Reportback on Dirty Money from Dirty Oil

Text borrowed from a participant’s Facebook post:
First we showed up at the Enbridge Police Hamilton Division.

Then the pigs on horses joined us. Poor horses!

The HPS were then presented with a shiny new (to them) tricyle, to better patrol their own hallways for crime (because we all know that’s where the real crimes take place).

Then we all pitched in to fill up some money bags – one for every thousand dirty tar-sands money the HPS has accepted from Enbridge. We ran out of bags. Sadly.

It was an impromptu walk to the courthouse next, collectively taking the streets. À qui la rue ?!

There we spoke of police brutality and corruption in another sense; police inflicted homicides. Today an inquest continues into the police shooting death of Phonesay Chanthachack. The officer – Ryan Tocher – has already been cleared by SIU, of course, despite this being his second shooting death and 3rd SIU investigation.

For those of you who left early…

Two of our rad folks were ticketed for “impeding traffic”. Not only was this clearly a case of political profiling and specific targetting, but also a BS charge meant to try and make the police feel better about their blatant corruption. Probably as a nice ego stroke too. One of these folks was actually handcuffed and taken inside the station to be intimidated while other comrades outside were nearly trampled by the pigs on horses.

Eventually we delivered the bags of dirty tarsands money where they belonged: inside the police station. Words may have been exchanged, but at least now everyone knows where the Hamilton Police stand on these issues.

Don’t fool yourselves – it’s not with us.

Mainstream media report: http://www.cbc.ca/hamilton/news/story/2013/06/06/hamilton-enbridge-police-donation-protest.html

Dirty Money from Dirty Oil: Confronting Hamilton Police Corruption

In March of this year the Hamilton Police Services Board accepted a $34,910 gift from Enbridge Pipelines. This isn’t the first time – nor are they the only Police Department along Line 9 to have accepted such generous “gifts”.

All along the controversial pipeline community police departments have been receiving sums of money from Ken Hall, Enbridge’s rather repetitive greasy-palmed PR Rep.

While all of this is done under the guise of “community safety” what it really means is that our Police Departments – a body that is supposed to remain unbiased – are quietly accepting large sums of money from a private corporation. The same corporation that has a vested interest in keeping those against their reckless reversal plan oppressed.

Join us this Thursday, June 6th, at 11am, for a creative action at the Hamilton Police Central Station to confront police about this issue, and to support the individuals lodging an official complaint under the Police Services Act.

Mainstream News Coverage of this issue: http://www.cbc.ca/hamilton/news/story/2013/06/05/hamilton-enbridge-police-line-9.html

Facebook Event for the Demo: https://www.facebook.com/events/558585537517451/?ref=22

New Zine – Against the Reversal: Two articles against the reversal of Enbridge’s Line 9 pipeline

This small zine collects two essays advocating for resistance to the reversal of Enbridge’s Line 9 pipeline that will carry Tar Sands oil through Southern Ontario.

The first essay, “Stop the Flows: No Tar Sands Oil in Ontario” is a revised and expanded version of an essay we first published a few months ago. It introduces the reversal, situates it alongside other pipeline projects and the Tar Sands itself, describes the enhanced risks associated with a diluted bitumen spill, and addresses some of the common arguments made in favour of the Tar Sands.

“Tar Sands Pipelines as Bottle-necks against the Consolidation of Power in Canada” was published anonymously on several radical news sites. We appreciate this article because it talks about Line 9 and the other Tar Sands pipeline in terms of political and economic power.

If you’re organizing against Line 9 in your community, print these up and share them around!

PDF file available for download here: http://zinelibrary.info/against-reversal-two-essays-against-reversal-enbridges-line-9-pipeline

Tar Sands Pipelines as Bottle-necks Against the Consolidation of Power in Canada

Reposted from Infoshop News

Perhaps more than at any other time in its history, the Canadian state has invested its future in a single massive industrial project. The Tar Sands (1) is increasingly the driver of Canada’s economy, a symbol of its national identity, and central to how it seeks to position itself globally in the future. As pipeline projects advance across the continent, there is a pressing need for us to understand how, in opposing the transportation of Tar Sands oil, we have an unparalleled opportunity to disrupt the capitalist political system in this country. This is especially important in Ontario, where presently the movement against the pipelines is weakest.

Up to now, the Tar Sands oil has been largely landlocked and its price is suppressed by the glut of supply this has created in the markets that can access it. The elites in Canada see this inability to access broader markets as hurting their profits, which in turn reduces their ability to reinvest in expanding the Tar Sands. From the perspective of the powerful, Tar Sands oil must have access to ports in order for the project to expand. The Canadian government has also been finalizing free-trade deals with China and the European Union, so the buyers are lined up once the oil is available.

