Local anti-Kinder Morgan pipeline protestors have a message to send to their North Vancouver MP. They want the planned Kinder Morgan pipeline expansion halted.
About 100 North Shore residents chanted outside North Vancouver Liberal MP Jonathan Wilkinson’s constituency office Friday on the corner of Third Street West and Lonsdale Ave.
The protest was part of the nationwide rally against the expansion of the Trans Mountain pipeline. The protest was organized by Leadnow, a Canadian non-profit organization that organizes campaigns. The group urged protesters to gather clean water samples from B.C.’s coastline, threatened by the Kinder Morgan oil spills, to deliver them to their local MPs’ offices.
Event-organizer Kathy Mcgrenera, who lives just a few blocks from Wilkinson’s office, volunteered to be the one to the deliver the Burrard Inlet water to the MP’s constituency office. Mcgrenera says she was there today to stand behind Indigenous communities – including the Tsleil-Waututh and Squamish nations on the North Shore - who are on the front lines of the environmental fight against the Trudeau government.
Mcgrenera said her main concern is the risk of oil spills on the B.C. coast. When she was a teenager, Mcgrenera helped out in the 1989 oil spill on the West Coast of Vancouver Island and recalls seeing the impact of the spill on wildlife.
"If that was to happen here in this busy port, in this busy sea that is such a livelihood for so many people here, I just think that's impossible to think what could happen,” said the North Vancouver native. “I have a daughter, I hope to have grandchildren one day and I feel I have to stand up for the future generations to keep the water clean.”
Wilkinson wasn’t in his office during the protest, but in an interview from Ottawa said he respects the residents who came out to say make their point of view. Wilkinson said he believes there is a minimal risk of an oil spill.
"The risks have been addressed. I don't think anybody can ever say the risk is still zero - that would be irresponsible - but the risks are incredibly small and that's based not only on the history of shipping oil through the inlet,” said Wilkinson who is also the parliamentary secretary to the minister of environment and climate change.
North Vancouver resident Jade Frampton was holding a piece of plywood that had the words “Mother Earth has more Value than Oil is Worth” with an accompanying painting. “If we're drilling into (Mother Earth) and she's bleeding, it's our blood, so we're all going to suffer from this,” said Frampton.
The 21-year-old said it’s time for the younger generations to stand up, as older generations have already been fighting this environmental battle for too long.
"I've always been in touch with the First Nations community and when they ask people to step up, it's time to step up,” she said.
