Divestment Generation Mini Series - Episode 5

This is Episode 5 of the “Divestment Generation” mini series, a five episode series exploring the 9 year campaign to win fossil fuel divestment at the University of Toronto! Our final episode is an “intergenerational” conversation where creators and co-hosts Amanda Harvey-Sánchez and Julia DaSilva invite a couple people from each of the prior episodes to meet one another and talk about key themes from the podcast, where they are now, and possible next steps for the climate justice movement. Our guests are Stuart Basden, Keara Lightning, Ben Donato-Woodger, Kristine, Rivka Goetz, and Léo Jourdan. 

This mini series emerges from Amanda’s doctoral research with CJTO, a two-year ethnographic community-based participatory research project tentatively entitled “Actualizing Everything: Affective Activism, Effective Politics, and the Future of Climate Justice Organizing in Canada”. 

Cite as: Harvey-Sánchez, A. & DaSilva, J. (2023). “Divestment Generation Mini Series, Intergenerational Conversation (Ep.5)”. Climate Justice Toronto. 

EPISODE RESOURCES
UofT Fossil Fuel Divestment Timeline
Divestment and Beyond, Briarpatch Magazine Article (by Amanda Harvey-Sánchez & Sydney Lang)
Discovering University Worlds
Slow Justice (by Kate Neville and Sarah Martin)
Mikiwam (by Keara Lightning and Caeleigh Lightning)
Being the Change Affinity Network

SONG
Adaptation of “Which Side Are You On?” by Pete Seeger 

LYRICS
Find the full lyrics here.

SOCIAL MEDIA & CONTACT INFO
Amanda Harvey-Sánchez: Twitter, Instagram, email
Julia DaSilva: julia.dasilva713@gmail.com
Climate Justice Toronto (CJTO): Instagram, Twitter
* DONATE to CJTO*:*: https://opencollective.com/cjto
CJUofT (formerly LeapUofT): Facebook, Twitter, Instagram
2185 Art Collective: Instagram

CREDITS
Editing: Amanda Harvey-Sánchez and Stefan Hegerat
Original Music: Stefan Hegerat
Hosts: Amanda Harvey-Sánchez and Julia DaSilva
Guests: Stuart Basden, Keara Lightning, Ben Donato-Woodger, Kristine, Rivka Goetz and Léo Jourdan
Singalong: Rebecca and participants at CJTO’s September 2022 Orientation Producer: Climate Justice Toronto

Transcript

This is Climate Justice Radio 

Amanda: Hello and welcome back to Climate Justice Radio, a podcast by Climate Justice Toronto. Climate Justice Radio is a podcast that covers a wide range of issues connected to climate justice. My name is Amanda, and I use she/her pronouns. 

Julia: My name is Julia and I use she/her pronouns. 

Amanda: And we'll be your hosts for the episode. 

Julia: You're listening to our Divestment Generation miniseries, a five-episode series exploring the nine-year campaign to win fossil fuel divestment at the University of Toronto. Be sure to check out the intro to the series, prior Divestment Generation episodes, and linked resources in the show notes for more information on the campaign. 

Amanda: Stick around for the end of each episode, where we'll lead you in a new verse to a climate justice organizing song. An important community building exercise in CJTO organizing meetings.

Julia: This is our fifth and final episode of the series, a special intergenerational conversation where we invite guests from each of the prior episodes to meet one another and chat about key themes from the podcast, where they are now, and next steps for the climate justice movement.

Amanda: As a reminder, for the U of T fossil fuel divestment campaign, we've divided the nine year campaign into four generations. Generation one we treat loosely as folks involved during the campaign from its inception in 2012 until around 2014, with the People's Climate March in New York City being a significant end marker. Generation two is broadly folks involved in the campaign from 2014 to 2016, or post-People's Climate March until President Gertler’s rejection of divestment and its immediate aftermath. I also fall in Generation two. 

Julia: Generation three, where I fall, includes folks involved in the campaign from 2016 until around 2019, ending around the start of the pandemic. Generation four is folks involved from 2019 until the big win and October 2021 and its immediate aftermath.

Amanda: Our guests are Stu Basden from gen one, Keara Lightning and Ben Donato-Woodger from gen two, Kristine from gen three, and Léo Jordan and Rivka Goetz from Gen four. Let's have our guests introduce themselves. Stu, you want to go ahead?

Stu: Yeah. So I'm Stu Basden and I was in the campaign basically since Toronto 350 started in 2012, and I left Toronto just about six months before the rejection. I actually left to go around Europe to look at other social movements and eventually ended up joining Rising Up, that became Extinction Rebellion. So that took a lot of my life since then.

Amanda: Great. Well welcome back Stu. Keara would you like to go ahead?

Keara: [Cree]. My name is Keara Lightning and I am from Samson Cree Nation in Alberta, and I am a part of generation two while I was a student at the University of Toronto. And now I am a master's candidate at the University of Alberta and I also make video games and animation under Studio Ekosi.

Amanda: Amazing. So glad to have you back, Keara. Ben.

Ben: Hi, My name is Ben Donato-Woodger, I use he/him pronouns. I was involved from I think the transition bridge when the divestment campaign was mostly people who weren't students and were community members around the university but not in the university, up until it having like a full student background that did a lot of the on-ground organizing in parallel with the work that Toronto 350 was doing. And I currently work for a NDP MPP in Toronto Centre.

Amanda: Great, thanks, Ben is from gen two as well. And Kristine.

Kristine: Hi, my name is Kristine. I use she/her pronouns. I was active in the campaign from 2016 to about 2019/2020 when it was formerly known as Leap U of T. Now I work in the mapping industry making cool maps and working with software.

Amanda: Amazing! Welcome back, Kristine. And Léo?

Léo: Hi, my name is Léo. I use he/him pronouns. I'm an undergrad in mathematics and computer science in my fifth year, and I'm hoping to start a master's in ecological forestry next school year. I'm part of Gen four. I joined right at the beginning of the pandemic but I'm also still involved in student organizing. I also organized with CJTO. I’m very glad to be here.

