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David Suzuki in the OKanagan Mile Zero in Victoria and heads for the Hill in Ottawa
Princeton is closed for Suzuki. The town has shut down. The kids have been time off school. Stores are closed. There's a huge line up outside the high school where David is going to speaker. People are spilling over to a side room where a video feed has been set up. Teenagers desperate to have their pictures taken with the Doc are besieging the bus. This town has Suzukimania. We're just hoping nobody faints. The only downer is, we ran into heavy snow coming down from Kelowna and had to change our route, se we're late and running behind and we have to cut our lunch date with the Chief and Elders of the Upper and Lower Similkameen First Nations short. The event's supposed to have started by the time David accept a beautiful native drum from them and we have to beat it up the hill to the school and rush onto the platform. So I haven't had a lot of time to register the enormity of this crowd or the mood they're in before I stand at the podium and start to welcome the crowd... and I stop dead. Because staring at me are nearly 700 shining faces sending out a shockwave of energy. Thnis is a town that has just successfully helped scuttle plans for a coal-burning power plant in their backyard and they are ready to celebrate. But that's not what took me aback. There was such a feeling of anticipation, eagerness, intelligence. These aren't Suzuki zombies engaging in blind hero-worship. This is a crowd that has just learned how powerful they are when they all work together - native, non-native, community groups, business, civic government - and they want to know what the do next. They've just had the equivalent of a clean air near-death experience that has galvanized them as a community to help fight global warming and they want to hear some solutions they can act on. The Doc, of course, was on fire and he gave them things they could do - vote for the environment, talk to the candidates and grill them on climate change, join the Nature Challenge and much more. And the folks were with him, cheering and applauding and leaping to their feet at the end for a prolonged standing ovation. And the questions were about what more they could do. The reception has been the same everywhere on this tour. There is something happening out there in Canada. It's an awe-inspiring dynamic and I've been trying to figure out just what it is - what is the wellspring for this overwhelming consensus on climate change? The nearest example I can think of may seem a bit surprising. In 1992 and 1993, there was a sudden, profound wave of support for Preston Manning and the Reform Party. Why did that happen? I think Manning tapped into the feeling of disempowerment people had - that politicians weren't responding to the issues they felt were important. Well, the issues that are important have changed, but it appears that Canadians have that old feeling once again. And judging from the mood of the crowds turning out, they want substantive action right now. Not just from the politicians in Ottawa, but from their province, their community, their industries - in short, everybody. That's very exciting because it means that long after we have left town (if they let us leave - there's a phalanx of people wit digital cameras lined up beside the bus snapping pictures), the citizens of Princeton and its environs will be carrying on the conversation. --Don Hauka, Communications guru February 25, 2007 12:02 PMKamloops - On the day that his friend Al Gore won the Oscar for best documentary for An Inconvenient Truth, David Suzuki put on a performance worthy of an Academy Award. I'm not sure whether he's the star of Marathon Man or Chariots of Fire or maybe even Survivor (even though that isn't a movie yet) - pick your title. All I know is after the shows he put on yesterday, he deserves an award of some kind. Picture Team Suzuki shuffling off an early morning flight, one that saw the entire crew up at 3:30 a.m. Mountain Time so we could get to Kamloops for the first B.C. stop of the tour. It's an early Sunday morning and everyone is tired and perhaps a trifle grumpy - even I, whose good humour and cheery morning personality is legendary, was not exactly in top form. But we were in our home province and sure enough, hadn't taken five steps into the airport terminal before a smiling businessman came up to David, shook his hand and insisted on having his picture taken with the Doc. It perked us up and it was just a taste of things to come because the welcome he got at Thompson Rivers University's Grand Hall is normally reserved for rock stars. Cheering crowd, thunderous applause and there was the Doc, standing up there and delivering a fabulous, high-energy speech which brought the folks to their feet. He didn't miss the opportunity to put Kamloops Mayor Terry Lake on the spot over a local pesticide control bylaw (Lake was in the front row and was seated almost right next to David during the introduction and seemed to take it quite well, especially when the Doc grinned and said: "Sorry - I couldn't help myself.") As if that wasn't enough, David did a scrum afterwards with about a half dozen local media, patiently answering questions about everything from mountain pine beetles to how to deal with a climate change denier. He even indulged one print reporter who followed him practically to the bus asking how long he spent in the shower. Me? I was operating on fumes and I could barely keep up with David, who has got to be about the fittest septuagenarian I know. But it was, of course, worth every minute. The Thompson River's University Student's Union did a fabulous job of staging the event and the local speakers (Matt Greenwood of the Kamloops Chapter of the B.C. Sustainable Energy Association and Anne Neave of Pesticide Free Kamloops) showed that the folks in the Thompson River region are part of the solution. We barely had time to draw breath before it was off to Kelowna, wending our way down the winding highway, and I thought: "What sadist thought that David Suzuki and his team could possibly make it from Edmonton to Kamloops and then to Kelowna all in the same day?" And then I remembered it was me (did I mentioned I booked him three telephone interviews back-to-back-to-back that afternoon?) but I had little time for self-flagellation because then it was off to the Parkinson Recreation Centre where nearly 500 people had crammed in and (after having done yet another round of media interviews), the Doc absolutely electrified the audience with his talk. He was already being given a standing ovation when Teresa Laturnus, his personal assistant, went up to the stage and whispered something to him. Grinning like the Cheshire Cat, David told the audience: "Al Gore just won the Academy Award for best documentary." The place exploded into cheers and whoops and whistles and through it all, the Doc stood up there, smiling, delighted for his friend, energized by the crowd and blown away by the feeling that this tour is riding a wave which may finally take us down the path to sustainability. And after all this, he still had enough strength to watch the rest of the Oscars (he was rooting for Helen Mirren to win best actress and was happy to see Forest Whitaker win best actor) while relaxing on the bus. So it was an amazing day all around. Personally, I am going to sleep where I hope to be at least nominated for best sound effects for my snoring. --Don Hauka, Communications guru Posted by Gerald Richardson at February 25, 2007 12:02 PM David Suzuki ends cross-country marathon at Mile Zero in Victoria and heads for the Hill in Ottawa
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