Activities

On the Season of Creation Action Day, September 21, 2024, ORCIE participated in the Gatineau-Ottawa Climate March alongside friends from Fridays for Future and various partner organizations, including Citizens for Public Justice, the Laudato Si Movement, For the Love of Creation, as well as individual parishioners from St. Joseph’s, St. Mark the Evangelist, and Canadian Martyrs Parish.

The focus of the march was to call out six organizations—Ottawa City Hall, the Royal Bank of Canada, the Canadian Gas Association, the Province of Ontario, the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, and Export Development Canada— that are obstructing effective climate policy, spreading misinformation, and funding the detrimental fossil fuel industry. The climate rally brought together hundreds of voices in Ottawa, demanding a just, thriving, fossil fuel-free future for all!

ORCIE is proud to have played a role in Saint Paul University’s recent announcement that it has divested from fossil fuels!

Do you know of other Catholic colleges and universities we might challenge to follow suit?

In the past year ORCIE joined 7 campus organizations/unions in a divestment campaign with the fresh ‘win’ shared publicly at a special event where SPU was recognized as a Blue Community by Maude Barlow and the Council of Canadians.  

SPU is joining a growing number of municipalities, schools and faith-based groups that have adopted principles that treat water as a common good, one that is shared by everyone and the responsibility of all, as well as committing to develop action plans to engage with students about these principles through popular education and in tangible ways such as installing new water fountains and refill stations.  

SPU is the 7th university and 104th community to take the Blue Community pledge. “The Blue Community commitment aligns with SPU’s broader social responsibility initiatives, which includes divesting from fossil fuel-based funds and prioritizing investments in enterprises that are socially and environmentally responsible.” SPU Goes Blue: A Pledge for Water Sustainability and Access, January 24, 2024

On September 15th, 2023 ORCIE was on Parliament Hill with friends from Fridays for Future, For the Love of Creation, KAIROS, Development and Peace-Caritas Canada, Citizens for Public Justice and many more groups for the Global Climate Strike, the biggest in-person rally of the climate movement in Ottawa since the pandemic. The major focus was the urgent need for an oil and gas greenhouse gas emissions cap in Canada, over 2 years overdue!