ORGANIZING THROUGH LOSS IN THE HEART OF OIL COUNTRY

The story of climate justice organizing in Alberta, at the heart of the tarsands, is the story of a group of young activists learning what it means to lose, and keep on fighting

- ABDUL MALIK

The gym of Holyrood Elementary School, located on a sleepy side street in Edmonton’s rapidly gentrifying Strathcona neighbourhood, is packed well beyond fire code tonight. Every chair is occupied. Every inch of the floor is packed with latecomers, sitting cross-legged or leaning against the back wall. The crowd of those who arrived even later extends well outside the door. Orange pins flash on every lapel. The majority of the older folks in the crowd wear ones emblazoned with the name Heather McPherson. The younger folks’ buttons almost exclusively sport the name Paige Gorsak.

Tension rolls over the crowd as three women make their way past the assembled crowds, two of them taking nearby seats, and the third stepping to the pulpit, introducing herself as the head of the federal Edmonton Strathcona Riding Association. She congratulates the candidates on a hard-fought campaign and then announces that, by less than 20 votes, Heather McPherson has won the nomination to be the next federal NDP candidate in Edmonton Strathcona.

For a certain segment of the crowd, it’s cause for relief. For the particularly fresh-faced, it’s a crushing revelation of what electoral politics really is. For everyone else, it’s a maddening case of business as usual.

After a long, sombre night of drinking, hugging, crying, and chatting, Paige Gorsak’s campaign team will wake up and go back to work, putting one loss behind them, having already begun planning for the next one.

LOSING STARTS ON THE INSIDE