‘I came into politics so I could continue to be an activist’: Steven Guilbeault on oil, idealism and being branded a traitor

Nicknamed Green Jesus', Canada's environment minister once scaled the CN Tower in a climate protest. Ahead of efforts at Cop15 in Montreal to stop the destruction of nature, he explains why he approved a controversial oil project

A young boy in rural Canada learns the forest he loves will be chopped down, so he scales one of the trees and refuses to leave. He fails in his mission - but the destruction resonates deeply. In his adolescence, he studies politics and theology, fascinated by questions of power and moral obligation. As an adult, he scales the world's tallest building - which was then the CN Tower in Toronto - to protest the destruction of the climate, only leaving when he's escorted down in handcuffs. He rejects owning a car, cycling through the pounding rain, sleet and ice of a Quebec winter. A local newspaper calls him Green Jesus".

Fast forward to April 2022 and that same man, Steven Guilbeault, greenlights a controversial oil-drilling project off the coast of Newfoundland in his role as Canada's minister of environment and climate change.