Amanda: Great. We're so glad to have you back. And last but certainly not least is Rivka. 

Rivka: Hi, my name is Rivka. I use she/her pronouns. I was in generation four as well. I was part of Leap UofT during all four years of my undergrad at the University of Toronto, up until this year when I graduated and moved on from that campus. Since then I've been organizing with Climate Justice Toronto, particularly around the municipal elections we just had in Toronto and I'm about to start working as a campaigner at Leadnow. So thanks so much for having me back.

Amanda: Thank you.

Julia: Yeah, maybe let's, I know folks probably have a lot of questions from each other, or for each other, but maybe let's start with the first one that we have here. It's just: what's something that surprised you listening to the conversation from a different generation?

Ben: I think I'll just jump in. I was surprised by how some tactics seem to have repeated. It was I think an episode where someone references that the University of Toronto Students’ Union had endorsed divestment, which fully had happened in my generation, like just to be very clear, they were very friendly and very supportive from the very beginning. So it was interesting how even across a nine year period hearing generations, the amount of turnover within the student body I feel students are often only really connected to one campaign for two years or so and things are forgotten so quickly. And I think my contrast now is like in established political parties, like I honestly appreciate the amount of like institutional knowledge and memory and having like people who have like been on a riding association for 20 years, and can like say how things were 16 years ago and draw up those references and stories. And just remembering that turn from being in university like really stood out to me.

Keara: Something that surprised me listening to the generation one because that when they were talking about how the divestment campaign and how 350s way of organizing was different from other climate or environmental organizations, that it was not just showing up and you know, being given some flyers or going to go like standing on the corner and like I don't want to say harass people, but stop people on the street to sign a petition or something, and that there was just a much greater sense of ownership and responsibility and I think Stu you  said creativity, which I think is a really, really good word for it too. And that there's also maybe a bit of that tension as well between 350 being this bigger organization within our generations as well as sort of just being a an organization that like we're a group of people who have these relationships and this individual motivation and creativity that we're putting into this work. And those organizations are something that we go to for greater resources and connectivity to like other groups that are doing similar things. And yeah, it's different than just going up and volunteering for an organization where all the things are already in place for you.

Rivka: One thing that surprised me from generations one and two, was hearing about the role of 350 as the, quote unquote, “mothership.” I had heard that phrase during my time at U of T, but it I didn't really understand what that looked like. And I don't want to put words in anyone's mouth but my understanding from listening to those episodes was that it did feel sort of revolutionary to be having a student-led campaign where people can show up not as part of an organization but just as individual young people who care about their campus or the climate crisis or whatever it is that brought them to that space, and have a creative role or a strategic role in planning a campaign. The fact that that felt novel, or was not the norm in young young people's activist spaces was surprising to me, and made me feel very grateful that when I showed up at U of T in 2018 all the folks in generations in one and two, but also people like Julia and Kristine who had started Leap U of T had been doing the work to make that sort of the accepted norm, but what it was very clear that that's what the group was about was that it was a space for students who are newer to activism or newer to climate justice work, to show up and bring ideas and bring that energy. That was super encouraged and it just felt like what, what we could do. I'm very grateful for that.

Kristine: Yeah, I think one thing that surprised me from the generation one episode was still when you were talking about the kind of momentum leading up to the ultimate announcement in 2021. Framing it in a way that like, activists stepping out of, you know, maybe the ethical investor role allowed Meric to like step in and become like the pinnacle ethical investor and I didn't think to frame it in that way when I initially read the letter, but this morning, I read the letter and I was like, Yeah, this is on brand for a university that like, is willing to wait for a moment to make themselves look good at the expense of like student work. And there's only like one or two sentences in the letter that like credited students for their past work. So I think that like framing it in that way, really made me see that, you know, the university maybe doesn't have our best interests at heart, which kind of was already, I knew through past work but you didn't like—listening it to it and like getting validated about that from other older generations was really, I think, powerful for me.

Julia: I want to make sure that there's time for anyone who has questions for other generations to maybe give us–maybe we'll pause and if anyone wants to go, and then if not, I'll move into the next question.

Rivka: I have a question. I'm curious about the relationships between students involved in generations one and two, and staff and faculty at the university, especially the ad hoc committee in that period between 2014 and 2016, before the rejection. Listening to generations one and two, it sounds like there was already some cynicism and skepticism about what the outcome of that committee would be or whether it would be taken seriously by the university. But like there was maybe also some trust or some relationships built there. And I'm curious what that looked like.

Ben: The committee liked us. Though Gertler did make secret committees that we were never told about and we had no relationship with them because no one else knew that they existed. I don't think even the official committee knew they existed.

Rivka: And that was so swept under the rug. 

Ben: Yeah.

Rivka: That was something else that surprised me. I did not know until listening to this podcast that there were secret committees. I thought it was just Meric Gertler making an executive decision and abusing his power. I mean, it's he still was, but yeah, I didn't know that that was—

Ben: The only other piece that might be interesting is I do remember, some of the chemical engineering professors were the noticeably anti-us faculty. Because I remember when we were doing class presentations, it was only chemical engineering classes where I think we were yelled out and like not allowed to give a talk by the professor. And I think it was just professors who knew that the industry a lot of the students were going to work in would be oil, and there wasn't a lot of friendliness as a result of that.

Julia: Okay, so I think maybe I'd like to move to a question that kind of picks up on what Kristine and Stu have been touching on earlier around this like idea of, you know, there's like, there's this five year gap between the initial rejection and after which like the administration kind of considers divestment dead and then the actual decision. So one thing that we're interested in is, in Episode one, Stu, you kind of gestured toward this idea that it's often really difficult to draw a direct link between cause and effect when it comes to organizing in general and maybe especially in climate justice organizing? So I'm wondering how this, that comment resonates with others. And maybe how did these possibly tenuous relationships between cause and effect impact the way that you thought about strategy while you were doing divestment work and the way that you think about those things has changed over time?

