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@peter-morelli
“Rat” and Mike with a gun, Seattle, Washington, 1983.
—Mary Ellen Mark
"Dance music needs riot grrrls. Dance music needs Patti Smith. It needs DJ Sprinkles. Dance music needs some discomfort with its euphoria. Dance music needs salt in its wounds. Dance music needs women over the age of 40. Dance music needs breastfeeding DJs trying to get their kids to sleep before they have to play. Dance music needs cranky queers and teenagers who are really tired of this shit. Dance music needs writers and critics and academics and historians. Dance music needs poor people and people who don't have the right shoes to get into the club. Dance music needs shirts without collars. Dance music needs people who struggled all week. Dance music needs people that had to come before midnight because they couldn't afford full admission. Dance music does not need more of the status quo."
—The Black Madonna
Cosmonaut Alexei Leonov. The first space walk, 1965.
Operation Protective Edge, launched in early July 2014, was the third major Israeli assault on the Gaza Strip in six years. It was also the most deadly. By the conclusion of hostilities some seven weeks later, 2,200 of Gaza’s population had been killed, and more than 10,000 injured.
In these pages, journalist Mohammed Omer, a resident of Gaza who lived through the terror of those days with his wife and then three-month-old son, provides a first-hand account of life on-the-ground during Israel’s assault. The images he records in this extraordinary chronicle are a literary equivalent of Goya’s “Disasters of War”: children’s corpses stuffed into vegetable refrigerators, pointlessly because the electricity is off; a family rushing out of their home after a phone call from the Israeli military informs them that the building will be obliterated by an F-16 missile in three minutes; donkeys machine-gunned by Israeli soldiers under instructions to shoot anything that moves; graveyards targeted with shells so that mourners can no longer tell where their relatives are buried; fishing boats ablaze in the harbor.
Throughout this carnage, Omer maintains the cool detachment of the professional journalist, determined to create a precise record of what is occurring in front of him. But between his lines the outrage boils, and we are left to wonder how a society such as Israel, widely-praised in the West as democratic and civilized, can visit such monstrosities on a trapped and helpless population.
You can buy the book here
This Week in War. A Friday round-up of what happened and what’s been written in the world of war and military/security affairs this week. It’s a mix of news reports, policy briefs, blog posts and longform journalism.
275 more women and children were rescued from Boko Haram last weekend.
Central Nigerian communities have accused government troops of killing civilians
Two Tanzanian UN peacekeepers were killed in an ambush in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where the government is battling Ugandan rebels.
There will be a formal investigation of the allegations that French peacekeeping troops abused children in the Central African Republic.
A tribunal has also ordered the UN to lift the suspension of the whistleblower who disclosed the alleged abuses.
Burundi’s president, Pierre Nkurunziza, says the third term that has sparked so much protest would be his last.
Nearly 40,000 people have fled the crisis in Burundi.
Secretary of State John Kerry made a surprise visit to Somalia Tuesday – the first secretary of state ever to travel there.
Somalia has banned the media from using the name Al-Shabaab.
The Egyptian army freed a group of Ethiopians who had been kidnapped in Libya.
A weekend protest in Tel Aviv by thousands of Ethiopian-israelis over police harassment turned into a violent confrontation with the police.
According to an Israeli activist group, the Israeli military operated under a “policy of indiscriminate fire” last summer in Gaza – publishing soldiers’ testimonials about the “permissive” rules of engagement.
US training of Syrian rebels has started in Jordan.
With Hezbollah’s help, the Syrian army has retaken areas along the border with Lebanon.
Rustom Ghazeleh, a top intelligence official under Assad, is rumored to be dead, and with him an incalculable load of secrets.
Human rights observers say a US airstrike in Aleppo killed 52 civilians.
The Saudi-led coalition fighting the Houthi in Yemen have used American-supplied cluster munitions in their war. (While cluster munitions are banned in most countries around the globe, they are not banned by the US, Saudi Arabia or Yemen.)
