When I checked my email one day last week, there was a link to a piece just published in The Globe and Mail. A columnist named Gary Mason had used me as his foil to prove that protests against the Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain pipeline expansion were subversive plots imported from the U.S., part of a grand overall strategy to mess with the fossil fuel industry.
This week, Alberta premier Rachel Notley threatened to cut oil shipments to B.C. if the province interferes with Kinder Morgan's Trans Mountain pipeline expansion.
[The proponents of Russiagate are becoming unhinged! Turns out that the reason LNG development isn't proceeding in British Columbia is that the Russkies have subverted it and other resource development.]
The air was crisp and cold as they trekked up Burnaby Mountain early on Saturday morning. People's breath came out in white puffs as each of the volunteer construction workers carried two planks of wood. Their goal was to build a traditional Indigenous "watch house" to monitor Texas-based Kinder Morgan as it proceeds with construction of its Trans Mountain pipeline expansion project.
Protesters around Vancouver held duelling rallies on Saturday, some welcoming Kinder Morgan's Trans Mountain pipeline expansion project with others decrying it.
Both sides delivered impassioned arguments about the proposed expansion.
ndigenous leaders beat drums and sang out against the project Saturday morning, saying they won't step aside for construction.
The pipeline runs between Edmonton and Burnaby. Kinder Morgan received federal approval for an expansion in November 2016.
The government’s decision to build the dam makes it abundantly clear that the struggle to defend indigenous rights and the environment must be build outside of parliament
Gary Porter is a member of the New Democratic Party in British Columbia. This article was published in the NDP Socialist Caucus magazine, Turn Left, which was distributed to delegates at last month’s federal NDP convention.
A mass demonstration is planned in the Vancouver, B.C., metro area Saturday against the expansion of Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain pipeline project. Nearly 7,000 Coast Salish Water Protectors have signed up to participate.
Building in the courts and halls of Canadian government for years, conflict over the mammoth Trans Mountain tar- sands oil-pipeline expansion is expected to spill into the streets of British Columbia Saturday with massive civil disobedience demonstrations.