Kristine: I think this was brought up in like past episodes, too, but this idea of like as a climate justice organizer, you have to be okay with delayed gratification. Because, like, maybe you go to a march or something, the immediate effect isn't going to be like, okay, university divests. We–-fossil fuel production stops. It's kind of like the effect is maybe more like a ripple where you know, Stu goes into founding XR or other people go into other solidarity work, or we focus on anti pipeline work. And I don't know it's just like, this idea of delayed gratification like really resonated with me. Because it's like, being active right after the rejection, it was like, okay, because of this weird policy that we can't bring up divestment directly again, it's like what are other things we can do to make a tangible imprint on the divestment campaign moving forward? Yeah, I think that's, those are my thoughts about kind of cause and effect.

Rivka: I just read this paper by Kate Neville about slow justice in climate spaces. 

Amanda: Yeah, I read that piece too. 

Rivka: It was really interesting. The idea of slow justice and climate spaces being that because the climate crisis is so pervasive, and so long term like it's very urgent, but the effects and the harm are not always as visible as other systems of oppression or other things we might be fighting against, that similarly, the response from activists, community members, organizers, also takes on this very slow, slow justice, kind of long term, harder to trace effects. So this this tenuous relationship that we're talking about between cause and effect, I think what that's looked like, for me, having been involved only for the past four years, in divestment or in climate justice more broadly, is that yes, we do want the specific things that we're fighting for. We did want fossil fuel divestment. We're glad that that has happened. But it also, the work that I did and that others did, and the relationships that I formed as a member of Leap UofT, I hope will go on to influence way more different things that I do in my life, like it got me involved with Climate Justice Toronto, and I think this is true for a lot of other people in this room that that that time and that campaign has influenced our perspectives and goals and the work that we're doing in a much bigger sense. So even if one specific action or meeting didn't actually contribute that much to the ultimate decision of the university to divest, it did teach me something, or, you know, give me a skill that I can take away and use to apply to a bigger fight like that kind of idea that the exact win doesn't matter as much as the big picture takeaways. 

Ben: My other question, I guess is what would, like what are the lessons that you learned in divestment that you would bring to other organizing campaigns like, what are the manifestations of how the campaign like changed how you organize or like approach social change in general? Also to everyone on this call. 

Rivka:  I'll just say, I think it goes back to relationships and trust, because that's what I felt as a student. It really felt like if we wanted to get anything done, we had to just stand together as students and use the leverage that we had there, and the stake that we had in the university, and so as a result, it felt like we got the most done when we had that trust built and those friendships built and that is what I hope to take away is doing relationship based community building.

Léo: I think for me, what I also learned was just how important it was to show up for other campaigns and other other groups. Yeah, protests and things like that. And that really, I think, first of all, it helped us have a clearer political idea of where who we were and what we believed in, which really helped shape our messaging. But it also I think, got us in the community aspect as well. It really tightened some community around us that wasn't just divestment related, but were supportive of us and we were supportive of them and in general just made the U of T campus, which is not a very political one, just that more you know, political, a bit more radical. A bit more accepting of, of different kinds of people. And that was, that was pretty rewarding to see that happen in real time.

Rivka: And that's the connection to strategy, right, is that it's not just the insular relationship building with each other within the group. It's also reaching out to other students and to other community members, other stakeholders in any given fight. That, yeah, like we just had that create space for new ideas, sort of shifting the window of what's possible.

Stu: Something for me that yeah, really, I took from the campaign is don't see success as a binary. I mean, generally don't think in binaries at all. There's a binary right there, but success. There's so many different ways of seeing success and look for all of them. And whenever there is any kind of success, right, mark it in some way. Speak about it. Yeah. Look, we've trained up a whole group of people into activism. Oh, look, we've, you know, the divestment brief was taken across to the UK and used in a bunch of different things there. We've contributed to something, right. Just as there's so many different markers of success and to really pay attention to those, celebrate them.

Julia: Yeah, if I can jump in as well. I think building on a lot of these like when, like, thinking oh, like I one of the core things that I think I like took away from divestment organizing, which is also just like, because it was kind of my first experience organizing, so maybe I would have learned this and other spaces as well, but I'm just like, how, like, as well as kind of not seeing success in terms of binary it really, like shifted the way I thought about time and like, what is like wasted time or like well-used time because like we you know we spend so much time say like in Sidney Smith Hall just like talking to students, many of whom will probably like forget that you had that conversation like two minutes afterward. But for others of whom you know, you've like helped to like draw this connection between like the kind of big, like abstract world of like how money is working at U of T and like their kind of immediate like material realities. And just like getting outside of this, you know, trying to think strategically about how you do think about how you like you spend your time and do your work, but like getting out, getting outside of this idea of like, time is wasted if it doesn't produce x or accomplish x, like you have to just like kill that, kill that whole way of thinking and I think like that was something that has carried forward for me. Anything else before we maybe move on to another? Oh, Keara.

Keara: When I first got involved in the campaign, I think what really brought me in was that I think I can't remember but I think it was probably like Jo and Ben organizing some conversations on solidarity. And then somehow I got involved in that. And I think they really encouraged me to get involved in that. And it for me was one of the first times that I'd ever heard in my life that like, you have something to say and this is important and valuable. And I had no idea. Like I had never run a workshop before. I've never done like really talking in public at all before. So when we like did that workshop, it was a big moment for me. And it was like surprisingly satisfying and fun and easy and I hope somewhat successful. And that maybe it's taken me till now to realize that that was what I liked about doing the organizing because then when we would do things like you know those public tabling stuff like I didn't like that very much and these sort of, like very, I don't know social in a different way like having to actually approach people and like make them talk to you is not fun to me. But running a workshop where people are choosing to come and like have this conversation or listen to a conversation was very fun to me. And it's still something that I like I continued to do after that. And it empowered me to realize that it was something that I really liked to do and that I was capable of doing it which I had never considered a possibility before. So that's sort of how it's, like impacted me from then on.

