Some of our politicians see the pandemic as useful cover

Even though more than 7,000 people have died from COVID-19 in Canada, there is a plus side to a pandemic.

That’s the message from Sonya Savage, Alberta’s energy minister.

“Now is a great time to be building a pipeline because you can’t have protests of more than 15 people,” Savage declared in a recent podcast. “Let’s get it built.”

Never mind that in both B.C. and Alberta, where the controversial Trans Mountain oil pipeline is being built, the limit on gatherings is now 50 people.

But there is some truth to her words: for how exactly is legitimate dissent and protest — whether it be in aid of environmental or other causes such as antiracism, or opposition to government cuts to public services — to be made visible and effective given the restrictions imposed because of the pandemic?

It’s going to be especially hard in Alberta.

For as Savage laid bare her contempt for Indigenous and environmental protesters — she called environmentalists “nut bars” during the podcast — the UCP government passed a bill on Friday that would levy heavy fines (up to $200,000) for individuals or groups that interfere with or blockade what the government deems essential infrastructure. That includes everything from oilsands mining pits to highways to urban rapid transit rails.

Most of the infractions are already covered by the federal Criminal Code. But Premier Jason Kenney was furious during the countrywide rail blockades in February in support of the Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs of northern B.C., who opposed a natural gas pipeline in their territory, because they hampered rail transportation of Alberta’s oil and agricultural products.

So even though there was only one very brief blockade of a rail line in Alberta, Kenney decided to double down on any sort of active protest that might hinder the operations of the petroleum industry in the province.

The message to environmentalists: don’t even think about publicly protesting anything.

It seems eons ago, but it was only a few months back that hundreds of thousands of people across the world marched in peaceful protests inspired by Greta Thunberg, demanding more government action on reducing carbon emissions.

That made Kenney mad, too, especially when 10,000 of those protesters showed up in front of the Alberta legislature on a sunny October day.

It will be interesting to see if the legislature grounds become “essential infrastructure” the first time any group opposed to the UCP government tries to hold a demonstration there.

And what about all those hundreds of oil industry workers who regularly show up to loudly voice their antipathy to Justin Trudeau, or any other Liberal politician who sets foot in Alberta? Will they be arrested if they block a road while exercising their freedom of assembly? Not likely.

Joe Vipond, the soon-to-be president of the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment, sees the dilemma confronting social movements through the lens of both a Calgary emergency room physician, who knows well the dangers of spreading the coronavirus, and an environmental activist.

“It’s definitely harder to mobilize and get attention, but marching in the streets is only one aspect of the environmental movement,” he said during an interview.

If we don’t want eruptions in our streets, as is happening in the U.S., Vipond said, elected representatives must include various stakeholders in their policy decisions, not just the ones they agree with.

“When people feel they are not being listened to, that’s when they get frustrated and turn to street protests,” he said.

For the past 15 years, Vipond has been at the forefront of a campaign to phase out coal-fired electricity plants in Alberta because of the dangers to people’s health from breathing in minute particles from the plants’ emissions.

He said he and his fellow campaigners had no trouble arranging meetings with government officials when the Progressive Conservatives and the NDP were in power.

“But when we ask for a meeting with the UCP health and environment ministers, we get no response at all,” he said.

Hopefully, municipal, provincial and federal governments outside Alberta will be more responsive to social movements as we move through restrictions brought on by the pandemic.

Otherwise we, too, will see bottled up frustration erupt in the streets.