Yemen’s ambassador to the UN has asked for a ground intervention.
Yemeni fighters trained in the Gulf are said to have joined local militias in Aden in the fight against the Houthi.
Yemeni rebels fired rockets and mortars into Saudi Arabia, killing 2.
Al Qaeda senior operative Nasr bin-Ali al-Ansi was killed in a US drone strike in Yemen last month.
Oxford researcher Elizabeth Kendall talks about why Al-Qaeda has had so much success in Yemen.
Zaid Al-Ali describes the devastation of Tikrit after the Islamic State’s occupation of the Iraqi city.
2.2 million Iraqis have been displaced by the Islamic State.
Behind Russia’s missile sales to Iran is a complicated dance with the West and with Israel that mixes the politics of war in Ukraine with the politics of the Iranian nuclear deal.
Iran has arrested prominent rights activist Narges Mohammadi.Anger turned to violence in the Iranian provincial capital of Mahabad after protests over the death of a chambermaid turned into riots and arson.
The Taliban says it’s open to peace talks with the Afghan government if the US leaves entirely.
Commercial flights have been cancelled to the besieged city of Kunduz.
US military personnel have added to the heavy burden of corruption in Afghanistan – over 100 service members have committed $50 million dollars worth of criminal activity.
A resolution seems on its way over India and Bangladesh’s long-running border dispute.
NATO has started anti-submarine exercises in the North Sea.
Fears over Russia are playing a part in Poland’s electoral politics.
On Wednesday, five Ukrainian soldiers were killed and twelve wounded in fighting in the east. Separatists appear to be readying a new offensive.
Meduza interviews Russian dissident-in-exile Mikhail Khodorkovsky.
Putin’s plans to modernize the Russian military have to be scaled back due a flagging economy. Also, Russia’s hyped new tank to end all tanks broke down in the middle of parade rehearsal.
Armenia’s foreign minister has criticized Turkey over its genocide denial.
Four people were arrested in Germany for founding a right-wing extremist group and plotting to attack mosques and people seeking asylum.
French Parliament approved a bill which, if passed by the Senate, could grant wide authority for domestic spying.
Canada is similarly poised to pass new anti-terror legislation that would give CSIS expanded and intrusive authority.
A Draw Muhammed contest in Texas was targeted by two gunmen who were killed by a police officer.
A federal appeals court ruled the NSA’s now-infamous bulk telephone metadata collection illegal.
There’s bad news for privacy advocates, too, though: a circuit court overturned last year’s ruling that it violated the Fourth Amendment for police to track cell phone location data without a warrant.
Esquire Classics republished Osama bin Laden’s last interview with an American journalist. The story, by John Miller, originally ran in February of 1999.
Former CIA deputy director Michael Morell says that intelligence agencies completely fumbled their assessments of Al Qaeda after the Arab Spring – misjudging the group’s ability to take advantage of the political situation.
Marine Gen. Joseph Dunford is the president’s pick to be the next chairman of the Joint Chiefs.
American support for drone strikes is sinking after the deaths of two hostages.
28-year-old Omar Khadr, who was imprisoned in Guantánamo at age 15, walked free on bail from Canadian prison yesterday.
The remains of war dead from World War II are still being unearthed across Europe – Der Spiegel profiles a man who reburies Germany’s dead.
Photo: T-34 Soviet tanks from World War II rehearse in Moscow for the Victory Day parade scheduled for May 9th. Pavel Golovkin/AP.
Lifting it for the cause.
Who’ll go with me?
Sendy; Hermosa Photography by SPOT
I just posted a little rant about the pipelines on my blog. i would love to be able to submit it. though i dont know if it is to the caliber of things you'd normaly post i would love it if you read it and let me know what you think? i feel its really important!
Pipeline expansion in Canada at this point in history is indeed a hugely important concern. Given that the rest of the world is already moving away from fossil fuels in order to avert the worst effects of climate change, there’s basically a moral imperative to question whether more fossil fuel infrastructure is the right way to go for Canada, as every new foot of pipeline built just commits us more deeply to a system that everybody knows is hurting us now and will hurt subsequent generations grievously in the future. So I think it’s great you’re voicing your thoughts on the issue.
