VANCOUVER—Pumping smoke from B.C. wildfires into the “sexy boudoir” of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is the hook being used by a pair of Vancouverites to raise funds for disaster relief.

Sean Devlin, a member of the Sh*tHarperDid advocacy group known for its comedic critique of Canadian politics and politicians, started an Indiegogo campaign with his colleague Shane Supernova on Thursday. The facetious goal is to build a pipeline to fill Trudeau’s residence with wildfire smoke from B.C.’s blazes to drive home how federal energy policy is contributing to climate change.

“A bunch of us woke up and there was just smoke everywhere,” Devlin said in an interview, adding the surreal experience was at once alarming and motivating. He and Supernova came up with the image of piping the smoke directly into Trudeau’s bedroom as a way to connect the federal leader with what might seem like a distant, West Coast problem.

“And it was just a funny joke,” he said. “We thought by using the joke to raise money to help people who are harmed by this stuff, we could find another way to hold (Trudeau’s) feet to the fire.”

Devlin and Supernova’s goal is to use this far-fetched scenario to raise awareness around how the federal government’s purchase of the Trans Mountain pipeline signals a disinterest in taking the impact of fossil fuel production on climate change seriously. In doing so, they hope to encourage donations to their fund, which will go to support wildfire relief in Canada, and to support the impoverished community of Anibong, Leyte in the Philippines whose members continue to suffer since the category 5 typhoon Haiyan displaced more than four million people in November, 2013.

The severity of both of these weather events, Devlin said, can be attributed to climate change. Trudeau himself, he points out, has acknowledged the link between climate change and extreme weather events. During a 2016 news conference regarding the forest fires that devastated Fort McMurray, Trudeau said, “It’s well known that one of the consequences of climate change will be a greater prevalence of extreme weather events around the planet.”

But Devlin believes Trudeau is deeply disconnected from the realities facing average Canadians as annual damage caused by annual weather events around the country becomes more severe. Trudeau grew up a child of privilege and wealth, he said, and has far more in common with the executives of Kinder Morgan — from whom the federal government recently purchased the Trans Mountain pipeline project — than he does with the people whose homes, families and livelihoods are threatened by climate change.

The Filipino community to whom half the funds will go is the same community Devlin’s mother grew up in. Meanwhile, Devlin said, B.C. is “literally on fire,” and some residents are “on the run from a fire.” And for him, that direct connection to a devastated population is something Trudeau seems to be missing.

“I’ve seen the devastation first hand, and I know it’s something this prime minister has not seen,” Devlin said. “It’s real to me, but I don’t think it’s really real to him.”

The B.C. government declared a state of emergency on Wednesday as the number of fires across the province pushed past 560. The 2017 state of emergency lasted 70 days, with 1.2 million hectares of the province burned in that year’s fires.

Lori Daniels, associate professor at the UBC Department of Forest and Conservation Sciences, said in an interview Wednesday that the record-breaking fire seasons reported in the province every year over the last near-decade point to extreme weather as a new normal for region. “I thought, to be honest, we would have a few more decades to adapt,” Daniels said, adding, “Climate change is here with us.”

Devlin and Supernova’s online disaster-relief fundraiser exceeded it’s modest goal of $500 in the first hour of going live. As of Sunday, it had raised nearly $1,200 thanks to the donations of 40 individuals.

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Devlin said using a lighthearted frame to raise funds is one way to ease people out of the low-level terror produced by living under a cloud of smoke from a smouldering province. And hopefully, he said, donating to help people in need will give people a sense of empowerment, even without ideological support from a prime minister whose continued co-operation with the fossil fuel industry Devlin called “irresponsible” given the historical and ongoing wildfire situation in B.C.

“In the long term,” he said, “it’s better for everyone’s mental health if we can face these problems head on and not just feel terrified.”

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