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P.A. climate activists presenting a gift with a message to new PM

Oct 20, 2015 | 6:12 PM

A gift from the Prince Albert stretch of the North Saskatchewan River will soon be given to prime minister-designate Justin Trudeau.

Climate activist group Climate Welcome, including organizer Nancy Carswell and her three-year-old grandson Decklan Dumais, braved the rain and the slippery mud at the Prince Albert boat launch on Tuesday to take the sample.

“He’s the reason I’m doing this,” Carswell said. “By 2050 I’ll probably have passed on, and he will be left with the world damaged by climate change. Or we’ve gone on a different track and he’ll have a better, more human-friendly planet.”

For Climate Welcome, the water sample is symbolic of what’s at risk if Canada expands their tar sands usage.

“It’s to get the fact across that we cannot carry on business as usual,” Jack Jensen, an activist and local artist, said. “We’re using too much fossil fuels…and hopefully this’ll have some impact on what Canada takes forward.”

The water sample is one of many gifts that will be delivered to Trudeau.

Climate Welcome activists will sit-in in front of 24 Sussex Drive for three days starting on Nov. 5 with presenting scientific reports about climate change. Petitions signed by millions over the past decades will be gifted on Nov. 6, followed by solar panels on Nov. 7.

Jensen is hopeful for the future of climate change in Canada under the new government.

“It seemed like the Harper government was tied completely to the petroleum industry, so hopefully there’s more of a recognition that we do have a problem and we have to do something about it.”

ssterritt@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @spencer_sterrit