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Green Party leader Elizabeth May and NDP MP Kennedy Stewart were arrested blockading Kinder Morgan's pipeline terminal in Burnaby B.C. on Friday.
The federal MPs joined the protest at the Indigenous Watch House on Burnaby Mountain, marched to the terminal and blocked the gates. The two MPs were arrested by Burnaby RCMP for violating a court injunction requiring a five metre no-go zone around the Texas-based company's operations.
"I stand in solidarity with the First Nations on whose land these acts of vandalism are now being committed. Non-violent civil disobedience is the moral obligation of the climate-aware, responsible citizen,” said May.
Kennedy Stewart, MP for the riding of Burnaby South addressed the crowd: "During the last election, Justin Trudeau said that ‘while governments grant permits… only communities can grant permission.’ I am here today to help amplify the voices of my constituents who do not grant permission for this pipeline.”
“The process by which the Trudeau government approved Kinder Morgan’s plans to build a dangerous new pipeline through our community without our consent was deeply flawed and unfair. The Prime Minister broke his promise to revise the National Energy Board pipeline review process and require Kinder Morgan to resubmit its plans under this new process.”
Other protests took place at cities across Canada on Friday. Protestors held sit-ins at the offices of federal MP's including Environment Minister Catherine McKenna, and rallied outside the Kinder Morgan offices in downtown Calgary.
Over 85 people have been arrested in the past week blockading the Burnaby terminal. Kinder Morgan's Trans Mountain expansion would increase the capacity of the pipeline threefold, allowing it to carry 890,000 barrels per day from Alberta to an expanded tanker terminal on British Columbia's coast.
The project has been approved by the federal level, but is currently under judicial review by the Federal Court of Appeal. Six local First Nations as well as the cities of Vancouver, Burnaby, and the Province of British Columbia have challenged the project in court, while proponents for the pipeline include the Province of Alberta and the federal government.
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