David Suzuki apologizes for saying pipelines could be 'blown up'
CBC
Environmentalist David Suzuki has apologized for saying pipelines would be "blown up" if government leaders don't take action on climate change.
Suzuki made the comments during an interview with CHEK News on Saturday, amid a protest in Victoria organized by the environmental group Extinction Rebellion.
"We're in deep, deep doo-doo," Suzuki said at the time.
"And the leading experts have been telling us for over 40 years. This is what we've come to. The next stage after this, there are going to be pipelines blown up if our leaders don't pay attention to what's going on."
The environmentalist issued an apology through his foundation on Thursday, and said he had spoken out of extreme frustration.
"The remarks I made were poorly chosen and I should not have said them," the statement said.
"Any suggestion that violence is inevitable is wrong and will not lead us to a desperately needed solution to the climate crisis. My words were spoken out of extreme frustration and I apologize."
Suzuki's remarks prompted swift condemnation from the Alberta government, including Premier Jason Kenney, Energy Minister Sonya Savage and government House Leader Jason Nixon.
Kenney first accused Suzuki of inciting violence Monday on Twitter, and later, at a news conference on Tuesday, when he reiterated that he believed Suzuki was implicitly inciting people to commit eco-terrorism.
"It's like in the gangster movies where they say, 'You know, nice little pipeline you've got there. It'd be a terrible thing if something happened to it.' This is totally irresponsible," Kenney said.
He added that Suzuki has a track record of outrageous comments that should have had him "cancelled."
WATCH | Suzuki's remarks 'irresponsible,' Kenney says:
He cited an example from 2016, when Suzuki opined that former prime minister Stephen Harper should serve prison time for "wilful blindness" to climate change, which was reported by the National Post at the time.
"We resolve differences peacefully and democratically — not by threatening to throw our opponents in jail," Kenney said.
More than 100 workers at a steel plant in eastern Ontario are being laid off either temporarily or permanently, as a company with facilities in Quebec and Ontario cuts its workforce due to challenging market conditions — including U.S. tariffs.
A small town northwest of Thunder Bay, Ont., has become the unlikely home for hundreds of foreign workers, but many may have to leave the community they've embraced after the end of a federal program put in place to fill gaps in Canada's labour market.
There's mixed reaction in Waterloo to an injuction allowing police to detain, arrest and charge anyone who is participating in unsanctioned street parties in that city this weekend.
Diabetes Canada is excited about Prince Edward Island's new pharmacare deal with the federal government, but hopes the province will reevaluate copays on diabetes supplies, says a senior manager with the organization.
After 26 years of accommodating guests from across the world, Faith Embleton says she and her husband Ken are ready to sell their bed and breakfast.
A group of big-name companies including Google, Meta and Dow have signed a pledge to support tripling the world's nuclear energy capacity by 2050, a signal of the technology's growing resurgence in popularity.
Five years on, Toronto-area doctors and public health officials are looking back at what they've learned since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic — and most agree the early experience will prove useful if the city faces another infectious disease crisis.
City staff would like Londoners to take a good look around their home and ask themselves a direct and possibly difficult question: Could everyone in your family survive at home, without leaving and with no other help, for a full 72 hours?
Liberal Leader Mark Carney will officially become Canada's next prime minister within a few hours, taking the reins as the country barrels toward a general election and continues to fend off verbal and economic attacks from U.S. President Donald Trump.
Recent cyberattacks in Newfoundland and Labrador should have been a wake up call for the federal government about the reality of an increasingly hostile world, says one cybersecurity expert.
A recent CBC News analysis found that Nova Scotia is rapidly losing some of its most affordable apartments, but housing experts say there are ways to prevent that.
Premier Susan Holt is defending her decision to not use electricity exports to Maine as leverage against U.S. tariffs, arguing the move might cause long-term pain for New Brunswickers.
Montreal's St. Patrick's Day parade first started on Saint-Paul Street in 1824, and a couple centuries later, this annual tradition is still going strong.