Amanda: That’s really beautiful to hear. I have a question. I've had a chance through this podcast to like reconnect with Stu and Keara, who I hadn't like, been in touch with as much, and Ben and I have stayed in touch but I think also in some way also reconnected through this. So I think like just building on what Keara is saying is like, if you're comfortable, I'm wondering if each of you could just tell us a little bit more like what you're doing now and how divestment impacted that because I—I've seen a little bit but I know not everyone else here on the podcast knows the incredible work you are each doing as people who were involved in this campaign quite some time ago and now have gone on into like, different spheres like to kind of get a glimpse of what that like delayed—

Ben: gratification, 

Amanda: gratification, maybe not direct line. Obviously there are different influences in your life beyond divestment, too. But if each of you would like to say a bit about that.

Stu: I can go. I—so I'm working with a group now called Being the Change. And we have a really big focus on I guess, looking at systems of mis-education and how the the entire sort of Western schooling and university system is largely set up to create compliant neoliberal producers, and how education could be something of such great worth for humanity, for creating a beauty in the world. And so education as a focus, and mis-education.  And then also the other part of what we're looking at is debt repudiation. So getting, not debts being cancelled by the countries of the world, which are the neo-colonialists, but the countries of the world, the majority world, to just turn around and say we don't even believe that your, the debt that you've put on us exists. And so the focus there being financial, again, that there's a divestment is going after something really I mean, in the center of the worship system of our current civilization is finance. And so you know, canceling debt is such a powerful, no sorry, not canceling debt, but just saying we don't believe that it exists in the first place so we're not going to pay it, such a powerful thing. And that can be both countries, majority world countries turning around and saying that they can also be people who are struggling to pay their bills, just turning around together and saying we're not going to pay, these these debts don't exist. So I think, yeah, those are two of the major things that I'm working on.

Amanda: Keara and Ben do want to tell us a bit about what you're working on now?

Keara: I can go. So I mentioned that I'm doing some art things but at the university my research is on on Indigenous-led science and specifically indigenous led environmental management and ecology. And I'm helping to teach and develop a course on Indigenous science and technology, which kind of connects to what I was saying. Like I found actually trying to like run marches and that sort of thing like didn't suit me like was exhausting and anxiety-inducing for me and eventually came to find like, I love teaching and writing those sort of more introvert level of conversations that are still oriented towards like, climate change and environmental restoration. Yeah. 

Amanda: And gaming too, right.

Keara: Yeah, and then and then the making games and animation is another way of like, all of those are based on like dystopias, utopias, futures, like heavy environmental themes and spirituality and community. So it's all ways of working with the same sort of themes that I look at in like research, conversation, activism, then working them out in like an artistic way as well.

Stu: Are these games available, are they already made or still in production?

Keara: I have one - I have one visual novel demo that's online for download right now. We just had it at the ImagineNATIVE Film Festival…and thank you.

Rivka: It's very cool to hear the kind of lineages and how even things that don't seem directly related, like game development, can still be drawing on perspectives and skills that were learned from that period. 

Amanda: Also, I think Keara is not even, she’s being so humble, but Keara is like, like, kind of famous in the world of like, the kind of work that like the stuff you're doing. Like I see, because I follow you on Instagram and stuff but like, yeah, like I feel like you're leading on the kind of like game development that you're doing that like centers, Indigenous stories and voices and like, I just find that like, so cool to see what what each of you are all doing now and maybe Ben can tell as to what he's doing now.

Ben: Yeah, sure. So, I think I took a different kind of trajectory after fossil fuel divestment, where a big lesson I drew was that you need to change the decision maker and the people who have the structural power and are making the decisions which is - well one of the contributing factors why I became involved in electoral politics, not because I think parties are perfect by any stretch like I, I am very well aware of what political infrastructure is like, but I also, know that when you have different decision makers different choices are fundamentally made.

I think the other big way that it like changed the organizing I do was just the importance of training and capacity building because when the second generation lost, many of us, I think, felt that it wasn't worthless, what we had done and that we had made really important connections and trained so many people in new skills that they wouldn't have otherwise had and then we got to see all of those people go off and apply those skills for advocacy and organizing and so many other different important campaigns. I feel that like divestment showed me that like empowering other people to like, have that scaffolding they need to do something for the first time.

I think also, somewhere in between the like, making the, connecting the dots between different kinds of injustice like that was, did not feel normal when I started in environmental organizing in like the late to early 2000s. And it feels so much more normal now and just seeing that kind of change, and I feel that our generation absorbed a lot of the growing pains for that, for better and worse, but I really think better. But it was definitely an awkward adolescence for the movement. By any stretch. [laughter]. 

I think the other thing that like divestment taught us and I think it was set up really well to teach us this as a campaign is how people who you are taught to respect can be completely wrong and in a university you go in thinking that oh professors know everything and they say the right thing and they're looking out for you and divestment really walks you through. This is how they’ll lie to your face and this is how they'll stab you in the back and this is how they’ll gaslight you afterwards in a way that I think gave me a set of emotional preparedness that going into any other kind of activist decision point I’m like “I am ready for this”. 

Rivka: I wanna vouch for what Ben said on the importance of training, also everything else. I met Ben in a zoom call, this was like a month or two ago, where he was training us on how to do phone banks, in the campaign office for elections - 

Ben: It's so important.

Rivka: It’s very important - and also gaslighting, which I always thought was…[laughter] yeah. There was a lot in the literal year like the 12 month period before that divestment announcement. We got a lot of events and messaging from the university that were very specifically anti divestment, and very specifically undercutting things they had done and said previously, I'm thinking specifically about the Investing to Address Climate Change charter and the UNIE—University Network for Investor Engagement. There was just—there was so much right before that announcement that shows how insincere it was. That stayed true right to the end.