Opposition to the extraction and transportation of Tar Sands oil has largely been seen as an environmental issue, with an emphasis on climate change and carbon emissions. Sustained resistance by Indigenous communities has made the issues of Indigenous sovreignty impossible to ignore in the Athabasca basing and in the regions crossed by the pipelines. In the past year, struggles against Tar Sands pipelines have intensified across the Canada and the United States, and more reasons for opposing the Tar Sands have blossomed with each new community in struggle.

Below is a roundup of actions that took place across the continent yesterday in solidarity with Unist’ot’en People who are opposing construction of the Pacific Trails Natural Gas Pipeline in the same corridor where the Northern Gateway is planned. Do you recognize the spot where the banner drop in Hamilton took place?

unistotencamp

Letter to Industry and Government with Warning About Trespassing on Wet’suwet’en Territory

Today Unist’ot’en allies are rising up in cities across North America, and around the world, to deliver a message to industry and government warning them to cease their trespass against sovereign Wet’suwet’en territory. The Global Day of Action is in response to an incident last week where Wet’suwet’en Chief Toghestiy intercepted and issued an eagle feather to surveyors from the Can-Am Geomatics company who were working for Apache’s proposed Pacific Trails Pipeline (PTP). (see full story here)

The letter, signed by Unist’ot’en spokesperson Freda Huson, specifically states: “To the illegitimate colonial governments of Canada and British Columbia, and to all parties involved in the proposed Pacific Trails Pipeline (PTP) project: Apache corporation, EOG Resources, Encana corporation and all of their affiliated investors, including the Royal Bank of Canada, Jarislowsky Fraser Ltd., and many others. This letter is…

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Call for Solidarity Actions with the Texas Tar Sands Blockade

Call for Solidarity Actions: against the flow of Tar Sands oil everywhere

The Southern Ontario community is rising with the tide of resistance against the Tar Sands across the continent!

Like the land defenders in the West who have successfully stopped the flow of natural gas to the Alberta Tar Sands through un-ceded territory of the grassroots Wet’suwet’en people by blocking the the Pacific Trails Pipeline, to the eco-warriors who continue to blockade in the path of loggers clearing the way for the Keystone XL pipeline to be built—we in the East are also faced with the threat of Enbridge’s Line 9 carrying Tar Sands oil through the land where we live.

The Tar Sands Blockade (TSB) in Texas is calling for solidarity actions to take place Monday, November 19th. This is a great opportunity for the potential Eastern-path of Tar Sands oil to continue to join with the West and South in stopping the flows of Tar Sand oil.

Here’s en excerpt from the TSB call out:

We’ll be throwing down in a big way next Monday, November 19th, somewhere near Nacogdoches, Texas, the heart of outlaw territory in this region for hundreds of years, and we want you to do the same. If you’re close enough or able to travel, of course we’d love to have you here with us, but we also want to see communities rising up and defending their homes from the wanton destruction of extractive industry everywhere.

Texas-based Tar Sands Blockade is dedicated to fighting this tar sands pipeline running through our collective backyard (or front yard, as the case may be), but we recognize the heart of the issue. We know that resource extraction is the lifeblood of the machine, the foundation of the crisis known as capitalism, and that only by building communities of resistance can people opt out of the system and watch it return to dust. So we call on the radical environmental community to show solidarity with the struggle against the tar sands, recognizing that our struggle is just a piece of the larger struggle against extraction and that you need to do what makes sense for your community.

Our message is simple: climate catastrophe is social injustice manifest and nothing less than a slow but sure genocide of the have-nots perpetrated by those with extraordinary privilege. The only way to survive climate chaos is by building community resiliency across all boundaries based on mutual aid and respect. The community that resists together persists together, so join with your neighbors and defend your homes from the onslaught of resource extraction.

For the full call out, click here: http://news.infoshop.org/article.php?story=20121113012101972
For the TSB website and action ideas click here: http://tarsandsblockade.org/solidarityactions/

Further Resources:

What’s new with Line 9? A Watershed Sentinel Feature by Joyce Nelson, which includes a lot of well-researched details about L9.

A Strategy to Resist industrial Infrastructure and Pipelines from Kitimat to Texas: Community Corridor Part 1 (a profoundly grounded article by Julien Delacroix)

It is from this brazen devastation of nature that the need arises for something just as audacious to counter it. We must put life and creativity in the place of aggression and destruction.” -Julien Delacroix, Community Allies Supporting Grassroots Wet’suwet’en

For the health and healing of the land,
-Hamilton L9
Visit us at: Hamilton Line 9: Confronting the Tar Sands in Hamilton or drop us a line: hamiltonline9@ecologyfund.net

Enbridge applies for second phase of pipeline reversal

Environmental group says documents confirm tar sands oil will be pumped east for export
by Tim Groves
Originally posted at toronto.mediacoop.ca

Enbridge has filed documents with the National Energy Board (NEB) asking for the second phase of permission for their plan to reverse the flow of an existing pipeline that runs between Sarnia and Montreal.

