Anti-pipeline protesters block rail line near Burnaby-Coquitlam border
Posted November 17, 2020 8:19 am.
Last Updated November 17, 2020 11:19 am.
BURNABY (NEWS 1130) – Protestors speaking out against the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion project blocked a rail line at the Burnaby-Coquitlam border that’s used to transport oil Tuesday morning.
The line runs parallel to Lougheed Highway at North Road.
Extinction Rebellion, which was behind the protest, wants the expansion project scrapped. Protesters said they were standing “in solidarity with calls to action by land defenders from the Wet’suwet’en and Secwepemc nations” and that the “demonstration will be non-violent and peaceful.”
Our beautiful new banner. What we are in is a battle of imagination more than anything. Can we imagine a world where we share the abundance we have without destroying it?
Posted by Extinction Rebellion Vancouver on Tuesday, November 17, 2020
“This is a reminder to the colonial state and the crown corporation that people won’t hesitate to resume the tactic of railway blockades if this pipeline isn’t cancelled immediately,” Zain Haq with Extinction Rebellion said in a release.
“The government isn’t doing what it takes to protect Canadians from the climate crisis, and it continues to take land from Indigenous peoples for dangerous fossil fuel development without consent. We are choosing civil disobedience because the government is breaking the social contract. The trans-mountain expansion will contribute to a crisis that threatens death by starvation of hundreds of millions around the world.”
8:10 – #Burnaby #Coquitlam There’s a protest happening on the train tracks below North Road just south of #BCHwy1. The tracks are currently blocked until further notice. Pic courtesy of @Rileythedj @NEWS1130 Air Patrol pic.twitter.com/mrQv2MWiy9
— Ryan Lidemark ???? ????️ (@RyanLmark) November 17, 2020
Extinction Rebellion has held a number of protests in opposition to the pipeline project, including at major intersections across Greater Vancouver, along other rail lines, as well as along Bridges in Vancouver.
The Trans Mountain pipeline expansion will triple the capacity of the existing line, which goes from Edmonton to Burnaby, to 890,000 barrels a day of bitumen, lighter crudes, and refined fuels, such as gasoline.
In 2018, the federal government bought the project, for $4.5 billion.
