Burnaby Mountain to house its expanded pipeline
The battle in Burnaby, a municipality in the Vancouver B.C. region, is over the proposed expansion of the Trans Mountain tar sands pipeline of Kinder Morgan. Beginning on November 17, daily protests involving thousands of people in total have taken place to stop exploratory drilling by Kinder Morgan for a tunnel under Burnaby Mountain to house its expanded pipeline, which terminates on the shore of Vancouver harbour. Dozens of people have been arrested as they challenge a court injunction permitting Kinder Morgan's despoliation of the mountainside park site. And Kinder Morgan has initiated a $5.6 million SLAPP suit (Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation) against outspoken opponents of its drilling on the mountain, including two professors at nearby Simon Fraser University, Burnaby Residents Opposing Kinder Morgan Expansion (BROKE) and Burnaby Mountain Caretakers.
Here is a timeline of the battle. Here is an analysis of the economics of the pipeline, and here is an article arguing that Kinder Morgan’s recent financial restructuring has broken Canadian law as it relates to pipeline regulation.
The stakes in the fight in Burnaby for the union movement are very large. To date, unions in British Columbia, as in the rest of Canada, are uncertain or divided on whether they should support the ongoing expansion of fossil fuel extraction and burning in Canada, including tar sands oil, "conventional" oil, coal and natural gas fracking. Their political party, the NDP, supports many of the fossil fuel projects and their expansion while it is mute on others.
Yesterday, Grand Chief Stewart Phillip of the Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs electrified the convention of the Federation of Labour when he spoke as a guest speaker. He announced that he would join the now-daily, 10:30 a.m. solidarity march at the mountain in two days time. He will cross the police/injunction line and challenge authorities to arrest him. "I intend to go to Burnaby Mountain on Thursday to join those who have been arrested. As I am being arrested, I will think of our grandchildren." The convention rose in a standing ovation.