The group Environmental Defence, says that documents that Enbridge recently filed with the NEB confirm suspicions that the pipeline company is trying to pump tar sands oil to the East Coast for export – a claim that Enbridge has previously denied.

“The public has been kept in the dark about the full scale of Enbridge’s plans all along. Given the company’s track record of oil spills and failure to come clean about its plans, why should the Canadian public trust them now?” said Adam Scott, a spokes person for Environmental Defence. “Enbridge’s plan could put the drinking water of millions of people at risk of a tar sands oil spill, all in the name of exporting more raw tar sands oil.”

The Enbridge paper work, filed on October 10th, is for the second phase of their proposal to reverse a pipeline known as Line 9. If approved this will allow Enbridge to pump the dirty oil between Hamilton and Montreal. Earlier this year the NEB approved the reversal of a section of Line 9 that runs between Sarnia and Hamilton.

“Enbridge’s plan to increase the volume of oil shipped through Line 9 to 300,000 barrels per day suggests this is about exporting raw oil, not domestic refining jobs,” asserts Environmental Defence in a press release. They contend that the purpose of the pipeline is to pump Tar Sand oil to the East Coast for export.

“The current Line 9 leaves those of us along the route with the choice of whether to accept more of this devastation, or to step up and try to reverse it”said Toban Black, an environmental justice organizer based out of Kitchener.

“The fossil fuel industry will expand by any means possible if it is not dismantled.”

He is part of a growing grassroots resistance to the pipeline project in First Nations and cities along the route of the pipeline.

“What is crucial right now is informing the public about the threats to Ontario, Québec, and the Great Lakes. The issues with this pipeline are not well-known, so people can’t decide whether they want to oppose it,” Black told the Toronto Media Co-op in an email.

“We must find ways to oppose this project in localities along the route.”

According to Enbridge the pipeline passes through or near these 115 communities.

Tim Groves is an investigative researcher and journalist based in Toronto. He can be reached at timgrovesreports [@] gmail.com. For more information on his work and writing, click here.

Thousands Protest Pipelines in Victoria

Around 3500 people crowded onto the front lawn of BC`s Legislature yesterday in a protest against the Northern Gateway pipeline and reintroduction of supertanker traffic into coast islands. Environmentalists, First Nations and even municipalities have joined the fight against the controversial pipeline which has become incredibly unpopular over the past year. The proposed twin-pipe route would link BC`s northern coast with Alberta`s Tar Sands, and cut accross the province`s north to connect with Kitimat coast to export dilbit and import natural gas condensate, crossing multiple First Nations reservations and the Great Bear Rainforest.

Opposition to Line 9 reversal grows

Hamilton city council hears vocal opposition to Enbridge plans
By Tim Groves
Originally Published on The Toronto Media Co-op

Dozens of environmentalists gathered at Hamilton, Ontario’s City Hall to protest a major pipeline project, know as the Enbridge Line 9 reversal, on Wednesday October 17th. They gathered outside and then made deputations at a city council meeting where a report on the project was being presented to councilors.

The pipeline currently brings oil from Montreal to Sarnia, Ontario, passing through Hamilton along the way. Environmentalists fear that the plan to change the direction of flow would allow tar sands oil to be pumped to the east coast for export—a claim which Enbridge denies.

In May 2012, opponents of the reversal disrupted a National Energy Board (NEB) hearing on whether to allow the project. The NEB later approved the project.

Since then opposition has been growing in First Nations communities and Southern Ontario cities. Last month a speaking tour of First Nation women spoke about the pipeline in several venues across the region.

“I think it is a disaster waiting to happen, to allow Enbridge to pump diluted bitumen through this pipeline,” said Ken Stone, a member of 350.org, to Hamilton city council. “It is important for councilors to think what would happen if the pipeline burst.”

In 2010 a pipeline very similar to Line 9 ruptured in Kalamazoo Michigan, spilling 3 million liters of diluted bitumen into the Kalamzoo River.

A smaller pipeline rupture took place in Hamilton in 2001, spilling 95,000 liters into a farmer field.

Although opponents of the pipeline acknowledged that with federal slashing of environmental reviews processes it is important for municipalities to study the impacts of the pipeline, they were disappointed with Hamilton city staff’s analysis.

“In the report they don’t talk about the climate change once, or the detrimental effects of the tar sands,” said activist Elysia Petrone. She believes the city staff simply agreed with the NEB findings.

“I think Enbridge is being dishonest and not explaining what their true intentions are.”

Enbridge was invited to speak to Hamilton’s council about the matter, but they rescheduled twice before finally cancelling their appearance. However, several councilors said Enbridge had approached them personally in off-the-record discussions.

