Brentwood’s “Create Your Canada Contest” Victors

The students in Brentwood's newest art, Environmental Advocacy, working alongside their similarly sustainably-minded twins in the Brentwood Environmental Action Team, BEAT, worked hard last year to optimize Brentwood's environmentalism in both idea and action.

From clothing swaps, to AppleFest, to campus-wide clean ups, audits of food, recycling, and electricity, and weekly Assembly announcements to inform, inspire and activate, the EA/BEAT team forged bravely ahead to enhance our community’s environmental attitudes, actions, and policies.

Its most recent success, in the Create Your Canada contest, came to fruition last week as Isha CT & Hana R, Mack ‘23 were selected to represent the Cowichan-Malahat-Langford riding with their draft legislation in Canada’s House of Commons.

Hana and Isha travelled to Ottawa to witness their MP, Mr Alistair MacGregor, read the legislation they had drafted in the House of Commons in the form of a Private Members Bill.

Our young legislators enjoyed a jam-packed tour of Ottawa, where they visited the House of Commons and met with MP for Toronto Centre, the Minister of Youth and Women, Marci Ien as well as getting dinner at Byward Market. On Tuesday, they met with Leah Gazan, an MP from Winnipeg and member of the Standing Committee on Status of Women, NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh, Speaker of the House, Greg Fergus, and the Sergeant in Arms, Patrick McDonell who gave them a tour of some precious artifacts, as well as attending Question Period. 

"I'm thrilled that Isha and Hana took this opportunity to express their priorities through legislation. This form of thoughtful, inclusive, respectful, grass-roots advocacy is exactly what liberal democracies should be about" enthused EA Co-Sponsor, Mr Ganley.

Congratulations to Hana and Isha for their incredible initiative! It is a feather in Brenwood’s cap!