Historic multi-issue mobilization in Menahkwesk (Saint John) targets Carney's attacks on climate, Indigenous people, migrants and workers ahead of fall budget
Menahkwesk (Saint John), 19 September 2025:
As Parliament resumes and Prime Minister Mark Carney is set to introduce his fall budget, tens of thousands will take to the streets from coast to coast on Saturday, September 20, demanding the government pick a side: injustice, violence, and climate destruction—or a just and safe future for all of us.
In Menahkwesk (Saint John), The Draw The Line gathering will be based on the “Liberation Square” – a de-colonised rebranding of Queen Square - with community activities such as participatory art and banner-making, music, poetry, and speeches with themes on economic justice, migrant rights, peace, ecology, and indigenous sovereignty. Lynaya Astephen, an environment activist from Saint John will speak about challenges and hopes in the fight to protect the Earth. A local poet and political activist, Chris Wanamaker, will share his poems that highlight social justice. Mark Woolsey, a veteran activist-musician will perform a variety of activist music including his own anti-nuclear song, which was written during the protests against Lepreau Nuclear Plant back in the late 1970s.
City: Menahkwesk (Saint John)
Location: Liberation Square (Queen Square)
Time: 11am - 2pm AT
Our gathering is in coordination with groups in over 50 cities across Canada who are drawing the line. These mobilizations will be an unprecedented and historic coming together of climate justice, migrant justice, Indigenous justice, labour rights, anti-war, and Palestine solidarity groups, to reject the Carney agenda and to demand that the Canadian government prioritize our communities over billionaires.
WHY NOW
The city of Saint John is dealing with many dilemmas such as industrial expansion over nature preservation such as in the case of Lorneville (Spruce Lake Industrial Park expansion), and on tackling the issue of housing and homelessness under scarce funding for affordable public housing and social assistance. The majority of the population are struggling with rising cost of living while local billionaires such as the Irvings are thriving from tax breaks and found renewed lucrative opportunity from Carney’s push on mining and fossil infrastructure. This reality has to be articulated so that the public is aware that billionaires are policy failures that hurt the people and the planet. The brutal manifestation of the pursuit of profit over people is the ongoing genocide in Palestine, where Canadian government and companies are complicit in providing weapons and funding to Israel. We as a community need to come together to educate ourselves and work together to find the solution from the most immediate and practical in the local context up to the scope of national and even international. The line has to be drawn to stop the war machine, to end the fossil fuel era and instead to move towards a living economy that nurture and care for people’s well-being while protecting nature. It can be done through various policies that fund public services; invest in communities and families; promote affordable housing; build renewable energy and public transit infrastructure, while upholding the sovereignty of the indigenous nations as the original protector of the land and water.
These mobilizations come days after Parliament returned to session, and ahead of the promised fall “austerity” budget. While people are struggling to put food on the table and pay rent, and communities are facing heatwaves and climate collapse, Carney has:
- Rammed through Bill C-5 to fast-track destructive projects on Indigenous land without consent and appointed former Trans Mountain CEO to lead Major Projects Office
- Promised 15% spending cuts over three years, affecting up to 57,000 public sector workers while announcing over $9 billion in new military funding
- Proposed Bill C-2 to cancel immigration permits en masse, restrict asylum claims, and expand warrant-less surveillance on all Canadians
- Slashed taxes for the wealthy while continuing subsidies for large corporations
- Declared Air Canada strike illegal within 24 hours
- Capitulated to Trump by shelving Digital Services Tax and reportedly considering joining his "Golden Dome" missile defense program
- Continued to support Israel's genocide in Gaza by selling weapons to the IDF
The mobilizations are part of a global week of action, with people taking to the streets, while world leaders convene at the United Nations General Assembly.
KEY DEMANDS
- Put people over corporate profit. Fund our families and communities.
- Refuse ongoing colonialism. Uphold Indigenous Sovereignty.
- Stop blaming migrants. Demand full immigration status for all now!
- End the war machine. Stand for justice and peace.
- End the era of fossil fuels. Protect Mother Earth.
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