Kinder Morgan granted injunction to keep anti-pipeline activists from interfering

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VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) – Anti-pipeline protesters have been ordered to remove their barricade preventing survey work for Trans Mountain’s proposed expansion through a Metro Vancouver conservation area.

A BC Supreme Court judge has ruled against five activists named in an injunction application sought by Kinder Morgan, saying they have until 4 p.m. Monday to dismantle encampments on Burnaby Mountain.

Associate Chief Justice Austin Cullen says failing to grant the injunction would cause irreparable harm to the company through substantial costs and potential revenue losses that are not recoverable.

Protesters have staged an around-the-clock blockade of two borehole sites since early September, leading to legal action by the energy giant, which has also filed a multimillion-dollar civil lawsuit.

Lawyers representing subsidiary Trans Mountain argued protesters used profanity, blasted a bullhorn and intimidated workers, but the defendants argued they were exercising free speech and lawful civil disobedience.

Cullen says in his written decision that workers for the Kinder Morgan subsidiary were faced with either confronting the protesters or leaving the site and they “wisely” chose the latter.

Stephen Collis, an SFU professor who has been speaking for protesters throughout this dispute says the group is still figuring out its next steps.

He says a complicating factor here is that if protesters defy this court injunction, those actions could be used against them in an ongoing multimillion-dollar civil suit filed by Kinder Morgan.

“Our lawyers are advising us to be careful,” Collis says. “What’s being charged is that we’re responsible. So, what we do could be used against us in the civil suit. So we have to be very careful about that.”

Protesters are upset about not only the increased amount of oil travelling through the region, but also the big jump in tanker traffic that will come with that increased flow.

“They’re talking about as many as 400 of the largest oil tankers in the world coming through Vancouver’s harbour,” Collis says. “Just imagine these massive vessels, one after another, getting in the way of the SeaBus as it goes across to North Vancouver, and circling around Stanley Park.”

The TransMountain expansion will triple the amount of oil that’s currently transported along the existing route.

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