95-Metre ‘Mega-Banner’ Urges Carney to Pick a Path, Choose Renewables and Climate Action

May  22, 2025

Ahead of next week’s Speech from the Throne, four national climate groups mounted a 95-metre fabric installation in Ottawa’s Major’s Hill Park on Wednesday, urging Prime Minister Mark Carney to “pick a path” between new oil and gas pipelines and climate action.

On the same day, Faith and Climate Action held a “pray-in” at Royal Bank of Canada headquarters in Toronto, protesting bank financing for new fossil fuel infrastructure like the proposed Prince Rupert Gas Transmission (PRGT) project in British Columbia, which is expected to receive provincial government approval within days.

The “mega-banner” in Ottawa “took over 20 hours to construct, dozens of volunteers, sheer grit, and caffeine-fuelled delusion,” wrote Emily Lowan, fossil fuel supply campaigns lead at Climate Action Network-Canada (CAN-Rac), in an email to supporters. “It may even break records as the largest banner in Canadian climate movement history!”

The “pick a path” installation was too big, wide, and flat to be viewed from the ground, but drone imaging showed one arrow pointing left to the United States embassy, across the street from the park, the other angled to the right toward Parliament Hill. The installation was organized by CAN-Rac, Common Horizon, Environmental Defence Canada, and Music Declares Emergency Canada.

“It’s time for the Prime Minister to pick a path,” Lowan said in a release. “In this moment of intersecting crises, new fossil fuel infrastructure is a waste of time and money—and we have neither to spare.”

“Right now, life for young people in Canada is tough. Grocery costs are sky-high and continue to rise, home ownership feels like a fantasy, and it’s difficult to imagine our futures through the haze of wildfire smoke and increasing climate disasters we are seeing every year,” said Common Horizon national organizer Hailey Asquin. “We are organizing to win good jobs, real climate action that empowers workers and community, and an affordable, dignified life for all.”

During and since the recent federal election campaign, Carney has expressed openness to both new pipelines and clean energy, Lowan told The Energy Mix. But that sounds a lot like the last 10 years of ‘all of the above’ strategy, with the former Trudeau government extending “massive public subsidies” to projects like the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion while “inching forward climate regulations with fairly meagre gains.”

Now, “we have so much to do, and we don’t have time to waste on pipelines that divide public debate, when we could be building renewables and massively scaling up the number of homes we build,” Lowan said. With the majority of Canadian oil sands production in the hands of U.S. shareholders and investors, she added, getting the country’s energy choices right is also about protecting national sovereignty.

Lowan cited the PRGT project as an example of Canadian fossil energy infrastructure owned by U.S. interests—in this case Blackstone Group, the New York-based investment house whose CEO, Stephen Schwarzman, is a supporter and mega-donor to Donald Trump. Blackstone also holds a 49.9% share in Canadian telecom and media giant Rogers Communications, indicating a “pattern of American companies encroaching on Canadian infrastructure.”

In Toronto, multi-faith protesters singled out PRGT as one of several proposed liquefied natural gas (LNG) pipelines that are being pushed ahead without Indigenous consent. “Amidst industry clamour for new pipelines and short-term profit, the catastrophic human impacts of worsening fires, floods, storms, and heat from a continued reliance on fossil fuels is being forgotten,” Anglican deacon Rev. Michael Van Dusen said in a release. “We, as people of faith, feel called to take action to push back hard the idea that more fossil fuel projects will somehow be good for Canada.”

“As people of faith, we won’t stop peacefully resisting this deliberate attack on the health of our children and grandchildren, and on all of creation, even if it means going to jail,” said Michael Polanyi, a member of the Toronto Unitarian congregation.

[Top photo: Common Horizon]