MP pleads guilty to charge arising from pipeline protest
Kennedy Stewart, who announced last week he will be running for mayor of Vancouver, pleaded guilty on Monday to one count of criminal contempt of court arising from his involvement in protests against Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain Pipeline project.
Under an agreement reached with special prosecutor Michael Klein, the Burnaby South NDP MP was fined $500 for violating a B.C. Supreme Court injunction at the company’s Burnaby work site on March 23.
Klein told B.C. Supreme Court Justice Kenneth Affleck that he had recommended the fine due to the early resolution to the case and the fact that the Stewart matter had not taken up significant court resources.
Richard Fowler, a lawyer for Stewart, said that the early guilty plea was significant and was clearly an acknowledgment that what his client did was wrong in blocking the gates at the site along with other protesters.
“His conduct throughout has been respectful toward the police. He’s also been respectful toward the court but for his conduct in breaching the injunction.”
Fowler said that civil disobedience of the kind Stewart had engaged in was “ironically” in many ways an accepted part of a democracy.
“It’s possible to have the utmost respect for the rule of law but still on occasion engage in an act of disobedience and accept one’s punishment for doing that,” said Fowler. “Mr. Stewart has accepted his responsibility for breaching the injunction. He was there in support of his constituents. It’s a complex role being a member of Parliament when you have many competing obligations and responsibilities.”
The Vancouver lawyer said that the early plea, which came after a small number of other pipeline protesters had already entered guilty pleas to criminal contempt of court, may encourage others to accept responsibility for their actions.
The judge said that normally with an MP and given the defiance of a court order, he would be inclined to impose a higher fine. But he added that he was not going to depart from the joint submission on sentence of Klein and Fowler and ordered that the fine be paid by Friday.