You’ve written a strong position blog, and I am particularly interested in your comments near the end where you talk about using oil money to wean ourselves off oil, by investing in green alternatives. Developing a really strong green energy sector would certainly prove we don’t need oil and help us transition to clean energy like good global citizens. A recent report filed by Clean Energy Canada suggested there are, in fact, some green shoots of hope in the Canadian energy sector but we still have a long way to go.
Ideally money from government and private investors would flood into green energy, but as Jenny Uechi at the Vancouver Observer recently showed, the Harper government is basically scared to invest in green energy or any adaptation measures related to climate change as they are worried that doing so will undercut their rabid commitment to basing the Canadian economy on oil. This is all a clear signal that it is unlikely any money generated by new pipelines would find their way to green investment — at least while Harper is in power.
I am afraid the B.C. government under Christy Clark would likewise probably channel any profits from new pipelines to anywhere but green energy, as even though she has said she is committed to protecting the environment, she has also stated that her government is firmly committed to getting resource projects built, “whether they are mines, pipelines or liquid natural gas plants.” We got an earnest of this when she recently approved the building of a controversial dam in Northern B.C. True, Clark’s “resource projects” could potentially include clean energy producing facilities, and one could make an argument that her approval of the dam is a sign she backs big hydro, which is considered clean energy. But she doesn’t seem to pitch her commitment to resource projects in such green/clean energy terms, and I certainly haven’t heard her talk about financing, subsidizing or building any large-scale tidal, geothermal, biomass, wind, or solar infrastructure.Part of the problem here, of course, is that there is a lot of debate over whether provinces like B.C. will even see that much additional money as a result of the pipelines — it is fairly clear that private companies like Kinder Morgan are going to receive almost all the profit, and the taxpayer very, very little. So the thing about your proposal is that the tactic may need to be adjusted slightly — instead of relying on oil money or new pipeline profits to invest in green energy, we likely need to push the Canadian government to stop spending wildly to support the fossil fuel industry and facilitate pipeline expansion, and get them to use all the money currently bankrolling Canada’s fossil fuel economy “on green initiatives” instead. The $321 million that the Harper government had budgeted for green programs in 2013, for instance, was left entirely unspent. Honestly, that is ludicrous, and pressuring the Canadian government to spend this allocated sum on green initiatives as budgeted would be a good place to start in a pressure campaign. The campaign could then push the government to make an additional monetary commitment to green energy investment — get them to match that original $321 million for green programs with an equivalent sum dedicated to new clean energy initiatives in 2015. You name some of the types of initiatives this money could be spent on in your blog post:
"We could use the money to invest in green energy production."
"To create a fast and effective green form of transportation throughout the province", in order to "reduce dependence on carbon producing transportation as well as the creation of mass amounts of highways and tars."
"We could use the money to invest in re-forestation."
"We could use that money to invest in agriculture, and free range meat."Though you and I would likely want to direct the attention of activists to different targets, I think you’re right to put emphasis on organization, and the need for citizens “to fight.”I too “want to see scientists, ecologists, lawyers, engineers, angel investors etc. take the initiative and fight,” and indeed, many citizens in the categories of people you name here are already fighting for the implementation of green initiatives, though the struggle desperately needs more. There is a widespread green movement already in existence, a recent manifestation of which was the protests on Burnaby Mountain, but the fossil fuel system is so massive and entangled with Western government that as you say it has to grow even broader, deeper, and stronger before we see systemic change.
