Signs reading “Do not fund Trans Mountain”, “Protect the Ocean” and “Protect the Earth” filled the square in front of the gallery where a few hundred people gathered.
Rally designers from the Tsleil-Waututh First Nation Sacred Trust Initiative say this was the first time since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic that indigenous leaders have gathered to publicly oppose the pipeline.
Rueben George, director of the Sacred Trust Initiative, said the pandemic had limited rallies and prevented them from approaching, but that the rallies would lift the spirits and signal the start of more events and publicity.
Glad to see old and new friends at the Vancouver Gallery and hear enthusiastic speeches from pic.twitter.com/6R2UdY1jO4
– @ roz_isaac
The federal government said in February that no more public money would be allocated to the pipeline as its new estimated price rose to $ 21.4 billion.
George says the project is now based on investor funding and the group hopes to send the message that it is a “latent asset” and should not be built.
“It’s not a good investment, let alone the disaster it will cause,” he said. “We have to wake up our country again. “We have to do something to make a difference for our future generations.”
The federal government has paid $ 4.5 billion to undertake the Kinder Morgan expansion project in 2018 in an effort to nearly triple the amount of crude oil shipped from Alberta to overseas customers.
The pipeline expansion was originally expected to be completed sometime later in the year, but Trans Mountain Corporation also changed the projected completion date to the third quarter of 2023.
He said that the severe floods in the south BC. last fall, combined with the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, forced delays.
