Juno News - Protestors of Canadian energy don't speak for Canadians

00:00:00.000 get a load of this there's an oil and gas project over in British Columbia the coastal link project

00:00:10.840 that people are unhappy with and because of that via rail passenger trains from Toronto to Ottawa

00:00:17.460 cannot proceed what what does that have to do with one or the other some project in BC and rail lines

00:00:26.160 in Ontario well let me explain it to you there's one First Nations group that is very much opposed

00:00:30.200 to the coastal link BC project and they're doing some forms of activism and civil disobedience and

00:00:36.380 an Ontario First Nations group says we're going to be allies with you and to show that we're going

00:00:41.520 to disrupt this rail line okay guys you're getting some press not sure you're going to get much support

00:00:47.300 out of it police have been working on breaking all that that up and resuming rail service to its usual

00:00:53.120 capacity but this is a very interesting situation here because it portends what we might be dealing

00:00:58.740 with with the Trans Mountain Pipeline and also with the Tech Frontier Sands project that is probably

00:01:05.020 destined to be equally controversial now it seems like the Trans Mountain Pipeline was scored a recent

00:01:09.960 victory the Federal Court of Appeal told some First Nations groups no we're actually not going to hear

00:01:15.940 your case you said you weren't adequately consulted we think you were and we think you're just using

00:01:21.040 this as an excuse to sort of rest veto power over the project not going to hear you now they are

00:01:26.480 appealing that and they're hoping to still get a court process going but it seems like it's destined

00:01:31.280 to fail meanwhile though other activists have said well we don't care about these court rulings we're

00:01:35.900 going to do whatever it takes to stop Trans Mountain and I think we should take them seriously 1.00

00:01:40.520 whatever it takes probably means whatever it takes getting arrested blockading this and that

00:01:46.420 engaging in all forms of activism civil disobedience and eco-extremism so let's see what happens

00:01:53.540 hopefully this thing should get made it's in the national public interest it's common sense

00:01:57.540 and most of the First Nations communities physically adjacent to Trans Mountain want it it's one of the

00:02:04.480 most frustrating things about all of this conversation we have this narrative when you see pictures of

00:02:09.520 First Nations protesters being dragged away we get this narrative that First Nations people don't support

00:02:15.340 development yes they do there is an increasingly inspiring variety of stories out there and

00:02:22.400 press releases and business endeavors that show First Nations people are becoming increasingly economic

00:02:27.520 minded with an entrepreneurial spirit and there is so much good news and success going on there

00:02:32.980 all power to them there is so much fantastic stuff happening but there are a few groups out there

00:02:38.020 that for whatever reason fit the narrative that people would like to present more that they don't

00:02:42.500 actually support this stuff and those groups get goaded on and they get disproportionate coverage even

00:02:48.120 though they are increasingly the odd man out so they will use this to their advantage to deal

00:02:53.300 with Trans Mountain and to deal with the Frontier Mine Project coming up there's an interesting little

00:02:58.700 caveat to all of this though do the people who are doing civil disobedience have the government and

00:03:05.160 even the police in some sense on their side when there comes time to say to these people you just can't do

00:03:11.940 this anymore you can't stop a lawful project like this this is illegal will the authorities do what needs to be

00:03:19.900 done because when I saw this via rail line blockade happening it reminded me of a very similar thing happening in

00:03:25.940 exactly the same part of Ontario by a very similar activists in fact some of them are probably the

00:03:31.720 very same individuals back in 2013 when there was a protest to a rail line and one Ontario judge issued

00:03:39.600 a court injunction to say okay remove the people from the rail line they are stopping the national

00:03:45.180 interest they're stopping these companies that are shipping things along the rail line from being able to

00:03:50.400 do their basic job and you can't do that it's obstruction so there's a court injunction he said all right

00:03:55.940 get them off the police went there and they said okay we've the sheriff went there with the

00:04:01.500 injunction and actually said to the RCMP okay let's do this and the RCMP said yeah we don't think today's

00:04:07.640 the best day to do that and then what happened was they sent the guy away and they said they would do it

00:04:12.960 later now Ontario Superior Court Justice David Brown had to actually issue a second one a second court

00:04:21.900 injunction and he said some very interesting remarks at that time this is back in 2013 he said I made a

00:04:27.880 time sensitive order because the evidence showed that significant irreparable harm resulted from each

00:04:33.340 hour the blockade remained in place yet the OPP would not assist the local sheriff to ensure the order

00:04:39.600 was served by the time stipulated sorry I said RCMP earlier it was OPP such an approach by the OPP he writes

00:04:47.540 was most disappointing because it undercut the practical effect of the injunction order that kind

00:04:53.800 of passivity by the police leads me to doubt that a future exists in this province for the use of court

00:05:01.000 injunctions in cases of public demonstration so there we have it back seven years ago a judge said

00:05:07.560 what is the point of police being ordered to follow the law first of all they should not have to be

00:05:14.280 ordered to follow the law in the first place but what is the point of ordering them to follow the law

00:05:18.700 if they will not follow those orders and to have to issue a second injunction so I worry that we may

00:05:27.180 see something like this happen moving ahead with Trans Mountain or the Frontier Project where we have

00:05:32.720 the government the public most First Nations groups supporting this but because one group out there

00:05:39.960 that for whatever reason has the narrative in their favor says no absolutely nothing happens not even

00:05:46.760 the rule of law I hope this is not the case but this example from 2013 suggests we may see something

00:05:53.860 like this again come to pass

Juno News - February 08, 2020

Protestors of Canadian energy don't speak for Canadians

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