At one point in your blog you say that “the pipeline will go through.” It certainly seems that way sometimes, but I am not at all convinced that the Kinder Morgan pipeline — or any other major proposed pipeline in Canada— will ever be completed. Global momentum is shifting away from fossil fuels and towards green and clean energy. Continued reliance on oil and the expansion of fossil fuel infrastructure is ultimately antithetical to human survival. Eventually we will realize this and adjust accordingly, for the only other option is slow, grinding species extinction, whether it’s creatures like the Golden Toad (extinct since around 1989), or us. As for your very important question, “what can those opposed do?” I will point you towards something I’ve been following closely, instead of talking more about Burnaby Mountain, as I think it’s important we understand that pipeline protests are a national and not just a local phenomenon. The Unist-ot’en Camp will definitely get you thinking about what you can do if you oppose pipeline expansion in Canada.
There’s an entire spectrum of opposition actions you can get involved in and the movement is growing all the time. Go where your instinct leads, do what feels right and make the fight happen.In solidarity,Peter Morelli
If there were a prize for mordant satire about the #TortureReport, surely it would go to cartoonist @mluckovichajc
World news from a human rights perspective… http://www.hrw.org/the-day-in-human-rights
Here’s a thought to think.
Dan Mangan sings about inequality at inauguration of Mayor Gregor Robertson and City officials
Dan Mangan playing at today's inauguration ceremony in Vancouver, while re-elected Mayor Gregor Robertson (left) and city councillors listen. All photos by Peter Morelli.
Vancouver Observer, 8 December 2014 Peter Morelli
Local musician and two-time Juno award winner Dan Mangan stepped up to the microphone with a smile, saying he wanted to "applaud the kind of government that would invite a quasi-protest singer to come sing during their inauguration."
The assembled audience of Vancouverites and dignitaries gathered at the inauguration ceremony at Creekside Cultural Centre clapped loudly in response, as Mangan belted out "XVI", a song his website describes as "an ode to Louis and Marie Antoinette" gazing down upon Occupy Wall Street campers from on high.
Mangan told the Vancouver Observer that he chose the song because he had wanted to play "a political song at a political inaugaration."
"When Louis the XVI and Marie Antoinette were in Versailles and people were rioting in the streets because they were starving, they had no idea what was going on because there was such a disconnect between the privileged and the unprivileged," he said.
"I see that resonating through the wealthy and impoverished in our modern society. It's not that anybody is maliciously trying to screw over everybody. It's just about compassion and about people listening to each other to try and actually get to the root of what causes poverty."
When asked whether he would like the song's close attention to inequality to set a tone for the new administration, Mangan smiled again.
"Gregor said it [during his speech]. The oath is particularly important when it comes to the most vulnerable in society."
Mangan was only one of the feature performers in an event that showcased the cultural diversity of Vancouver. The Vancouver Fire and Rescue Services Band played Christmas standards as the crowd gathered before the proceedings.
The Vancouver Fire and Rescue Services Band, playing in front of posters by Bracken Hanuse Corlett, entitled "Giants Among Us" and commissioned for the City of Vancouver's Year of Reconciliation.
Bagpipes accompanied Mayor Robertson, city council members and representatives from the Coast Salish First Nations as they proceeded to the stage at the beginning of the event. The audience was also treated to a Chinese Lion Dance late in the ceremony, complete with crashing cymbal and drum accompaniment. Mayor Robertson became involved in the Lion Dance himself at one point, laughing as the colourful creature approached him.
Other local artists were present at the ceremony as well, notable among them the singer/songwriter Wanting Qu, who is a tourism ambassador for the City of Vancouver. Born in China, Wanting came to Canada at the age of 16 as a business student and has since made a home in Vancouver as a successful recording artist. According to Wanting, Vancouver has helped her build confidence as an artist and her songs tell stories about the city. Wanting cited a song about kissing on Granville street as one of the Vancouver stories retold in her music.
"Vancouver has made me more expressive, loving and content," she commented, before noting that what she appreciated about Mayor Robertson and the new City administration was that they think about what's going to benefit the next generation.
Wanting Qu (left) poses for photos with Mayor Gregor Robertson after the ceremony.
"I love that this city sees the future," Wanting said. "It's my home. I'd raise my family here."
