Author: Eric Murphy
Each year, October 1st is Canada’s National Seniors Day, and the International Day of Older Persons. It’s not typically a high-profile occasion – the Government of Canada website suggests that on the 1st, people may take some time to ‘say thank you, run some errands for a senior, have a video call,’ or ‘take a walk together.’
This year, groups of seniors from across Canada are planning a different sort of October 1st. Seniors for Climate, a coalition of seniors-focused climate organizations, is working to unite groups across the country to take action, reappropriating National Seniors Day into a Seniors Day of Climate Action.
The movement has been growing fast, with 54 groups already planning an October 1st action, and it’s attracted the attention of major names in Canadian climate action, including David Suzuki. With just over 40 days to go until October 1st, Climate Legacy sat down with Rolly Montpellier, one of Seniors for Climate’s lead organizers, to discuss the initial inspiration for SFC, how they’ve responded to the project’s rapid growth and success, and how new groups can still get involved.
This interview has been slightly edited and condensed.
Climate Legacy: How did the original idea for Seniors for Climate come about? What problem were you trying to solve when you created it?
Rolly Montpellier: It really started from a fairly broad discussion between different organizations. We were doing some aspirational thinking, sort of “gee wouldn’t it be nice to have a large seniors climate group across Canada?” There’s currently no such organization.
A lot of the initial discussions were about how we could make this happen, but we were concerned about adding one more organization to the mix. We realized very early on in this process that there are thousands and thousands of seniors already involved in so many different organizations, whether environmental organizations or others focused on community support or social justice and so on. So, we decided to look at another model, and there were lots of discussions, both institutional and organizational.
Eventually, in January 2024 we resolved that rather than adding a new organization, we would instead plan an action. Really, the climate crisis that we’re in demands action, not more discussion. It became a question of trying to put the spotlight on the climate and invite members of all these different organizations to see what kind of movement we could create. It’s more of a uniting as opposed to creating something new.
So, we settled on October 1st which is National Seniors Day in Canada. All of our resources and energy since then have been towards making this a reality.
Once you decided to focus on Oct. 1st, what were your goals for that day?
The discussion centred on two things really – were we looking for large turnouts of seniors? Or were we looking for many locations across Canada, which would each have seniors participating whether in large or small numbers?
We opted for the latter, and we started with a target which we thought was very optimistic, maybe too ambitious. The target was to work with 50 different locations in Canada where seniors would manifest for October 1.
It turns out it was a realistic target, because right now as we speak today, we’re up to about 54 centres organizing an event for October 1st. We only launched on May 28th. We plan to do a lot more boosting and promotion of this project in the coming weeks, so we expect to actually increase what we have now.
Tell me a bit more about May 28th, and the launch webinar. What did the response to that tell you?
That was a really, really positive experience. We planned a webinar and we made sure that we had the Zoom capacity for maybe 100 or 200 participants. But when more people registered we kept having to increase the Zoom capacity and that was a very exciting experience. We eventually ended up having about 500 registrations and 350 some people actually participated. It was an outstanding success in that respect. And our list of contacts has now grown to over 600 people since the webinar.
We knew we were onto something and I think since then the interest and momentum has just grown. I should also mention that David Suzuki came on alongside the other 350 people. He was just one of the group, and he had so many complimentary things to say about it – I think he used words like ‘this is awesome folks, how did you get 350 people to show up in such a short period of time?’ He was thrilled and he committed to be part of this, and actually we’re still working with David on videography and of course he has a wide range of climate contacts. So, we’re in ongoing discussions with him.
You now have more than 50 groups signed up for October 1st. What sort of work are you seeing those groups planning?
Well, the range of actions is quite large. People are creative and imaginative. For example – a woman in Victoria is organizing a climate education day, while some of course will be doing traditional marches and so on. We’ve also suggested a menu of actions that folks can draw from. In some cases, it will only be three or four people, who could be inviting others to join them in a backyard barbeque. It’s hard to say the overall scale, but if we’re looking at places like Toronto, it would be great to get 500 to even 1,000 on the streets, and it could be more.
A lot of the organizing is happening across different organizations. For example, in Ottawa where I live the organizing group is having a flash mob, but there will also be a short walk to a location, which will end up in a panel discussion with five different organizations. And that’s just one area out of the 54 that are planning events
For someone who’s just finding about this work and wants to get involved, what would you recommend they do?
On the website, it shows a map of Canada, and on that map there are various pins, one for each of the 54 locations. You can find the centre of where you live, or close to where you live, and join that event. There’s an email contact you can reach out to for each one.
And of course if there’s no one organizing near you, then certainly you can just go on the website – seniorsforclimate.org and there’s a ‘contact us’ form and we will help you organize an event and plan it. That help includes materials as well. For example, each location will be getting a large flag which will show our logo, and that will be a unifying symbol in all of our locations.
So anyone wanting to organize, it’s not too late. Actually, we’re hoping to hear from a lot of people who still want to start something.
Why did you feel it was important to focus on seniors climate action specifically?
I guess first of all because we’re seniors. Seniors represent such a huge cohort, there are over 10.5M seniors aged 60 and over [in Canada] and the issue of urgency is very foremost in the minds of a lot of seniors. That’s because of our chronological age of course, but also, we realize now that we leave a legacy, and we’re wondering what our legacy will be.
We have been the generation which has been in the halls of government and power for the last three to four decades, and I think that we as seniors have, perhaps unwittingly but certainly, let this happen. We are in a climate crisis, and we’re part of that, and we helped create that, or allowed this crisis to occur. So we certainly have an obligation to help solve this crisis as part of our legacy.
To me, we’re in an emergency, and I think seniors can play a large role in tackling this crisis that we’re in. We have a lot of motivation, we have large numbers, and we vote. Going into the 2025 election next year in Canada, Seniors for Climate as a group will be suggesting that all seniors in Canada vote for climate. We think with the influence we have and the voting power that we have, we hope to be able to make a difference.
But as we say in all of our messaging, we have to act now because later is too late. It’s too late for the world, the climate, and for us seniors as well.
If you would like to learn more about Seniors for Climate, you can visit their interactive map, find their website here, submit a question through contactinfo@seniorsforclimate.org, or follow them on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram.