Opinion | We crashed Mark Carney’s billionaire investment summit. Here’s why
Young Canadians are facing both climate disaster and economic hardship.
Protestors gather outside the Investment Summit in Toronto on September 14, 2026.
Laura Sullivan is a climate and social justice organizer who founded the grassroots non-violent civil disobedience group Last Generation Canada.
On Monday evening, I joined a youth contingent that marched with over a thousand other people to disrupt the 250 CEOs and billionaires that gathered in Toronto for PM Mark Carney’s investment summit. Our message was clear: We want investments in good green jobs — not AI, military and fossil fuels — so we can get to work building a Canada where we have a stable climate and a dignified life for all.
Instead, Carney is looking for $1 trillion to back over a hundred projects including pipelines, defence and AI data centres, all in the name of economic growth and showing off Canada as a good place for businesses to invest. Among the attendees were Larry Fink, who heads the U.S. investment firm BlackRock Inc., as well as managers of foreign pension funds and state-owned companies like Abu Dhabi National Oil Co.
After a rally at Nathan Phillips Square, we converged around the Art Gallery of Ontario, where the investment summit’s opening gala took place. Marching alongside Indigenous leaders, groups opposing war and genocide, and folks fighting for labour, migrant and housing rights, our youth contingent helped block exits and chanted loudly to disrupt Carney’s luxury dinner. We ensured those in attendance couldn’t leave without facing direct confrontation from us — the people who don’t have a seat at the table when it comes to our future.
I felt compelled to join because as young people, we did everything we were told to. We’ve worked hard, looked for jobs and many of us took out student loans to go to school. I studied engineering at the University of British Columbia, imagining a future for myself working in renewable energy. But then, two months after I graduated, extreme heat in B.C. killed over 600 people and the town of Lytton burned. And instead of working to protect people, I saw no real action from the provincial or federal governments to remobilize our workforce towards transitioning off of the fossil fuels that are killing people today and risk destroying my future. This is what required me to shift my efforts to organize against the climate crisis. If politicians weren’t going to lead, someone else had to step up.
My story is just one of hundreds that were on the streets yesterday. Organized by groups like Common Horizon, Change Course, and Youth Climate Corps, we’re the young Canadians for whom the cost of living crisis is crushing, just as it’s becoming impossible to get decent, well-paying jobs. Our rents and grocery bills are skyrocketing, but our wages — for those of us with permanent jobs — are not keeping up with increases in the cost of living. And none of what we are investing into this country feels like it is getting invested back into young Canadians like us.
But the need for change isn’t just economic. Every summer, our country burns and the skies are filled with toxic smoke. The UN has warned that our climate is passing through points of no return. In the wake of this, our government openly conceded our emissions targets, is trampling on Indigenous rights to try and build new pipelines and is pushing for AI data centres.
The government promised $40 million for a Youth Climate Corps pilot to train young people for climate work, but hasn’t followed through. Instead, we watched international firefighters arrive this summer, while Indigenous wildfire crews were left sidelined. Emergency response and wildfire fighting remains critically underfunded. Why aren’t we investing in building climate resilience from within as impacts escalate?
But young Canadians like the ones I marched with have a different vision for the future, one where governments respond to the climate crisis by creating hundreds of thousands of good jobs that benefit people, not the billionaires. We want investment in this country to tackle the biggest crises we face, from health care, to housing, to access to food. We could work to materially change the lives of people across the country, where people can have a higher quality of life and not just survive paycheque to paycheque. We want a country where people can breathe clean air, drink fresh water and live without fear of putting food on the table tomorrow.
This is why we crashed Carney’s CEO summit — because we need to invest in Canadians, not put our country up for sale for the ultra-rich to profit.
Error! Sorry, there was an error processing your request.
There was a problem with the recaptcha. Please try again.
You may unsubscribe at any time. By signing up, you agree to our terms of use and privacy policy. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google privacy policy and terms of service apply.
Laura Sullivan is a climate and social justice organizer who founded the grassroots non-violent civil disobedience group Last Generation Canada.
Opinion articles are based on the author’s interpretations and judgments of facts, data and events. More details
