(Photo: Vincent Tom)
Ellen has been a dedicated Blue Dot volunteer since 2014.
As a child, I spent many family vacations with my mom and dad driving across Canada in a Volkswagen van. I fell in love with our country’s natural beauty: its mountains, forests, oceans, lakes and rivers, wildlife, birds and flowers. Many years later, I had become incensed at old-growth trees being clear-cut; at people having to boil drinking water; at chemicals polluting our air and contaminating our food.
Blue Dot offered me a way to take action, to do something. But I didn’t understand the enormity of what we were being asked to do until David Suzuki walked into the classroom on our first afternoon of training. After I shook his hand, I knew I’d sealed a pact with the environmental gods. Our team of volunteers went on to secure Blue Dot’s very first municipal declaration in Richmond in October 2014. I later helped the Surrey Blue Dot team get their resolution passed in January 2016. The groundswell of support for Blue Dot coast to coast to coast has been amazing and inspiring. As one of the original Blue Dot members, I remain in awe of the passion with which Canadians have embraced the environmental rights movement. I also can appreciate how daunting a task we have set for ourselves.
But now that we’re creating a dialogue with members of Parliament, and have collected more than 100 pledge signatures, we’re getting ever closer to our dream of environmental rights enshrined in law. Our Blue Dot community has grown from eight to thousands upon thousands of dedicated supporters, and working together, I know that one day Canada will have the right to a healthy environment.
Blue Dot relies on the efforts of dedicated citizens taking action in their local communities. Humans of Blue Dot is an attempt to capture the unique stories of some inspiring volunteers who have generously given their time to advancing the environmental rights movement in Canada.
