Jean Swanson has been sentenced to seven days in jail for a protest earlier this summer at a Kinder Morgan facility.
Swanson, 75, and Burnaby resident and former B.C. Teachers Federation president Susan Lambert, 68, were among a group of protestors sentenced in B.C. Supreme Court Wednesday morning.
Both received seven-day sentences along with Charlotte Gyoba, 74, Hisao Ichikawa, 77, Heather Martin-McNab, 57, Kathleen Flaherty, 66, and Adrian Long, 30.
Swanson and Lambert were among eight people arrested June 30 at the gates of Kinder Morgan’s Burnaby Mountain tank farm.
Swanson was defiant at a press conference outside the courthouse before heading inside for the sentencing hearing. She acknowledged that she expected to receive jail time.
“The pipeline we’re protesting today is dangerous. It’s dangerous because it’s contributing to global warming, it’s dangerous because it can spill on the land and the sea, and it’s dangerous because it’s trampling on Indigenous rights by going through Indigenous territory without consent,” she said. “Laws can be bad. Laws permitted slavery. Laws permitted the theft of Indigenous land. Laws let the Trudeau government buy this pipeline are bad laws.”
She said that the billions spent on the pipeline could be better spent saving lives, hiring Alberta tar sands workers to build solar and wind power, ending homelessness in Canada or putting clean water on Indigenous reserves.
“We need to stop the pipeline like people stopped the clearcutting in Clayoquot Sound,” Swanson said. “We’ve got one down and one to go. Kinder Morgan bailed, now we have to get Trudeau to bail.”
Former Burnaby NDP MP, and independent Vancouver mayoral candidate, Kennedy Stewart stood with Swanson, who is running for council with COPE, outside the courthouse.
“I fully support Jean Swanson and the other peaceful protestors who have been sentenced here today and since these arrests started,” Stewart said in a statement.
“It’s disgraceful that Justin Trudeau continues to send grandmothers and Order of Canada members to jail over his failing and leaking pipeline,” he said. “The people here deserve better and the people of our city deserve better. Jean and the others here today were standing up for our coast and I’m proud to stand in support of them.”
Stewart and federal Green Party leader Elizabeth May were also arrested at a pipeline protest in March. Stewart was fined $500 for breaching a court injuction.
With files from Naoibh O'Connor and the Burnaby Now
@JessicaEKerr
jkerr@vancourier.com
