Protest - Revolt

A months-long dispute is heating up between BC Hydro and a small group of First Nations and landowners who are protesting the construction of the $9-billion Site C dam.

The power utility has filed a notice of civil claim in B.C. Supreme Court, seeking an injunction that will prevent protesters from stopping work in and around an area on the south bank of the Peace River near Fort St. John, B.C.

 On the final day of the UN summit (COP21) held in Paris in December 2015, thousands of people defied a ban on public gatherings by converging at a boulevard leading to the business district in La Défense to denounce the new climate agreement that government negotiators were about to sign and celebrate at the conference venue in Le Bourget, 20 kilometres away. Hoping to counter governments’ attempts to control the narrative regarding the summit, they gathered behind giant inflatable ‘cobblestones’ and a red banner proclaiming “System change not climate change!”

Lower Nicola Indian Band (LNIB) chief Aaron Sam was in the Lower Mainland earlier this week, boycotting what he calls a “flawed” environmental assessment process done by the federal government’s National Energy Board (NEB).

“We feel that what the government is going to do is a foregone conclusion,” Aaron told the Heraldin a phone interview.

They have been reviled as vandals, hooligans and lunatics. But to me, these people are heroes. The 13 women and men on trial this week for cutting through the perimeter fence around Heathrow airport and chaining themselves together on a runway were excoriated by police, passengers and politicians. (One of the defendants in the case is a member of the cooperative society that rents my house.) If convicted, they all face a possible prison sentence.

BC Hydro is taking legal action against campers blocking Site C dam construction on the south bank of the Peace River. 

The Crown utility filed a civil claim in B.C. Supreme Court Tuesday against a number of individuals camped at the Rocky Mountain Fort.

"On Tuesday of this week, we filed a civil claim in relation to a small number of individuals who have been preventing contractors from safely undertaking some clearing work on the south bank of the Site C dam site," BC Hydro CEO Jessica McDonald told the Alaska Highway News Wednesday.

Katzie Nation Chief Susan Miller and her sister Debbie Miller of Katzie First Nation say they stand to lose everything if the Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain pipeline expansion is approved.

Chief Miller said the continued expansion of pipeline projects and shrinking of Indigenous territories represents the ongoing assault on First Nations culture that started with the residential school system.

[Remember rally at the NEB on Saturday, Jan. 23 at 1 pm - see "Events"]

Carrying signs and a marching tune, dozens of people turned up to the Trans Mountain National Energy Board hearings in Burnaby to voice their opposition to the Kinder Morgan project. 

The rally was planned days before the hearings and was intended to send a message to the NEB, which was holding final arguments for intervenors inside the Delta Burnaby Hotel and Conference Centre Tuesday.