After the inauguration ceremony was over, Mangan said he knew culture was an important part of the new city administration, and felt it was an important part of city building. He said he was currently pushing to have a new Vancouver Independent Music Centre built to support up-and-coming artists, and that he was looking forward to working with the City to get the project off the ground.
Mangan said he was aware of the criticisms against the City's government, but that he believed they were on the right track.
"There's no foolproof institution, there's cracks in every government and there's always things that they can do better," Mangan said. "But I do honestly believe — having gotten to know some of the councillors and the Mayor — that their heart is absolutely in the right place and they want what's best for the city."
Encounters with the mysterious Kinder Morgan workers of Burnaby Mountain
A Kinder Morgan worker operating the drill at borehole one, deep in the forest on Burnaby Mountain. All photos and videos by Peter Morelli.
Vancouver Observer, 2 December 2014 Peter Morelli
They were always behind the police lines and often out of sight behind trees or trucks, but because of the drills, you could always hear them working. The Kinder Morgan crews operating on Burnaby Mountain were, and remain, something of a mystery. Isolated by design or by happenstance, they were largely unreachable, since getting anywhere near a drill meant risking arrest by crossing into an injunction zone or getting into the less risky but also legally uncertain police exclusion zones that bordered the sites formally under injunction by the court. When not at work within the injunction zones, the Kinder Morgan workers were usually under police escort, or changing shifts after dark and early in the morning.
Indeed, after the initial heated encounter between citizens and survey crews on October 28th, contact with the Kinder Morgan workers on Burnaby Mountain was relatively limited, and very seldom face to face. The little enclaves of orange vests and machinery at the centre of the protests remained largely undisturbed, seemingly unconcerned by the heavy police presence surrounding them at all times and the ire of the protesters. In some cases, especially at the upper drill site known as borehole two, Kinder Morgan workers had a clear view of arrestees being processed by police. For the most part, they observed the arrests without comment or simply ignored them altogether. Who were these workers, and what did they think of the protests that were calling for them to stop work and leave the mountain? Finding out proved much more difficult than anticipated.
Activity at Borehole Two
Filmed on November 25th, this clip captures the work being done at the upper Kinder Morgan drill site on Burnaby Mountain known as borehole two. Almost as soon as I began to take photographs and film the workers, a Kinder Morgan employee — seemingly charged with site security — wandered over and started filming me right back with a go-pro chest camera.
He looked nervous, and tried to appear as if he wasn't paying attention to what I was doing. When asked why he would bother filming a reporter, he turned off his camera and walked away without a word. At a distance, ensconced behind the fences and protected by an injunction, the other Kinder Morgan workers were not reachable for comment.
Activity at Borehole One
The lower drill site, known as borehole one, was located deep within the forested areas of the Burnaby Mountain conservation area. Though it was constantly alive with the movement of the Kinder Morgan workers, the forest around it always seemed still. The deep greens of the forest's cedars and old growth trees were shockingly beautiful in the evening light, especially when glistening with rain. Despite the site being hidden away in the trees, the sound of the drill invariably led those who sought it straight to where Kinder Morgan was working.
This site had a different feel from the one higher up where the majority of the protests took place over the last two weeks. The absence of a visible police presence enforcing the injunction boundary was conspicuous, and without any other protesters or observers there to watch over what Kinder Morgan was doing, the operation here had the eerie feel of a secret science experiment taking place in a deserted location. It was hard not to feel like an interloper, especially because it was much more difficult to get close to the drill and see what was going on. Nevertheless, it was clear that the drill was being driven hard. Work seemed to be going at a fast pace here.
Workers congregating outside the drilling compound at borehole one.
The double perimeter of police tape around the site, and fences enclosing the drilling compound itself, ensured that those hoping to get close enough to the Kinder Morgan workers to engage them could not do so without being spotted at a distance and risking arrest.
