RCMP arrested 14 protesters on Burnaby Mountain this morning and are enforcing Kinder Morgan's injunction against pipeline opponents (according to activists, the number of protesters arrested is closer to 20). Kinder Morgan crews are now reportedly back at work on the mountain.
"I'm really sad. I've been fighting tears all morning," said Lynne Quarmby, an SFU scientist who is one of six citizens that Kinder Morgan has filed a multi-million dollar civil suit against.
cientist Lynne Quarmby -- the chair of SFU's molecular biology and biochemistry department, and a face of public opposition against pipeline giant Kinder Morgan -- has just been arrested at Burnaby Mountain.
Basking in the satisfaction of a fifth term for himself and the third electoral sweep in a row for his civic party, Burnaby Mayor Derek Corrigan vowed Saturday to do everything in his power to block expansion of the Kinder Morgan oil pipeline through his municipality.
“We are going to utilize the system in order to make sure that this doesn’t proceed,” he declared in an interview after delivering a victory speech to supporters of his Burnaby Citizens Association. “This is only the beginning of what is a long war to protect our rights.”
The governing Liberals in BC and Conservatives in Canada insist that jobs, public revenues and economic growth all depend on expanding fossil fuel exports. Christie Clark’s Liberals won the 2013 BC election promising a future of jobs and rising public revenues based on the export of liquified natural gas. Now two years later faced with widespread protests and declining oil and gas prices, no LNG project has proceeded.
The volume of Canadian crude processed at Gulf Coast refineries could climb to more than 400,000 barrels a day in 2015 from 208,000 in August, according to Jackie Forrest, vice president of Calgary-based ARC Financial Corp. The increase comes as Enbridge Inc.’s Flanagan South and an expanded Seaway pipeline raise their capacity to ship oil by as much as 450,000 barrels a day. Canadian exports to the Gulf rose 83 percent in the past four years.
CALGARY - Kinder Morgan is overplaying the economic benefits and downplaying the costs of its proposed Trans Mountain pipeline expansion, according to a report released Monday.
Simon Fraser University's Centre for Public Policy Research teamed with The Goodman Group Ltd., a California-based consulting firm, to examine the estimated impacts of the project.
The report "strongly recommends that the citizens and decision-makers of B.C. and Metro Vancouver reject this pipeline, which is neither in the economic nor public interest of B.C. and Metro Vancouver."
The B.C. Supreme Court will decide by Nov. 17 whether to grant Kinder Morgan an injunction to stop anti-pipeline protesters from interfering with survey work on Burnaby Mountain.
The pipeline company also launched a multimillion civil suit against the five pipeline opponents, claiming, assault, trespassing and intimidation, and protesters are anxiously waiting for the Associate Chief Justice Austin Cullen's decision.
There's nothing more unambiguous in the battle against global ecocide than placing one's body between the fertile earth and a giant fossil fuel company. This is why when one spends a few minutes with the caretakers of Burnaby Mountain, one develops a genuinely abiding allegiance to their cause. This is direct witness to the existential immediacy of the climate crisis that threatens the future of our planet. This is appropriate response to the danger climate change entails.
An injunction and a $5.6-million civil suit in damages is what corporate energy giant Kinder Morgan is seeking against blockaders at a court hearing this week.
Since August of this year, a determined group of Burnaby residents have been stopping Kinder Morgan work crews at a designated conservation area within Burnaby Mountain. SFU professor and defendant Stephen Collis explains, "Many of us are increasingly concerned about climate change, issues relating to Aboriginal title, and the erosion of our democratic rights."