Ben: I think - that's just my question, though. Do you know how it happened like—does anybody yet have an idea of what was on the inside who was like carrying the torch? 

Rivka: We have theories. 

Amanda: Let's hear them! 

Rivka: I don't know if…I will say listening to generations one and two especially one sentiment that I heard was that the ultimate decision to divest was not in response to any student activism. And I'm not sure I entirely agree with that. But I do think there is truth that it was not a direct result like there was no direct cause and effect of any one action we did. I think the work that all the people in who have spoken in this podcast did was creating the possibility, creating the language, emphasizing the importance of it. And then there were probably some other factors at the end, Harvard had divested a month or two prior to that decision, and obviously that set a big precedent. Um, the university’s pension was moved out of the control of UTAM, June, I want to say or July the summer of 2021, so any divestment commitment would no longer apply to the pension, which is larger than the endowment, so that would have been prior to that move that would have been over half of the investments we're in are now not bound by that divestment decision. So it's just not as big of a call to make because it only affects the endowment and not the pension. And there is, U of T launched its new fundraising campaign not long after this divestment announcement, so there was speculation that it was anticipating backlash to a large fundraising campaign, if there were still there was still no commitment to divest.

Stu: Ben spoke to it in the second episode about like, if Gertler would have divested early on, then it would have been a symbolic thing that had significance, but divesting in 2021, that's just like going with the flow of the times, there's, there's nothing radical about doing it eight years, nine years later. I think that's really important. It's, yeah, this is it's just the, it's the it was the time when it was happening, well it's already happening.

Léo: If you are to listen to what the University says now that they have divested, to come back to gaslighting a bit, and on your point Stu, they would say the opposite. In fact, and you know, as someone who is still there and still receiving the emails about how green they are, and you know, still having, seeing all the ads they have, they put divestment front and center. It's really like the university is taking many initiatives, a big one being we announced divestment in October of 2021. They don't mention the fact that it's divestment by 2030 which basically means nothing at all. So yes, in terms of gaslighting, they were gaslighting us before the announcement, but they were very much still gaslighting us after the announcement. This was just a PR move.

Stu: I thought they were meant to, to gaslight? [laughter]. 

Rivkia: They were meant to gaslight us.

Stu: to divest within a year I thought it was a 12 month…

Rivka: so that was the direct investments, which is almost nothing, almost all of their investments in fossil fuels are indirect investments because almost all university investments are indirect. They're invested in pooled funds. Right? So none of that has happened until 2030. I will just say, overall, I think that this gaslighting and Stu what you said about divesting in 2021 is just going with the flow. That's why it's, why we, it's important for us to look at this and especially those of us who were in Leap and gens three and four. To look at this as a long term look the long term impacts the slowness of the movement, because while the decision to divest by 2021 seemed pretty inevitable. It's the conversations that we were still having leading up to and following that decision about greenwashing about the disingenuousness. Or if I think of a better word, but about the insincerity of the university that we need to, need and still need post-divestment at U of T. And it's just that critical thinking being applied to our institutions in general.

Amanda: Yeah…And I think that's like another lesson that comes out of this for me to have like, even when I was doing a little bit of the research just to like prepare this timeline and go back through things of like, the university is trying to always be ahead of the game on things. And they'll do it with every issue too like, around the like, it was around the time of when his decision was supposed to be happening that they were first creating like the Truth and Reconciliation roundtable commission or something. And, like, they try to get ahead on every issue. They'll try to implement some policy or roundtable such that they can say they're already acting on decolonization or they're already acting on climate change. To try to like diffuse I think then the more radical or militant activist response and be like, but we have this committee on the thing and then it's like, well, what is your committee actually doing? But they'll like bureaucratize it, and I think you said that Stu in their episode too, your, your advice to people was like ignore the policy like ignore the official channels like go through some other channel and I think that's my, my thinking at least at this moment is that that is like a strategy they use to diffuse activism is bureaucracy.

Ben: They teach us about the Liberal Party of Canada when you get like, a bullshit committee that will do nothing, and then point to it as action non-stop.

You're listening to Climate Justice Radio, a podcast hosted by Climate Justice Toronto. We are building an irresistible movement to confront the climate crisis by addressing its root causes: capitalism, colonialism and white supremacy.

Rivka: I guess it could be for anyone but specifically for our lovely co-hosts, Amanda and Julia. What did the process look like? Post rejection to first of all, meet each other, transfer that institutional knowledge of a fossil fuel divestment campaign, and then for Julia to continue carrying on that work, when there were so many institutional messages and barriers already in place saying that it wasn't going to happen.

Julia: Okay, so I think in the intro episode, I tell the story of how we met, which was in I forget what like pub it was, but there was like a meetup for going to Climate 101. Wow, I blanked on the name of that for a second.

Ben: Oh, it was the Red Room! 

Julia: Yeah, so I was, I was in first year. It was literally I think, like my first month of undergrad and I had gotten an email from Toronto350 being like there's a meet up to go protest all of these pipelines that Trudeau is about to approve in Ottawa and I showed up and everyone was ordering drinks, but I was 18 and like a goody two shoes and Amanda was like, “Wait, are you like, are you 18 though? Are you -” cause we were all planning on getting arrested. 

Amanda: I was like, What have I done? I recruited this like [laughter]… because at that time, I was working for 350 Canada on the, on the Climate 101 thing, so it was my job to like, recruit Toronto folks to go out to Ottawa. 

Rivka: Was this pre-radicalization Julia?

Julia: It was, it was mid-radicalization, Julia. But then I think we after like, after Climate 101 I messaged you, because I, we had just like, there were like a couple of us who were like thinking of starting a Leap chapter. Because the like Leap Manifesto was like, this was like the year that that was like, that was the moment and we're like, okay, how do we do like, just transition climate justice work on campus. And I like had literally just like heard that there was, there had been a divestment campaign from folks at Climate101 when I went and messaged Amanda, and I was like, “Can we meet?” I think I think I was like,“Can we meet and like talk about it?” Yeah, I think like for me at first a lot of it was like truly just like naivete like I had no idea what I was getting into. And that was like, this is like, this is like the connection between broader climate justice work and like our campus and like the climate crisis as a whole.

