Taking a Stand on Burnaby Mountain

While the U.S. Congress votes one more time on whether or not to approve the Keystone XL Pipeline, another pipeline battle rages north of the border. Energy giant Kinder Morgan plans to triple the capacity of its Trans Mountain Pipeline running from Edmonton, Alberta to Burnaby, BC (just east of Vancouver). This proposal has generated heated opposition from First Nations people and the majority of residents and elected officials in the cities of Burnaby and Vancouver. But recently, the Canadian Federal Government has restricted public participation in the assessment process for projects such as pipelines and limited what environmental concerns are deemed relevant for consideration. This has left pipeline opponents with only one option - protest and civil disobedience. This past fall tensions came to a head when Trans Mountain sent survey crews with chainsaws into a conservation area known as Burnaby Mountain to erect drilling rigs to start geotechnical investigations. For weeks protestors camped out in the woods and blocked equipment and over 60 people were arrested.

On this episode of Locus Focus we talk with one of the participants in the Burnaby Mountain protests, Ben West, director of the Vancouver-based organization Tanker Free BC.

More on the protests and a photo gallery.