After hearing from opponents to the plan, several city councilors voiced their fears about the pipeline project. City staff admitted they too had concerns but said the chances of a spill were unlikely and that the City of Hamilton did not have a lot of influence over the project.

“My community is already heavily destroyed from industry; we don’t need any more,” said Vanessa Gray, a First Nations youth from Aamjiwnaang, a community just outside of Sarnia, Ontario, who traveled to Hamilton for the protest.

“It is important that those on the front lines come out to support each other,” she told the Toronto Media Co-op.

The first phase of the project will reverse the pipeline between Sarnia and Hamilton.

However, the campaign against the pipeline reversal is expected to grow, as the second phase of the project will see the reverse the flow of the pipeline between Hamilton and Montreal, and will pass through several cities including Toronto, the largest metropolis in the country.

Tim Groves is an investigative researcher and journalist based in Toronto. He can be reached at timgrovesreports [@] gmail.com. For more information on his work and writing, click here.

Reportback from City Hall

Wednesday morning council received the staff report on Enbridge’s Line 9 pipeline reversal, as well as hearing from citizens on the issue. A few dozen protesters rallied first along Main St in front of City Hall, then filed inside the gallery. No conclusions were reached, but a very interesting discussion ensued, with staff sent to research further about the pipeline and possibilities for opposing it.

Though Enbridge decided to cancel at the last minute, eight citizens stepped up to address council, all opposed to the project. John McGreal spoke about the legacy of Binbrook’s oil spill a decade ago, which burst from Line 10. Ken Stone floated legal ideas, such as banning pipelines over 30 years old, the transmission of tar sands oil or requring it to be upgraded and refined in Canada. Janet Chase floated the possibility of requiring a bond from Enbridge, an idea which seemed to gain a lot of traction with councillors. Maggie Hughes (The Other Side on CFMU) showed footage and talked about the legacy of the Kalamazoo dilbit spill. Elysia Petrone (Hamilton 350) spoke about Harper’s budget omnibus bill exempting this project from environmental assessments. Don McLean (CATCH, Hamilton 350) and Lynda Lukasik (Environment Hamilton) spoke about the connections to the Tar Sands and climate change, especially given the enormous cost we’re now suffering from the recent wave of severe storms and flooding. Wes Elliot, Ruby Montour (Six Nations) and Danielle Boisseau were unable to attend.

Reaction from councillors was mixed, but honestly better than I’d expected. Brenda Johnson asked if there were options to challenge the reversal at the Ontario Municipal Board or Federation of Canadian Municipalities, as well as asking about permits for current digs to check pipeline integrity. Maria Pearson suggested making a statement for the record, even if council’s hands were “tied”. Judi Partridge raised questions about the Emergency Plan and Brian McHattie raised again the issue of environmental assessments. Lloyd Ferguson suggested getting a professional engineer’s opinion, and stated that Enbridge had told him the pipeline’s oil wouldn’t be coming from Alberta. Mayor Bratina’s comments were perhaps most poignant, pointed a finger at Harper then brought the issue back to our own practices and suggesting that if we really wished to stop this kind of oil flow, we should look into an urban boundary freeze and end Aerotropolis plans (both good suggestions, even if they avoid the issue). Staff responded that so far, proposals haven’t mentioned “dilbit” or pressures capable of transporting it, and that there’s few options on the table to obstruct Enbridge, even if council should decide to. At the end, discussions broke for lunch, unresolved, with staff sent to research further.

Given the current climate in Federal politics, it isn’t surprising that municipalities are shut almost entirely out of these matters. Despite all the public and private lands this pipeline crosses in our city, there’s no meaningful consultation council or residents. In these matters, the National Energy Board seemingly holds all the power. This is the legacy of the “streamlined” approval processes Harper is implementing, and we’re now getting to see first-hand what that means for public input in the communities involved. Whoever makes these decisions, we’ll still be the ones to suffer if anything goes wrong.

While I still hold out a little hope for a sympathetic motion from council, it’s fairly clear at this point that municipal politicians are just as out-of-the-loop as the rest of us. Addressing council, though, was still was an important step. Not only did it bring some much-needed attention, but also showed that opponents are willing to engage with “the system” where possile. Most of all, it was an important demonstration of how much authority has been given to Enbridge and the NEB, effectively cutting entire municipalities out of the process. If opposition is going to continue (and it will), it must now look toward the grassroots. Ordinary people are not limited by the rules of intergovernmental hierarchies, and a motion from Council would mean little, anyway, without a much broader show of community support. This pipeline has seen very little public discussion so far, and most people still aren’t aware it cuts through our backyard. The tasks ahead are education, investigation, networking and ever-more demonstrations (like this Sunday’s protest ride) to raise the issue’s profile, both within Hamilton and beyond. Like the Keystone XL and Northern Gateway pipelines, this route can be stopped, and it will be, if cities like Hamilton decide to stand against it.

Originally posted on undustrialism.com/