It was a sunny morning and I was sitting in Clik Bistro, enjoying a delicious breakfast burrito and perfectly blackened Americano and unaware of how important the topic of the interview I was about to do truly is. Last semester I had the pleasure of taking Politics and Ideology (political science 120) with Dr. Ron Dart. Being a business student, I hadn’t paid much attention to global politics and philosophical questions that get mauled over by journalists, politicians, activists, and everyone else who has a decently firm grasp on reality. At the centre of our talk was the environment — a hot topic awaiting my generation’s direct attention. Our discussion covered a few different significant political issues, but the driving force was of education and action. The difference between the two has much to do with one’s age and understanding of the given topic. University facilitates our learning, development, and vision; we must then facilitate the change we wish to make in the world.
Do you think that Canada is able to see the same success as Standing Rock?
Well, I think for example with the Kinder Morgan [Pipeline], what you have is the form or establishment position: how do we deliver the natural resources from one point to another? Trudeau’s goal is to look at alternate forms of energy, but until we have those fully operational, you have to have some of the cruder forms of transport. His position is okay, pipelines are the best we got at this point in time given how we deliver energy. That’s not where I want to go but you need an interim position until you get to your final solution. This is where you are getting this interesting merging of protest groups, advocacy groups, Green Party, like Elizabeth May.
How does the current federal government stand relative to environmental issues?
You have to be careful with what Trudeau is doing, some people want to demonize him with being in bed with the powerful oil companies. From his position he is torn between being with the business establishment people, who say “so what environment,” all that matters is the ledger of profit and loss, that’s all they are interested in. They just think in terms of what the ledger looks like at the end of the day. Trudeau is somewhere left of that, given his own history, and background, he would take the position of “yes, that is important,” but you have to factor in environmental issues because if you mess up the environment, there are implications economically as well.
Do you think the pipeline is currently the best way to transport the energy?
When you look at the principle environmentalists, you want to ask them, “Okay if you’re contra Trans Mountain, contra the pipeline, what in the immediate sense is the answer?” And that’s a fair question to ask the environmentalists or the ecologists, whether it’s Green Peace, Sierra Club, or First Nations Groups. I’m with them in theory, but how do you act on that theory practically, because politics is so much about action? With Trudeau you want to sort of say, “I can understand your dilemma, you’re probably with the left in terms of ideal but you’re trying to sort out incrementally how to then deliver this means of energy.”
On the right they tend to be much more about business, where environment is subordinate to business and Trudeau is living in the tension of it. The left subordinates business to environment, but they’re also bright enough to realize that at the end of the day they must pay the bills. They aren’t opposed to the economic question, so it’s always an ongoing tension of what is the relationship between economics and ecology. Given the history of not just the West but elsewhere having an excessive dependence on certain forms of energy, and we aren’t at the point yet where you can make a full-scale transformation into alternate forms of energy. This is what divides the right, the centre, and the left. You have to balance the economic with the environmental issues and with the social; it is what we call a three-legged stool.
How do students get involved with environmental advocacy in the community or at UFV?
Well I think there are probably three levels: there’s the one for some students where they need to take classes on environmental issues just to be aware there is even an issue, because first of all, if it’s not in a person’s mental makeup to realize we are facing certain issues then how would you deal with it? People need to begin to process how you make sense of it, and analyze the different types of groups that are doing something. The second would then be forming organizations to deepen the level of analysis and action. Then the third thing is what are the para-university organizations which take action in a more decided way politically.
Often at a university when people get interested in this economic-environment issue, they do it just on the education side. It’s alerting, waking people up to the importance of environmental issues and environment economics, but there’s no action. Now some people like the Greens, First Nations, Sierra, and Greenpeace, they’re as much interested in thinking the issues as they are acting — so what does this look like when we move from thought to action and action to thought?
In Canada there’s been this huge tension historically between forests, mining, and fishing. There’s a whole history in this province of large corporations destroying the environment for profit, and whenever you have one extreme you’re inevitably going to get another group that comes as a counter; and then of course in the last 20-30 years, environmental issues have become front stage rather than backstage.
So people do educational programs at UFV, they’re on the educational level. Other groups are on the action level, so what’s the relationship of thought, education, to action? Well it’s always the dilemma of the university because it’s ***“raison d’etre” is education not action, it leaves the action to people who want to act either independently or with major NGOs, or through parties, or at a municipal level. A university’s justification is not acting on issues or taking positions, that’s always a limitation of universities. This is where students have the freedom, when a university won’t take a position, but you have passionate students who say ‘Listen, we have to do more than just cheer information transfer or education issues, but in fact we do have to act.’
As for student societies and organizations, they are absolutely essential because some students who are going to play roles on the public stage or on environmental issues, those students who start with organizations leave UFV and then they go on to play an important role in significant organizations. Often the university is a bit of the womb that births the vision, and then as people mature the visions, they say, “Okay, so where’s the legs upon which to act?” That’s when they join these organizations, so student societies are essential for affirming a growing vision, and then people act on it.
Is getting involved politically a good vehicle to contribute to environmental advocacy?
Decidedly so, and anytime that people get involved at elections, whether provincial, federal, or municipal, that’s an accelerated form of education. Because courses you take are limited in terms of what you learn, it’s usually information, and you get marked when you do papers or tests, but actually learning about how politics work and how change is made and how parties articulate a platform, work on the platforms, and the policy that comes from that, that’s a much deeper form of education, because it’s experiential education in the hurly-burly of political life.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
