Fight pipeline, Carr tells Greens
Councillor wants party to take national action against Kinder Morgan expansion
A Vancouver city councillor is presenting an emergency resolution to the Green Party of Canada calling for action against the controversial Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain pipeline expansion project.
Adriane Carr said she’s calling upon the party to conduct a nationwide campaign to educate Canadians about global warming and the impact of expanding fossil-fuel infrastructure in the country, as well as mobilize people to fight against the federal government’s decision to approve the project.
Carr, co-founder of the B.C. Green Party and Green Party of Vancouver, said the resolution is co-sponsored by the Vancouver Centre, Vancouver East and North Vancouver electoral district associations. She will present it to members present at a Green Party of Canada special meeting taking place Saturday and Sunday.
“My motion is to have the party engage its members, its electoral district associations, to fund such a campaign,” Carr said.
“The Green Party has always taken such a strong stand. I’m asking them to be very active at the grassroots level throughout Canada on this issue.”
Carr’s resolution calls for “adequate funding” for such a campaign, though she said she’d leave it to the party to establish what such work would cost.
“There’s a lot of effort that needs to be placed on just giving people the facts on global warming,” she said. “Many people are still in the dark in terms of exactly how global warming will affect their area.”
Carr said a grassroots campaign would likely involve flooding the offices of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and members of parliament with emails, letters and phone calls, as well as organizing educational outreach and protests.
Tuesday, Trudeau announced the $6.8-billion Trans Mountain expansion had won cabinet approval.
Kinder Morgan wants to twin its existing Trans Mountain pipeline, which would triple the flow of oil from Alberta and increase seven-fold the number of oil tankers in the ocean off B.C.’s south coast. Environmental groups, First Nations and local politicians have vowed to fight the project because they say it represents an unacceptable environmental risk to B.C.’s coast.
Recent polling has shown British Columbians are split on the issue.
An Insights West poll in August found 46 per cent of British Columbians opposed the project while 40 per cent supported it. An Angus Reid Institute poll in June found 46 per cent of British Columbians supported the expansion and 54 per cent opposed it. That poll also found 51 per cent of Canadians supported the project.
Carr said she is “willing to go to the line” in opposition and join First Nations and citizens in non-violent civil disobedience.
“I’m not asking the (Green Party of Canada) to embrace that specifically at this point, but it’s certainly one of the tactics I’m assuming a lot of people will talk about,” she said.
Asked if she would be willing to face arrest, Carr said she’s aware that’s a possibility.
“If it comes to that, it comes to that. My hope is that it won’t, that the prime minister and his cabinet will see the light and realize that this is not in the best interest of Canadians.”