A chance encounter with a Kinder Morgan worker being escorted to this site by two RCMP officers later that day, however, did provide some insight into how workers were handling the situation on the hill. Crossing paths on the the trails that take you out of the forest and back onto the streets of Burnaby, the worker greeted me with a cordial "good evening" as he passed. Once I started taking photos, though, he immediately sped up, perhaps surprised by the flash or suddenly anxious to get to the safety of the drill site. He quickly disappeared further up the path, the police keeping pace with him. It seems safe to conclude that he was somewhat on edge as a result of the protests.
Police escorting a Kinder Morgan worker up to borehole one as night falls on Burnaby Mountain.
Finally, an interview
A Kinder Morgan "no comment" policy may very well have been in effect for workers on the hill. When it was possible to engage with them, they routinely refused comment or just left. Indeed, Trans Mountain does not seem to have had an official spokesperson on Burnaby Mountain at any time during the events of the last few weeks of protest, so almost all contact with the company has been through head office spokespeople or press releases. Such communication does little to provide a sense of the character and thoughts of the men (there may have been women out there as well, it is currently unknown) in the hardhats and rain slickers on the ground, however.
It was not until November 27th, the day that Grand Chief Stewart Phillip crossed police lines and was arrested, that a Kinder Morgan employee at work on Burnaby Mountain agreed to speak with me.
Giles Stevenson, Chief Environmental Inspector for Trans Mountain (left) and a Kinder Morgan restoration crew.
The Kinder Morgan crew was highly noticeable. They were wearing bright orange and were gathered around a work truck at a slight distance from the assembly of police vans, officers, media and those on Ridgeview Drive awaiting the emergence of the Grand Chief and the Tsleil-Waututh elder Amy George from the forest above where they had been arrested earlier in the day.
Upon approaching the Kinder Morgan workers for comment, their crew chief was open to dialogue. His name was Giles Stevenson and he was the Chief Environmental Inspector for Trans Mountain. When the president of Kinder Morgan, Ian Anderson, says that Trans Mountain will "leave the mountain as healthy as we found it," Giles Stevenson is the guy (or someone like him) that gets sent in to try and make that happen.
At different moments throughout the interview Stevenson specified that he spoke on behalf of himself and the particular work he was assigned to do on Burnaby Mountain, not on behalf of Kinder Morgan as a whole.
He began by describing how he and his crew were there to "tidy up" the work site in order to "be as environmentally sensitive as we can."
"We appreciate that some people are against this," he said, referring to the expansion of the Trans Mountain pipeline, "but we are just here to do our work and try and keep the site as tidy as we can."
When asked how the morale of the Kinder Morgan crews was faring, Stevenson responded quickly — "Oh, great." He admitted, however, that "it's a fairly pressured kind of atmosphere."
"But I think that we're just doing the work we're supposed to do and that we like doing. That's no more pressure than a lot of things we do."
Stevenson was then forthcoming about why he likes his work.
"I really enjoy putting the land back to either a natural condition or the function that it was meant to have. Say, for instance, you were in a wilderness or pristine area — we try and return the land back to that function, and the function for the things that live there. We sort of try to have a holistic view about what we do."
"Obviously, when we're in an urban situation, we have to consider the human element and what people want of their environment, whether it's a park or whether it's somebody's garden."
Given the scale of the protests that had been occurring over the last few days, it only seemed appropriate to ask what he thought of the opposition to Kinder Morgan's work in Burnaby, and whether — if indeed he was concerned with respecting the wishes of the people — it changed the way he viewed his work.
In regards to those who oppose Kinder Morgan's plans to run a pipeline through Burnaby Mountain, Stevenson began by saying "that's obviously their prerogative to have that opinion," then, after a pause, he noted that "it's a big consideration for what we're doing, obviously."
He continued: "I personally do not understand how people can drive motor cars and have the standard of living they have without having the oil products shipped to them. But I also appreciate people's concerns about climate change and how we might do things differently in the future."
I asked how he squared his appreciation of concerns over climate change and the integrity of the wilderness with his work for Kinder Morgan, which, as its websitestates, is the largest energy infrastructure company in North America. Here Stevenson seemed careful to distinguish his own work as an environmental specialist in charge of restoration from that of the rest of the company.
