Vancouver Sun

PERSISTENT PROTESTERS

Pipeline dispute could turn ugly

- GORDON HOEKSTRA ghoekstra@postmedia.com twitter.com/gordon_hoekstra

On Wednesday, a day that began cool and overcast, a protest slowly unfolded on Burnaby Mountain against Kinder Morgan’s $7.4-billion Trans Mountain oil pipeline expansion.

Organized, peaceful and scripted, it resulted two hours later in the arrest of a dozen people by more than three dozen RCMP officers.

The protesters — including a pair of retired opera singers — were arrested because they violated a B.C. Supreme Court order not to block the gates into Kinder Morgan’s tank farm or to be within five metres of the property.

By the time of the arrests, the day had warmed, but tensions remained moderate, as more than 50 protesters, the police and a single Kinder Morgan security worker seemed to be involved in a display that was more symbolism than hard-core protest.

There have been far more aggressive acts of protest on Burnaby Mountain, including attempts to stop logging and action to stop trucks that included climbing on them, but that did not happen Wednesday morning.

Like dozens of others arrested this week in similar organized daily events, the protesters are opposed to the project because of concerns over bitumen spills in the ocean and on land, increased production from the Alberta oilsands and an increase in carbon emissions, and because they believe Aboriginal rights are being trampled.

“For most people, it has been a very liberating and empowering experience because they are writing their names in the ‘No’ column in the history book of the times, saying, actually, I oppose more fossil fuel developmen­t and I am concerned about our environmen­t,” said Karen Mahon, a longtime B.C. environmen­talist who is an official with Stand.earth, and was helping organize the protests this week.

Other groups helping to organize the protest, under the moniker Protect the Inlet, include Greenpeace and 350.org.

Members of the Tsleil-Waututh First Nation are also participat­ing.

One of those arrested Wednesday was Susan Quipp, 72, a retired pediatric nurse from Victoria, who said she wanted to get out of her cosy condo and do something more than forward Facebook posts about increased tanker traffic.

“In my view, corporatio­ns run the whole earth — Canada in particular. Unless that power is broken, the planet cannot survive. We are right at the tipping point,” Quipp said of warming global temperatur­es.

The continued opposition to the project and the activism on Burnaby Mountain is viewed by dismay by some pipeline supporters, though they acknowledg­e the right to protest.

They view the protests, and particular­ly any efforts to interfere with constructi­on on the expansion, as illegitima­te because the project has B.C. and Alberta provincial government and federal government approval, following a review by the National Energy Board that ruled in its favour.

The project has Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s backing, part of a grand bargain in 2017 that killed another controvers­ial oil pipeline, Enbridge’s $7.9-billion Northern Gateway project. The bargain was pitched as one meant to balance the need for economic developmen­t while making inroads into reducing carbon emissions.

That deal meant a national carbon tax fell into place. Alberta also agreed to cap emissions on the oilsands and phase out the use of coal to generate electricit­y.

Alberta has been trying to get bitumen from its oilsands to new markets in Asia through B.C. ports for more than a decade. The Trans Mountain expansion would twin the existing 1,150-kilometre pipeline, built in 1953, and nearly triple capacity to 890,000 barrels a day.

“We understand there is a long, proud history of civil disobedien­ce, but at some point your right to protest and interfere with the right of free movement of those who have the law on their side … a right to go about business whether a pipeline or fruit stand, those rights must prevail over voices of dissent,” says Iain Black, president and CEO of the Greater Vancouver Board of Trade.

Supporters who are vocal — largely from the business community — believe the project can be built and operated safely and that a transition to a carbon-free world will take decades. Canada’s high environmen­tal standards means the country should continue to produce and ship oil, they say.

So far, the company has shown little sign it will walk away from the project, although Kinder Morgan is not likely to start fulltilt constructi­on until a Federal Court decision on whether First Nations were adequately consulted or whether there was enough considerat­ion of endangered killer whales. That decision is expected some time this spring.

That court’s decision in 2016 that consultati­on on Northern Gateway was inadequate was all but a death knell for that project.

Kinder Morgan has said it has reached agreements with 40 First Nations (it will not identify them) valued at $400 million, and 18 communitie­s.

On Wednesday, the protest effort and the quiet acts of civil disobedien­ce appeared to have little effect on clearing work for a tunnel portal for the pipeline that will be built at the tank farm. Two trucks with large bins to haul away material were blocked in the morning, but chainsaws could be heard on the hill behind the fence, and a bulldozer and a backhoe continued work undisturbe­d. Kinder Morgan officials confirmed Friday the tunnel portal preparator­y work is now complete.

