Donald Trump's victory over Hillary Clinton could unapologetically be described as devastating. I in fact was dragged to bed at around 2:00 am by my partner the night of the election with the promise that, "everything will be ok, Hillary will win." (I'm not sure at what point we became on a first name basis with the democratic candidate).

There have been long-standing concerns for the Standing Rock demonstrators that have been simmering for some time now and have not abated even when President Obama declared there should be a pause in the development of the Dakota Access Pipeline. 

See, on the one hand there was the judge who denied the Standing Rock Sioux tribe's request for an injunction and therefore declared that the Dakota Access pipeline construction could legally proceed, and the other where the U.S. federal government then stepped in and temporarily halted the project.

One of the key concerns is demonstrating in the middle of winter, which was the all too familiar cause of most Occupy camps shutting down as temperatures dropped.

I'm pretty sure I'm not the only activist in Toronto who felt that we were rushing into this Occupy after New York was launched on September 17, 2011. But it's easy to be carried away by their success, even if at first it was not getting much coverage on mainstream media. But we did try -- in fact, it was our first word: "OccuTry."

I'm pretty sure the first meetings I was invited to were not the actual first meetings because leadership, or an attempt to guide people using their hand signals and speaking stacks, wasn't going anywhere. So we missed out on a lot of important information on how to begin building Occupy when others were just looking to squeeze themselves into positions of power.

Meet my friend Vanessa Gray.

This exceptional young, Indigenous activist from Aamjiwnaang First Nation -- in what is called Chemical Valley -- has been hard at work educating Canadians on what it's like to live in one of the most polluted areas of the country.

When you can top the toxicity of the tar sands, that means something very bad is poisoning the land, water and people who live near Sarnia, Ontario.

Gray, 23, along with two Guelph residents, Sarah Scanlon, 30, and Stone Stewart, 28, took direct action against $58-billion Enbridge Corporation's Line 9 pipeline on Monday December 21, 2015. The three shut down the pipeline carrying bitumen from Alberta's tar sands. They were released on bail the following day.