anti-fracking protests in canada turn violent [Archive]

blake 3:17

4th December 2013, 23:59

ACTIVISTS SHUT DOWN A LINE 9 CONSTRUCTION SITE IN TORONTO
By Michael Toledano

At about 5 AM yesterday, a group of activists associated with Rising Tide along with Aamjiwnaang and Sarnia Against Pipelines snuck onto a construction site near Toronto’s picturesque Don River, where a section of Enbridge’s Line 9 pipeline is being replaced. Erecting a blockade of barrels and wooden skids, with some activists locking their bodies to Enbridge’s equipment, the group succeeded in shutting down construction for the day. While Enbridge sent its forty workers home early, activists remained on the site for twelve hours, in some cases locked to barrels, bulldozers and trucks. Those risking arrest represented an eclectic mixture of people: a seasoned activist, a student, a young mother, and two Anglican priests.

The activists argued that the pipeline is altogether illegal because First Nations along its route have not been meaningfully consulted by either Enbridge or the Canadian government, meaning that the pipeline is in violation of section 35 of the Canadian constitution. Amanda Lickers, a Haudenosaunee woman who participated in the National Energy Board hearings for Line 9 and acted as spokesperson for the protesters, explained that “all of the band councils that intervened in the NEB process clearly stated that they have not been consulted. Enbridge is trying to say that by their standards, by making a couple of phone calls and having some info sessions, that they’re consulting with First Nations. This is not the reality. What is the reality is that of the seventeen First Nations communities across the line, most of them haven’t even heard about it. I personally did outreach to each one of those communities and contacted their band offices, and in some communities my phone call was the first time that they had even heard about the reversal project.” Lickers also added that, while modern band councils are a colonial invention, a product of the Indian Act, the traditional systems of governance for the Haudenosaunee communities along the line are actually still intact—but similarly, “they have not been consulted.”

The protesters accused Enbridge of beginning construction for the Line 9 reversal project before the project has even been approved by the National Energy Board. Meghan, a protester locked into a barrel at the entrance of the work site, said “I believe this is what it takes to stop these pipelines from happening. We went through the NEB process, Rising Tide did, and regardless of this process Enbridge has gone ahead and has started construction on the proposal which has not yet been approved.” Andrea Budgey, an Anglican priest who had her head secured to a bulldozer with a bicycle lock, similarly told me beginning construction was “a demonstration of bad faith, I think, on the company’s part.”

Full article & awesome photos: http://www.vice.com/en_ca/read/activists-shut-down-a-line-9-construction-site-in-toronto