More than one hundred people who have been arrested over the last week during dramatic protests against a tar sands pipeline on Burnaby Mountain in British Columbia had their civil contempt charges thrown out by a Canadian court on Thursday, giving a legal boost to the movement that says it will continue to fight the dirty energy project by the Kinder Morgan corporation.
“If [Kinder Morgan] can’t even get GPS coordinates right, how are we going to trust them to ship oil through our port without an accident?” —Lynne Quarmby, Burnaby Mountain protester and arrestee
As the Vancouver Observer reports:
For Canadians concerned about resource extraction and climate change, the ongoing protest at Burnaby Mountain has become just the latest battleground in a national fight to resist efforts by the Conservative government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper and the fossil fuel industry to build an enormous network of pipelines and other infrastructure projects.
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Thursday’s ruling was a clear victory for those who will have arrests wiped from their record and no longer face the need to challenge the charges in court. The fight goes on, however, because the judge also allowed Kinder Morgan to re-submit accurate coordinates for the construction project and re-established an injunction zone to keep protesters out of the area where the work is being done.
As Quarmby told the Observer, “I wanted our public to recognize the extreme injustice happening in the degradation of the regulatory process. This was really apparent this morning as we saw all the…incompetency demonstrated by (Kinder Morgan) Trans Mountain. If they can’t even get GPS coordinates right, how are we going to trust them to ship oil through our port without an accident? They’re not giving much consideration to the public.”
Earlier on Thursday, ahead of the court ruling, Grand Chief Stewart Phillip of the Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs was among the last wave of protesters arrested at the site.
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“We need to reclaim this country,” Chief Stewart said before crossing the line, “and return it back to the voices of the people that have invested a lifetime of hard work to build this province.”
The Kinder Morgan project would bore tunnels for tar sands pipelines through Burnaby Mountain, but First Nations, local residents, and climate activists have all come together and vowed to prevent that project from getting beyond the early stages.
The #BurnabyMountain hashtag continues to be used by those tracking developments of the ongoing fight against the Kinder Morgan project:
#BurnabyMountain Tweets
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