Black, like some others, accuses the environmen­tal groups of being funded by U.S. interests trying to stop Canadian oil from getting to new Asian markets.

“It’s interferin­g with the sovereignt­y of our country,” said Black, who has taken to social media to make this point.

B.C. Liberal Skeena MLA Ellis Ross says he is also surprised and frustrated that American money is supporting environmen­tal groups that oppose the Kinder Morgan project.

“I find it so wrong,” said Ross, the former elected chief councillor of the Haisla Nation in northwest B.C.

Environmen­tal groups with operations in B.C. do get funding from U.S. foundation­s. They also get funding from Canadian foundation­s, including foundation­s of Canadian banks, and from individual­s and membership­s, as well as companies like Mountain Equipment Co-op. Some of them have organizati­ons on both sides of the border, including Stand.earth. Others like 350.org and Greenpeace, whose birthplace is B.C., have internatio­nal operations.

Environmen­talists say it is ridiculous to think local environmen­tal issues or campaigns, which have their genesis in B.C. and are often initiated by First Nations, are driven by foreign interests.

“What is dictating policy is Kinder Morgan, a Texas-based company threatenin­g our coast,” said Mike Hudema, an official with Greenpeace.

Western University political scientist Donald Abelson said interest groups have become more political, more savvy, more research-oriented and more sophistica­ted. Operating on either side of the border or globally, and tapping into funding outside of their borders, is not uncommon, particular­ly on an issue such as climate change, he said.

“Many of them have transnatio­nal ties,” said Abelson. “Their aim is to strengthen the size of their constituen­cy and really come up with potentiall­y as many strategies to capture the attention of the media, potential fundraiser­s, policy-makers and others who can effect policy change.”

Opponents of the project hope to see the protest movement grow.

Mahon, with the environmen­tal group Stand.earth, said the public should prepare for protests even larger than those in Clayoquot Sound because this project is in a city with access by transit.

The Clayoquot protests over logging in remote western Vancouver Island that began in the 1980s culminated in the arrest of 800 people in 1993.

“I think we are going to see massive protests,” said Mahon.

But it remains to be seen if the protests will expand, or become an internatio­nal concern, as did the protest at Standing Rock in North Dakota, where massive protests were staged against the $3.7-billion Dakota Access oil pipeline. As many as 3,000 to 4,000 protesters stayed in several camps, with thousands more showing up on weekends. Many First Nations in the U.S. participat­ed.

Greenpeace Internatio­nal’s website shows the activities on Burnaby Mountain as one of its prominent items: “Activists put their bodies on the line to stop a destructiv­e pipeline.”

The Kinder Morgan protest is not mentioned on 350.org ’s home page, but figures prominentl­y in its Twitter feed.

Those who support the project, including Resource Works, a B.C. group that advocates natural resource developmen­t and gets some of its funding from business groups, including energy companies, have tried to mobilize publicly and attract attention as well. Earlier this month, a rally in support of the project attracted about 250 people in downtown Vancouver. That same day, more than 5,000 people marched in protest of the project.

Polls show British Columbians are evenly split on the Trans Mountain expansion.

Of opponents’ plans to continue and grow protests, Resource Works spokesman Stewart Muir said: “Let’s see where they want to take it because the people of Canada are not buying it.”

On Burnaby Mountain on Wednesday, Maple Ridge resident Mike MacKenzie, who owns an equipment service company, came to see for himself what was happening with the protest.

He said he is not opposed to the Kinder Morgan project nor the economic activity and jobs it will bring. But he said he was also not opposed to the protesters and is himself concerned about the effects of a major oil spill.

Of the protest activity and those who have lined up to be arrested, however, MacKenzie said it is a publicity show. “This is what you call Hollywood — this is for the optics.”

He said emphatical­ly: “This project will get built.”

For most people, it has been a very liberating and empowering experience because they are writing their names in the ‘No’ column in the history book of the times.

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 ?? PHOTOS: ARLEN REDEKOP ?? Protesters against The Trans Mountain pipeline expansion prepare to be arrested at the gates of Kinder Morgan Canada’s property in Burnaby last Wednesday.
PHOTOS: ARLEN REDEKOP Protesters against The Trans Mountain pipeline expansion prepare to be arrested at the gates of Kinder Morgan Canada’s property in Burnaby last Wednesday.
 ??  ?? Retired opera performer Gary Reylea begins to sing as he is arrested last Wednesday at the gates of Kinder Morgan Canada’s Burnaby Mountain work site for the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion.
Retired opera performer Gary Reylea begins to sing as he is arrested last Wednesday at the gates of Kinder Morgan Canada’s Burnaby Mountain work site for the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion.

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