Anti-pipeline protesters march on Chilliwack MLA offices
Les absent, O'Mahony addresses crowd
Chilliwack-Hope MLA Gwen O'Mahony addresses the approximately 60 anti-pipeline protesters who marched from Chilliwack MLA John Les's office to hers on Wednesday afternoon.
Photograph by: Paul J. Henderson , TIMES
A few dozen anti-oil sands protesters gathered at Chilliwack MLA John Les's constituency office Wednesday before marching around the corner to Chilliwack-Hope MLA Gwen O'Mahony's office and then city hall.
The approximately 60 people held signs that read things like "This grandmother won't allow more pipelines," "Our Coast Our Choice" and "Don't Care Les? Shame on you!"
The gathering was the local incarnation of a provincewide day of action that featured more than 60 such protests around the province.
It followed on the heels of Monday's sit-in at the Legislature in Victoria.
Les wasn't at his office Wednesday but O'Mahony's staff let the protesters inside where, led by Skwah First Nation member Eddie Gardner, they chanted "B.C. is not for sale."
O'Mahony returned soon after with coffee and doughnuts for the group, before she addressed the crowd.
Those opposed to Enbridge's proposed Northern Gateway pipeline and the planned twinning of Kinder Morgan's Trans Mountain pipeline, which runs through Chilliwack, targeted MLAs across the province today.
And while NDP leader Adrian Dix has come out hard against Northern Gateway, including a formal letter of opposition to the joint review panel, the party has stayed quiet about Kinder Morgan's plans.
"We do think it is prudent to have the NDP take a critical stance on the transport of diluted bitumen," local protest leader Sheila Muxlow said to the crowd inside O'Mahony's office.
Dix has said the NDP did not have a stance on the Trans Mountain twinning because the project was not yet before the National Energy Board.
In addressing the crowd, O'Mahony did not say anything specific about the local pipeline, but she told the crowd that the first thing an NDP government would do if elected in May is to take control over the process of oil pipeline approval from Ottawa.
"The process has to be decided by British Columbians, not by Ottawa," she said.
After Wedneday’s protest, organizers announced that some members present would head to Chilliwack-Fraser Canyon MP Mark Strahl’s office on Oct. 31 for a follow-up demonstration.
Trans Mountain Expansion Project director Greg Toth told local Rotarians last week that a public meeting would be scheduled for late November in Chilliwack.
Chilliwack-Hope MLA Gwen O'Mahony addresses the approximately 60 anti-pipeline protesters who marched from Chilliwack MLA John Les's office to hers on Wednesday afternoon.
Photograph by: Paul J. Henderson , TIMES
