As insects scoured for fresh blood and a blistering sun threatened damage to exposed flesh, Mike Hudema had a political awakening that has fostered his insatiable desire for change.
Hudema was a 19-year-old university exchange student in southern India when he saw thousands of people from a village gather to debate the community’s budget for the next year. He was awestruck by the political participation over something as minor as a village’s budget, and began to question why there was such a lack of involvement in Canada. As he examined our political landscape, he concluded that our system was set up to reduce participation by its citizens. This contrast between various models of democracy began his muchstoried and often-criticized journey to become an unapologetic activist who has taken on anyone who he believes stands in the way of civil liberties.
In the 12 years since that trip to India, Hudema has fought the University of Alberta administration and been banned from the campus; eaten his own federal ballot; illegally occupied the constituency office of former deputy prime minister Anne McLellan for weekend; written a guidebook to activism; run as an NDP candidate; founded a radio program on current affairs; attempted to get the CEO of General Motor to sign a pledge against global warming at a Los Angeles auto show; taught training camps on such activist skills as blockade and climbing techniques; harassed logging executives on the Athabasca River; taken big oil to task on the oilsands; and was thrown out of China during the Beijing Olympics. Several of these activities have resulted in his arrest and detention.
Despite the variety of these endeavours, Hudema says that each helped him to develop his knowledge on issues and activism. As he has evolved over the years, so has his vision for where his voice is needed most — right now, it’s with Greenpeace and its focus on the oilsands.
“Climate change is the Number One issue of this generation. But some are overwhelmed by the size of the problems we face, so they retreat to their own homes and their own lives,” says Hudema. “But what people don’t realize is that there are a million different ways you can participate.”
While he recognizes it’s a hard fight against big oil in Alberta, Hudema is undeterred and strongly believes that he and other like-minded individuals can make change and bring more attention to oil companies and governments that he thinks are marching toward big profits at any cost — even citizens’ health.
“This is the biggest David and Goliath battle on the planet,” Hudema says. He believes in “using every tool in the toolbox” to bring attention to the issue, even if that means high-profile activism. After the 2008 provincial election, Hudema and two other Greenpeace volunteers lowered a banner behind Stelmach at a fundraising dinner at the Shaw Conference Centre that read: “$telmach, the best Premier oil money can buy.”
When asked if he regretted that event or others that have landed him in hot water, Hudema shrugs and says, “Direct action has always been part of social change.”
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