B.C. protesters rally for and against pipeline plan

Protesters around Vancouver held duelling rallies Saturday, some welcoming Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain pipeline expansion project with others decrying it.

Several hundred pro-pipeliners, including a bus load of Albertans, gathered downtown to show support for the resources infrastructure — just hours after First Nation leaders marched with thousands of anti-pipeline activists in Burnaby, B.C.

The Indigenous leaders beat drums and sang out against the project, saying they wouldn’t step aside for construction.

Rueben George of the TsleilWaututh First Nation told thousands of protesters that it will take more rallies and protests to stop the project, which is set to increase the flow of oil products to 890,000 barrels up from 300,000 barrels per day.

“It’s going to take gatherings such as this ... (to) make sure the environment is not laid to waste and taken away from future generations. This is what we stand for today,” George said, speaking by megaphone to the crowd gathered outside Burnaby’s Lake City Way Skytrain station.

The Tsleil-waututh are among six First Nations that filed a court challenge to the project last fall, along with the City of Burnaby and City of Vancouver.

The protest was led by elders and spiritual leaders from Coast Salish Nations and many other Indigenous peoples, with support from environmental and grassroots organizers.

Protesters marched toward a traditional “watch house” they were building at Burnaby Mountain to oversee work by Kinder Morgan.

George explained that Coast Salish First Nations would traditionally build a watch house, or “Kwekwecnewtxw,” to watch for enemies. He said the environmental threat posed by the pipeline expansion constitutes such an enemy.

Squamish First Nation elder Robert Nahanee said expanding the pipeline will only add more pollution to the coast where he grew up.

“My family was food gatherers. We gathered clams, crabs, oysters fish — everything. That’s how I grew up. Now we can’t even do that,” Nahanee said. “We need to stand up and hear our voices. My voice is: O, Canada, you’re on native land.”

At the sparser pro- pipeline rally, people spoke about fighting the “greenies” and crowd members shouted out phrases like, “mitigate risk.”

Stewart Muir, who spoke in favour of the $7.4-billion project as executive director for the Resource Works Society, said it doesn’t have to be a decision between the environment and economy.