VIDEO – Approximately 150 people rallied outside MLA Nicholas Simons’ office on Wednesday, October 24 as part of the Defend Our Coast day of action. Rallies were held in over 60 communities throughout the province to protest the proposed Enbridge and Kinder Morgan pipelines and increased coastal oil tanker traffic. The rallies follow a protest on Monday, October 22, at the legislature in Victoria, which drew thousands of pipeline opponents.
Betty Zaikow, who hosted the event in Powell River, said the provincial government has the power to stop both Enbridge and Kinder Morgan’s oil tankers from causing potential devastation to the coast. “It is time to stand up for what we believe: clean water, oceans and air for our children and their children,” she said. “It is time to Defend Our Coast.”
Enbridge is proposing to build a 1,100-kilometre dual pipeline from Alberta to the BC coast to carry bitumen for shipment overseas. Kinder Morgan has applied to expand its pipeline, which moves oil from Alberta to the West Coast on the Trans Mountain network, crossing southern BC to a refinery and port in Burnaby.
Simons, who is the New Democratic Party (NDP) MLA for Powell River-Sunshine Coast, was in Davis Bay where another rally took place. Maggie Hathaway, his constituency assistant in Powell River, read a statement from him, which said in part he was pleased that people came out to show their opposition to the Northern Gateway pipeline and “support for the position my colleagues and I have taken...Please keep up the pressure and help us to take important principled stands on these important issues.”
Hathaway also read a statement from Adrian Dix, provincial NDP leader. He said the Official Opposition would take back provincial authority by withdrawing from the federal government’s review process and setting up a “rigorous made in BC environmental assessment. Our approach would ensure BC’s economic, social and environmental interests are fully addressed, that BC’s powers and responsibilities are properly exercised and that first nations’ interests and rights are properly recognized.”
Terry Brown, an environmentalist and filmmaker, talked about the Great Bear Rainforest, which the pipeline would traverse. “We’ve seen spills in Michigan, we’ve seen spills in Alberta,” he said. “Those areas are not nearly as rugged as the proposed pipeline route through BC. It would be devastating to our salmon and our trout and all the wildlife that depend on that to have spills in the rivers. Make no mistake. If Enbridge builds a pipeline, there will be spills.”
Christine Hollmann and Carol William-Freeman also spoke at the rally and Julia Adam led protestors in a song, after which people linked arms to symbolize BC’s unbroken wall of opposition.
Zaikow said she was thrilled with the number of people who attended and pointed out there was a wide range of age groups, from children to seniors. “That’s what the opposition is,” she said. “It’s a diverse group of people. It’s not just radical environmentalists, it’s people from all walks of life, because this is important to all of us as British Columbians.”
For more information about rallies in other parts of BC, readers can visit the Defend Our Coast website. The day of action was organized by leadnow.ca and the Dogwood Initiative.
