionaire CEOs who are funding these projects.
How can these projects which harm our health, our land, our livelihood, and our future be in our best interest? How can our governments knowingly sentence us to a future of climate disasters and health crises? How can our leaders look their children in the eyes and tell them these projects are in their best interests?
Our planet is burning while fossil fuel companies rake in record profits. Canada is subsidizing corporate polluters while communities face floods, fires, and extreme weather. It is the most vulnerable in our communities who are most at risk - elders, infants, those with unstable housing, those with medical conditions, those who are isolated, and those without the financial means to avoid or recover from climate disasters. Further, entire countries who are least responsible for emissions suffer the most from climate impacts, with millions displaced.
Meanwhile, our hearts continue to break over the horror of genocide in which we are complicit. Ecocide and genocide go hand in hand, and we must stand against both. The UN has just recently declared genocide, while for years this has already been apparent. Our calls for peace fall on deaf ears as more innocent people suffer atrocities I can not truly imaging. A declaration will not bring those lives back, or erase the trauma left behind. And we are still wondering if that declaration will bring about change for the people of Palestine. Still Canada is increasing military spending and arming Israel's genocide in Palestine, enriching weapons manufacturers in the process.
Many in our community can't make ends meet - wages are low, rent is sky-high, groceries are unaffordable. Prime Minister Carney has ordered a 15% cut to our public services while billionaires and corporations continue to get richer. This isn't an accident - it's corporate rule designed to extract wealth from working people. Corporate elites try to turn us against one another, making us think "the other" is the problem, the person who is not like us. Denied permanent status, migrants who grow food, build communities, and care for the sick face exploitation, wage theft and exclusion from services. Anti-migrant policies now threaten 1.2 million people with permit cancellation and deportation in 2025. Bill C-2 gives the government Trump-style powers to cancel permits en masse and reject refugees.
Canada continues to enforce colonial violence through Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, Girls, and Two-Spirit people, mass incarceration, child-welfare systems, the underfunding of services, and destructive development across Indigenous lands. The same government claiming reconciliation criminalizes land defenders, violates the right to Free, Prior and Informed Consent, and prioritizes corporate profit over Indigenous rights.
But here is the good news: This is a time of enormous potential for good. For hope. For change for the better. For a world that strives for peace, equity, and a healthy planet. For a world where we care for each other and our leaders care for us. In the words of Dr. Courtney Howard, action feels better than anxiety. Let's not spend time worrying any more, let's in stead do the work.
We are telling our governments to put people over profits.
We refuse to accept division, knowing we have so much more in common than what divides us. We stand together with Black, Indigenous and racialized people, women, migrants, disabled, queer and trans people, and the unemployed. We refuse to accept poverty and let the wealthy blame the marginalized while they hoard their billions. We call on the federal government to tax the ultra-rich, end corporate subsidies, and invest in the affordable housing, food, healthcare, transit, education, arts and culture, public services and good jobs that our communities need to thrive. And we call on the government to support immigration status for all.
We refuse ongoing colonialism and work to uphold Indigenous sovereignty.
Indigenous worldviews offer brilliant solutions and knowledge for the world we all deserve. We refuse colonial violence and demand radical transformation away from capitalist systems, justice for MMIWG2S, the return of land to its rightful titleholders, and funding for Indigenous housing, languages, land-based economies, and Indigenous-led climate solutions.
Canada used to be known as a peacekeeping nation - we want to claim back that identity. We refuse to let war profiteers prosper while people suffer. We stand for an immediate two-way arms embargo on Israel, cancelling Canada's plans to balloon its military budget, and a foreign policy based on diplomacy and peace-building.
We call for an end to the fossil fuel era and a just transition to a 100% renewable energy economy that puts workers, Indigenous peoples, and frontline communities first. We demand Canada end all fossil fuel subsidies, kick fossil fuel companies and their lobbyists out of politics, make polluters pay, invest in a Youth Climate Corps and publicly-owned East-West electricity grid, and do its fair share globally by cancelling unjust debt and funding climate solutions in the Global South with grants, not loans.
We can not tackle everything divided, on our own, or one at a time. Now is not the time to chip away at change with baby steps. Now is the time to unite for large scale change.
So what can we do? In the words of Nelson Mandela, let your choices reflect your hopes, not your fears. When we come together, we can do so much. Our government works for us, and we must tell our decision makers what we expect of them. We can vote. We can write letters and talk to our elected officials. We can come to events like this to show that we are here, so many of us across the country and the world, being the change that we hope to see in the world. We can live our lives in a way that shows how much we care, for each other and for this beautiful place we call home. If nothing else, we must try. We must have hope for the world we want to create. What other choice do we have? This is our one home, and we love it with all our hearts. And when you love something you protect it.
Look around yourselves. Look at all we have to work towards, to save, to love. Look at your loved ones. Look around at your friends and neighbours. Whether you know them or not, these people care for you and care for this world. Look around at this park, the ocean, the mountains, the trees. This is a wonderful world we live in. Think of the moments of joy this world can hold.
This world is ours to build. This is our line to draw. Today we set these boundaries. We tell our governments that this is what we stand for - peace, equity, justice. This is a time of great promise - we hold the opportunity now to save ourselves, to save our health and our livelihoods and our future. When we come together, we send a strong message: this is where we draw the line.