Burnaby dismantles Camp Cloud
Pipeline protesters briefly arrested as RCMP enforces city’s injunction
With construction on the $9.3-billion Trans Mountain Pipeline expansion expected to ramp up soon, RCMP enforced an injunction on Thursday morning, allowing Burnaby to begin dismantling a protest camp outside a pipeline terminal.
Just before 6 a.m., the RCMP raided the encampment, known as Camp Cloud, removing 11 people from the protest site, subsequently arresting five of them. Those arrested were released later, said the police.
“For safety reasons, we can’t have people there, so there have been arrests of people that have refused to leave,” RCMP Cpl. Daniela Panesar said.
The city then moved in and began dismantling the camp, which had grown since November to include a two-storey wooden structure, a cabin, an outdoor shower, more than a dozen tents, and vehicles and trailers.
The city expected it could take all day to remove the camp. “I think there was sufficient notice given to the occupants of Camp Cloud,” the City of Burnaby’s acting manager, Dipak Dattani, said of the timing of the action.
Xenoa Skinteh, 29, said he was arrested while protecting the “sacred fire” at Camp Cloud. “They stormed the gate and they said anyone around here was violating the injunction and (will be) arrested,” he said. Skinteh said he was released by police after he agreed to leave the area. But he said he would continue his peaceful protest.
A B.C. Supreme Court judge granted the City of Burnaby an injunction on Aug. 10 ordering protesters to take down their camp by Sunday and prohibiting similar occupations in the future.
The city, which is opposed to the pipeline, sought the injunction because the camp violated building, traffic and fire bylaws.
Police “maintained a dialogue with the camp residents in the hopes they would obey the injunction” and leave within the 48-hour deadline set by the court, the RCMP said.
That deadline passed Sunday, but protesters said they were prepared to protect a sacred fire, which has been burning since the camp was set up late last year.
They also said they were prepared to tie themselves to structures rather than obey the injunction.
Thursday’s police action received a mixed reaction from Burnaby residents.
Lesley Durrant, who lives near the protest camp, says she has more sympathy for those protesting the pipeline expansion than she does for Kinder Morgan.
“We don’t want the pipeline, we don’t think it’s economically prudent and we sympathize with the protesters. But we have lived with a lot of smoke, a lot of drumming and a lot of dogs barking. It’s been a long summer,” she said.
Durrant says she has watched the green belt around her neighbourhood on Burnaby Mountain disappear as Kinder Morgan expanded its operations. A oncerobust chickadee population, she says, has all but disappeared. “What they have done to our mountain is heartbreaking,” Durrantsaid.
Other protesters — who have been involved with a watch house set up by the Tsleil-Waututh Nation on the nearby pipeline route — said they will not be intimidated. “Blockades resume next week,” said Stand.earth director Tzeporah Berman.
That protest next week is meant to coincide with an expected ramp-up of construction of the pipeline project that was purchased by the federal government two months ago.
The $4.5-billion price tag includes the existing Trans Mountain Pipeline that delivers oil from Alberta to the Lower Mainland and the U.S.
Pipeline officials have said they expect line clearing and preparation to take place beginning this month, with pipe being laid in the ground early next year.
The National Energy Board said Thursday that approvals have been granted for construction of the pipeline from Edmonton to a pumping station near Kamloops.
Trans Mountain company officials and the federal government declined to comment on the enforcement of the injunction.
The expansion — the addition of a second line — will triple the pipeline’s capacity and allow increased shipments of oilsands bitumen to the U.S. and China on oil tankers.
Protesters are opposed to the project because of risks of a pipeline or tanker spill and increases in carbon emissions.
Will George, of the Tsleil-Waututh First Nation, said: “There may be one camp coming down, however this movement will continue to grow.”
We don’t want the pipeline. … But we have lived with a lot of smoke, a lot of drumming and a lot of dogs barking.