07) SLAPPING DOWN PROTESTS

 

People's Voice Editorial

 

            Every day, the RCMP arrests more protesters for supposedly "trespassing" in the Burnaby Mountain Conservation Area which is protected by municipal bylaws. Defying the police and courts, and threats by the Texas-based Kinder Morgan energy transnational, hundreds of courageous citizens keep resisting the push for a massive increase in tar sands exports by "twinning" the existing pipeline which runs across British Columbia and through Burnaby Mountain.

 

            This case is a classic example of raw corporate power flexing its muscles, with the eager compliance of pro-business politicians. Despite objections from First Nations who reject tar sands exports across their unceded traditional territories, and from a majority of the British Columbia public (including Burnaby City Council) the BC and federal governments side with Big Oil.

 

            Kinder Morgan is even suing BROKE, the citizen group which initiated the protests, for a whopping $5.4 million in B.C.'s latest SLAPP suit (strategic lawsuit against public participation). Meanwhile, Kinder Morgan subsidiary Trans Mountain Pipeline defies the legal process by conducting geotechnical survey work on Burnaby Mountain while the issue is before the B.C. Court of Appeal.

 

            All this goes on while scientists warn that unchecked greenhouse gas emissions pose a grave threat to billions of people, not in some distant future, but within our own lifetimes. Someday our children and grandchildren will ask: why were the protectors of life hauled off to jail while our elected "leaders" backed a U.S. corporation busy destroying the planet? The only answer will be that in the dismal years of the early 21st century, private profit was the only measure of value, while human beings and the natural environment were trashed by global capitalism. Fortunately, the Burnaby Mountain protesters speak for the future, and they deserve our thanks and solidarity.

 

(The above article is from the December 1-31, 2014, issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading socialist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $30/year, or $15 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $45 US per year; other overseas readers - $45 US or $50 CDN per year. Send to People's Voice, c/o PV Business Manager, 706 Clark Drive, Vancouver, BC, V5L 3J1.)