"I fully believe that in the work that I do that we are stewards of the landscape that we're in. We try to put it back — as I said before — the way we found it. We study it very, very carefully before we build or are allowed to build a pipeline. We submit all those studies to the NEB. We hope people read them and understand them — they're very complex. But we base our work on scientific evidence and on social evidence as well. For instance, I believe that the majority of people along the route are not opposed to the pipeline."
When asked to substantiate this last claim, Stevenson initially directed me towards the information that Kinder Morgan itself made available to the public, before acknowledging that one might consider this a biased source. He then referred to his positive personal experiences working on other sections of the Kinder Morgan pipeline expansion as evidence for his claim, noting especially his work on the section that runs through Jasper National Park. "I was involved with that," he said, "and we got an award for our sensitivity to the environment."
Stevenson is referring to the 2010 Emerald Award that Kinder Morgan received for — according to the Alberta foundation that grants the award — their work in "maintaining, and in some cases enhancing, ecological and commemorative integrity in Jasper National Park and Mount Robson Provincial Park," during and after the completion of the Anchor Loop project that is one part of the planned Trans Mountain pipeline expansion. Many of the main sponsors of the Alberta Emerald Foundation are large Canadian oil and gas companies operating in the Alberta tar sands, including ConocoPhillips, Enbridge and Syncrude. The Foundation's current board of directors displays similar connections to Canada's oil and gas giants.
A CBC report from 2008 covering the Kinder Morgan restoration project that eventually received the Emerald Award quotes Stevenson as saying there was "a community of restoration specialists and scientists who [were] very interested" in what he and his team were doing as a precedent for the industry. It is in regards to his experiences working on this project that Stevenson then suggested "we had very good relationships with both Jasper National Park and with Mount Robson Provincial Park when we were there."
Did Kinder Morgan experience any pushback when they were working in Jasper National Park and Mount Robson Provincial Park?
"There was certainly pushback, but it wasn't of the same nature as this, no," he said, referring to the protests on Burnaby Mountain.
"I think different issues have come to the surface since we started the construction in '07, but we were studying it well before that. Obviously the climate change issue has ... " — he paused, considering, then just said — "... is large."
When asked what issues with climate change stood out to him, he answered carefully: "For me personally, and this is nothing to do with — I'm certainly not speaking for Kinder Morgan — but I think that we as a society have to look at what we want in the future, how we're going to develop."
At this point the Grand Chief Stewart Phillip and Ta'ah Amy George emerged from the forest under escort by police, followed by a long line of arrestees and supporters, and the interview came to an end.
After the Grand Chief and Amy George were taken back up to the top of the mountain and the arrestees had finished filing down off the paths, Stevenson and his crew shouldered their tools and restoration supplies and hiked into the forest in the direction of borehole one.
An attempt at talking to another worker who walked out of the forest shortly thereafter and seated himself on the back of the Kinder Morgan work truck to light a cigarette did not prove as revealing a discussion as that with Stevenson. Presumably just off shift after working at the lower drill site, or at least on a break, he was dressed in blue coveralls and still wearing a white hardhat. When I inquired if he'd let me ask him a few questions his immediate response was a firm "nope." He took a drag on his cigarette then exhaled, a cheeky half smile on his face as he looked at me.
"Why don't you feel like talking?" I asked.
He shook his head. "I don't talk much anyways."
"So why would you talk to a reporter, right?" He smiled and nodded, and that was that.
By 10:30am the next morning Kinder Morgan was already flying the last of its drilling and survey equipment off of Burnaby Mountain by helicopter. Now they are off the hill completely. For how long, though, nobody knows.
In a December 1st press release, Trans Mountain confirmed that it had filed its Burnaby Mountain routing studies with the National Energy Board. Interveners now have until 10 February 2015 to review and respond to the findings that Kinder Morgan presented to the NEB on Monday.