Amanda: Yeah, you had messaged me and then we met at the Second Cup coffee on College Street. And I distinctly remember that like sitting down. And I remember like getting the message from you that you wanted to restart this campaign. And like at that point, I was so like, cynical and I think still very heartbroken about what had happened with divestment. And, like, I felt fortunate that I had gotten this job with 350 because it gave me a new outlet of something else to focus on. But truly, I was still like mourning not even just the loss of the campaign, but the loss of the friendships and like everything that had formed around that the way—because I hadn't graduated I was still on campus. I think I was one of the few people who I think wanted to continue but no one else did. And so I felt very like just like completely alone, like didn't know what to do next. I had finally like, I had become politicized. I had learned all these organizing skills and then there was like, this void. And so when you messaged me, Julia, I was like, truthfully, I was kind of like, ugh like, divestment isn't even it anymore. Like I don't know, but I didn't want to bring that kind of energy into a meeting with you because I was so pleasantly surprised to hear that there's this like, new young person who wants to pick it up. So yeah, I remember like just kind of going into that meeting and being like, Okay, I'm just going to tell her everything I know. But like, I just didn't have the heart at that point to like, really join Leap and like keep up that fight. But I was like, Okay, if there's someone who wants to do this, that's fantastic. I'll like give you whatever I can, but I was just like, so heartbroken still and like, but I'm so grateful that you had this new energy and that you founded Leap and that it didn't die and that it like went on and yeah.

Julia: It was like a couple of years of kind of like figuring like, kind of finding our feet as a group. Like Kristine, you were there for a lot of like the early times. You can probably speak to this as well. 

Kristine: I don’t know how to phrase this, I think it was like trying to find the energy to first like revive the main campaign but also coming up with other strategies to make the main campaign relevant on campus again. And it was, it was a lot of us—I think a lot of just like trial and error like, okay, tabling here doesn't work, but tabling here might work. Going through these classes and talking to these professors might work or won't work. And I think that was a really great outlet for creativity and like really building those strong interpersonal relationships within the group because I think a lot of people just stayed from the beginning from which I can remember because, like, we just enjoyed going to meetings and talking and strategizing. And it felt really like you know, this was our campaign now this was everything was like on our terms. And I think having that energy was really important to like, try to not fall into like into this doomerism mindset where the university will just never divest because it's failed, like, twice already. Yeah,

Stu: So bold of you to like, Hey, there's this campaign that's just got a big no and we’re not even allowed to talk about It. But we're gonna do it anyway. Wow! 

Julia: Like on a personal level, I was definitely in this space of like, I'm like, the revolution is imminent. [laughter] Like like, I am like, there's like this like this campaign is like the right thing and like we like will prevail and it's just like a like, I don't know where that like, well of energy came from. But yeah, and like Léo said as well. It was a lot of like, just showing up at things like as well as individuals that just like building like those relationships on campus. We did a lot of work with like, especially once we became an OPIRG action group we did a lot of work with like the other action groups, like work with like the BDS campaign, we would run like, co-run like divestment 101s together. Um, so like that, and that was I don't know, that was like, just like, slow, slow work. I feel like things really started picking up in like, 2018 when like the Vic divestment campaign got going. And at that point, at that point, it became a thing at Vic. That like, every like all the like the students there were kind of really aware of and then that kind of like took its own energy.

Julia: Maybe we have time, Amanda, for like one more big question. Does that work for folks? Okay I'm really curious so like, like Ben earlier you're talking about how your trajectory afterwards in terms of getting into like electoral politics and kind of like rethinking how like you were like putting your energies strategically, and in the episode one conversation there was like, I think Stu you made a comment about kind of, the end of the era of protest as like, the kind of core just like effective tactic. So I'm gonna throw I don't know a big question kind of like to transitioning into thinking about kind of where all of us are going from here. Has protest and that kind of mass mobilization died? What is the role of marches and strikes and rallies in the climate justice movement today? And if you think it has, what do you think are the most important and promising tactics being used in the climate justice movement now? Or ones that you think organizers could be putting more energy and focus into—what's kind of capturing your imaginations right now?

Léo: This is anecdotal. But I know a lot of people who have joined the movement as organizers after a climate march or a strike or an event. So while I really do appreciate that, you know, we're not getting any tangible results outside our, our campaigns from those events nowadays. I do think they are at least useful for getting, for roping some people in.

Rivka: I will say, I think it's really important to take up space, not necessarily because anyone else is going to take notice, but because of some of the things that Keara and Ben and others have been talking about. People need to know that they can take up space and I think that's something that showing up to a protest can do. I think I mentioned in the last podcast, the generation four episode, that I had a politically active family and my mom was bringing me to protests from starting when I was a very, very small child. And it didn't take me that many like anti-war in Iraq protests to realize that a bunch of people showing up and protesting the war in Iraq was not actually doing anything to end that war. And yet, people were continuing to show up and people were continuing to be like, hey, small child Rivka, you should go to these protests. And it continued to feel important and empowering and so when we talk about the role of protest or the effectiveness of protest, I think for me, I go to things like that to show up for myself and my community. And it's important not as a sole tactic, but as a as part of knowing, knowing that you're not alone in a fight and knowing that there are other people showing up for the same things that you're showing up for. And also, like just creating that space for new people to come in. Like what Léo said about folks getting involved in activism, after coming out to a protest and seeing a bunch of other people showing up for the same issue that they care about or that they might care about in the future. I think that there's a lot of power in that. It can't be the only thing that you're doing but it can be part of it.

