Mike Hudema

Micheal George Henry Hudema is a Canadian activist who has worked for advocacy organizations including Greenpeace, Global Exchange, the University of Alberta Students' Union, and the Ruckus Society.

He is best known for his work opposing the development of the Alberta oil sands and reliance on fossil fuels in general, but has also engaged in civil liberties and student activism.

[1] Mike Hudema was born in Medicine Hat, Alberta in 1976 from Ukrainian and English origin parents and attended Crescent Heights High School.

During the exchange, he recalls seeing 20,000 people "getting together to debate the village budget for the next year", and says that the contrast between that and the models of representative democracy in use in Canada affected him and shaped his views on political involvement.

[7] As part of this campaign, Hudema interrupted General Motors CEO Richard Wagoner at the keynote address of a Los Angeles automotive show and asked him to sign a commitment to make General Motors vehicles the most fuel efficient in the world by 2010 (Wagoner refused to sign, saying that his "speech spoke for itself").

[13] He also made headlines after the election when he and two other Greenpeace volunteers lowered a banner - reading "$telmach, the best premier oil money can buy" - behind Stelmach at a fundraising dinner.

[14][15] In January 2008, he was briefly banned from the University of Alberta campus after he and a group of fellow radical cheerleaders performed a number of anti-fossil fuels musical routines at an on-campus Shell Canada recruiting session.

[16] In September 2009, Hudema and 24 other Greenpeace activists occupied two oilsands heavy haulers and one shovel in Shell's Albian Sands.

In September 2011, Hudema helped organize the largest climate-related civil disobedience action in Canadian history when more than 200 people risked arrest on Parliament Hill by crossing a police line set-up to bar public entry into the building.

October 2012 saw Hudema in Victoria where he helped craft another mass action this time against oilsands pipelines, namely Enbridge Northern Gateway and Kindermorgan TransCanada.

[27][28] He also opposed the extension of degree granting powers (which were only granted to universities at the time) to colleges,[29] advocated against the inclusion of education in the General Agreement on Trade in Services and Free Trade Agreement of the Americas,[30][31] and unsuccessfully lobbied the City of Edmonton to stop assessing property taxes on university residences.

In what he alleges was a pre-emptive move [citation needed], Chinese authorities entered the apartment he was sharing with fellow activists and expelled him from the country.

He finished third of four candidates with 5.1% of the vote, well behind winner Bob Maskell of the Progressive Conservatives and incumbent Karen Leibovici of the Alberta Liberal Party.

Hudema at the Los Angeles auto show at which he challenged General Motors CEO Richard Wagoner
Hudema teaching rappelling at an activist workshop
Hudema protesting the Alberta Energy and Utilities Board. His sign features the image of Alberta premier Ed Stelmach .