Kristine: I think protest as an act of defiance is still really important. Because I remember during, early in the pandemic, a lot of governments tried to pass legislation like no more than five people can meet outside because of pandemic restrictions. And that was kind of to facilitate pipeline work. So a lot of like, still showing up to protest, like anti0pipeline and not—not protest anti-pipeline, sorry, to protest pipeline building across unceded territory. I think having that as an act of defiance is still really important as a visual and also knowing that you know, I can, I there's still tangible ways to show up for my community and stop things that are destructive.

Julia: Yeah, and I think like those very kind of early days of COVID for me also really just like, drove home that importance like the, the importance of like, like for many, for almost everyone, is just like existing in space together. And like there's no, there just like, isn't a substitute for that regardless of like, lots of ways to rethink how we're like we're doing strategy outside of that, but like at the kind of like, very basic levels. Like when that isn't there it’s, like, very, very noticeable and the like, you just like can't live in isolation. 

Keara: Like I said in the, in our episode, it was the People's Climate March that was my first-ever time going to any type of rally or march and it was very exciting. I was 19? 19. And that was how I like got involved in, in everything. So I think that had a big effect and I miss like how momentous and, and exciting it used to feel to go to a protest at that time. I think I'm trying to like, piece together something in my head about like, what we were talking about with relationships because and organizations because later on after being involved with 350 and organizations for a little while and also involving the people like higher up in those organizations and not having good relationships, like not those relationships not being good, not treated well really, also like fermented like resentment towards some of those marches and stuff and towards like seeing some of the slogans as being bottled by like the larger organization, so not identifying with it personally and not identifying it with like good relationships. So those are just some of the reflections on like how I came to sort of like break away from going to protests, but at the same time when I do have friends who I know who organize a protest like it that still brings some of that personal connection to it, and I would still go but when it's like a big organization, it doesn't, it doesn't have that same connection anymore.

Stu: It's nice to hear how people are speaking up for protest. Yeah, there's, there's a really strong sense of like, it's a really good place to network and to feel empowered.

Amanda: Yeah just to know that there are other people who believe the same thing that you do and that you can like, find them somewhere because sometimes you it's like hard, it's hard to find people where it's like maybe it's I guess it's the result of many things…unless you're on like social media or a protest or march like how do you find people who share your values and political beliefs? You have to know someone who knows someone who knows someone.  It seems sometimes and like, sometimes the first connection to make your way into the network or something. 

One thing I am still thinking about though too, because I did, I do feel strongly that there's that important networking entry point, but I still wonder a little bit if like, the strategic leverage or like militancy, like is there a way—because there seems to be some consensus that you know, marches and protests are good, at least for the personal or the empowering aspect, but is there still like a kind of strategic leverage that we could be making more effective use of and because like, I think Léo and I have talked about this off the podcast, too, of how like, protests maybe specifically in Canada and North America are like so tame if you like, look at what happens in a lot of Global South countries, or even sometimes in Canada when it's like an Indigenous-led protest like Shut Down Canada that literally like shut down stuff like how do we…I’m thinking too you know, the time we're recording this right, there was just the possibility of a general strike with CUPE or something like like - is there a way to foster a kind of leverage where a protest isn't just the expected—I think Milan said it in his first episode of like, it's almost it's expected every time that there's a COP, every time that there's a World Bank meeting, there's going to be a protest, but they kind of, its people can, the powers that be can kind of just be like, Okay, there's always a protest. It's the same old same old.  What would it be for the protest to mean something more and like, actually scare the people in power that like, Okay, if you don't do what we want, x y z is going to happen kind of thing. I don't know what the answer to that is. It's just something I'm still thinking about. But…

Léo: If I can echo that, I was recently at a protest or an event in front of an RBC related event and they were not scared of us. And that was very clear, I think, to me and to everyone else there. And I think it's important to be thinking about about those things. You know, when we're at the climate strike specifically like they’re chants like “What do we do? We shut it down!” like we're not shutting anything down. I - on a strategy level it seems to me like maybe protests, that, whose sole purpose is to be visible, are not a great use of our time, but protest for showing up for things, showing up for particular, you know, in Toronto, there's the encampments. That are that they think it affected showing up at that moment. Tenants being evicted showing up then, pipelines being built, showing up either there if you can or in all the other actions that have been throughout the country. That are more than that have way more to do with actually doing things actually showing up for people. And rather than showing up for ourselves, I think might also be more concrete and give us more power.

Ben: I’ll just jump in and say like, it's obviously not a binary but a spectrum. But the way that the divestment campaign organized the campus like, taught me a lot about institutional organizing. I'd never been in a union drive but in many ways I feel that this is like the closest I was going to be where like, we went to every every faculty went to every college. And I think a limit with protests is that it will always, in some way depend on people who have the volunteer time and people have that at different times in their lives, and it can be really valuable and impactful for movements when people are able to participate in it. And what is also important is like organizing people in the institutions that they actively go to, because like, let's be honest, we know the far right is organizing people in their churches, like and in like suburban neighborhoods like they're—the right has definitely like caught on to the importance of institutional organizing. And likewise, I think organizing workers in retail locations, and other like remote working locations is just as important and like another way that will ultimately help protest as well because when you have an institution of relationships, like people will want to go as a group to a protest and like it's much easier to get bigger numbers when those networks are all pulling in the same direction.

Stu: There’s something Keara said in the second, generation two episode around how like there was climate change activism, and then it became sort of climate justice, but then there was a sort of, oh, yeah, we were up for Indigenous sovereignty as long as they're stopping fossil fuel projects, and as long as they're still allowing windmills to be planted, right, rather than Indigenous sovereignty for Indigenous sovereignty’s sake. And I think there's I mean, I'm still learning this, of like, that we need to be taking back territory and land from the neocolonial civilization that’s destroying the planet. And the ones who are on the leading edge of that who’ve got the greatest skills, the highest technology, social technologies, and know what to do are the Indigenous people and the people in the majority world, right? Look at the protests down in Chile. Or things like this. Like they know how to organize a bus, you know, school bus of children come home from the school, get off the bus, and immediately you know, these are teenagers just start picking up cobblestones and ripping apart this cobblestones to pass to the friends who were then throwing it at the police to beat back the neoliberal enforcers of the economic system that's destroying the planet. Right? This is where, like, the skill of organizing at that scale is and so especially those of us racialized as white need to just come in with humility and say like, how do we do this? How does, how are they doing it in Chile? How are the Zapatistas and the folks in Rojava doing this? These are the places around the world that are like leading edge. And yeah, are they, what, how are they organizing protests? What are their methods? And where are they focusing and when? So that's, that's my personal learning journey, as well as to just constantly humble myself and humble myself and it's a struggle because sometimes I'm like, well I - I've read all this movement theory, I should know by now. And then I look around and I'm just like “I still don’t know I still don’t know”. So, just keep paying attention and keep on learning, this is a life-long…

Keara: I did a research presentation recently, like you were talking about how we need to be getting land and territory and resources out of the hands of colonial powers really. I did a research presentation recently, which was all about just like parks and resources and land and environmental management stuff. Very sort of academic stuff, but then one of the questions I got on it was about like, what is the relevance of this to the land back movement and what does this have to do with land back? And I guess I said that this you know, I'm not saying the words exactly in the research that I'm doing but it is strategic towards looking towards like, what are the ways to get like bits of power and resources and land in the hands of Indigenous peoples and nations to be revitalizing practices of healing the earth and healing ourselves and resources to support Indigenous peoples wellness and life and survival? And that that is all strategic choice, long term, and strategic things that I can work on with like the humility of knowing as one person I can only do like these couple little things in my life. So what are those couple little things that I can do? And I feel like the relevance to the movements that we're talking about as well, and that is that I like that activism is sort of being expanded from just something that's not just but like from only being about organizing rallies and protests and campaigns and petitions to also being about mutual aid and care and support and education and like all these different things that some people gravitate towards more so than other people, and then other people gravitate more towards like holding the megaphone at a protest. And so I think going forward, like, if I was organizing, I want to just make tons of different types of opportunities and recognizing all of those as - as forms of leadership and activism.

Rivka: That’s so well-said. 

Amanda: Yeah…there's a role for everyone and there's an, there's a need for everyone, like all the different skill sets and what your creative outlet is, like it's all needed somewhere. Not only the—

Keara: Oh, yeah… I forgot. I also want to say in that but like when I was involved in divestment, it was - I was getting like you guys were saying like in that process of getting radicalized and like activating this like anger and anxiety of towards the future and towards power and not having power from you know, teenager coming into an adult and I was like, you know, we can't work within the system or like, I was more like, I want to do protest. I want to like, I don't know, so I was more about that outside game. And now I have a bit more appreciation for like the diversity of tactics and skills required for making change in the long term, like all of them are required. 

Stu: An ecosystem of resistance.

Amanda: Oh, I love that. Yeah! 

Stu: A diverse ecosystem of resistance. 

Rivka: I think that goes with the question you asked earlier, Amanda, about lineages of activism, or of skills or of relationships, ecosystem lineage, just this idea that the things we're doing have important connections to each other, even if they're not always super direct or super visible.

Amanda: Well, thank you so much to everyone who's joined us in this fifth intergenerational episode. Stu, Ben, Keara, Kristine, Léo, Rivka, and of course, Julia. Yeah, it's been so, so lovely to have you each back here. I'm happy some of you got to meet each other for the first time, too. And those who are remeeting, I think it's nice even in this virtual space to be able to do that. So yeah. Thank you.

Rebecca: Hello, you have reached the final song segment of this mini-series, which means we’re finally going to hear the song “Which side are you on?” all together. So again, my name is Rebecca, this is the moment you’ve all been waiting for—let’s play the song.

Which side are you on, now? 

Which side are you on? (x2)

Storms surge and fires burn

but you don’t hear the call

Cause developers keep paying you,

does it weigh on you at all?

Does it weigh on you at all?

Does it weigh on you at all? (x2)

The city’s police chief

came knocking at your door

You gave ‘em 1 billion dollars

Does it weigh on you at all?

Does it weigh on you at all?

Does it weigh on you at all? (x2)

Corporations raised you up

but we can make you fall

They picked a war with all of us

does it weigh on you at all?

Does it weigh on you at all? [High]

Does it weigh on you at all? [Low]

(x 2)

Which side are you on now?

Which side are you on? 

(x 4)

Julia: This concludes the “Divestment Generation” mini-series. We’re so thankful to all our guests for taking the time to participate in these important conversations over the past 5 episodes, and for their work on the fossil fuel divestment campaign at UofT and organizing for social, economic, and climate justice in Toronto and beyond. Since the time of recording, Leap UofT rebranded and is now known as Climate Justice UofT, CJTO’s “sister organization”. Special shout out to CJUofT for recently completing an 18 day occupation of Victoria College on the UofT campus—the longest occupation in UofT history— resulting in a commitment from the college to divest from direct fossil fuel producers. Be sure to follow CJUofT online to stay up to date on the latest efforts to continue divestment and climate justice work on the UofT campus.

Climate Justice Radio is brought to you by Climate Justice Toronto. This mini-series features original music by Stefan Hegerat, and editing by Stefan, Amanda, and Julia. The creators and co-hosts of the series are Amanda and Julia. The singalong was led by Rebecca and included participants at CJTO’s September new member orientation. Special thanks to CJRU radio and 2185 Art Collective for use of recording space and equipment, and to the Discovering University Worlds research team for funding to support editing. You can find all our socials, and a link to sign up to join CJTO at our website: climatejusticeto.com. The transcript for this episode, as well as other information and links mentioned in the podcast will be in our episode description. If you’d like to support Climate Justice Toronto financially, please consider making a one-time or recurring contribution at the link in the episode description. 

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