Here's the latest - Suncor is suing Greenpeace for disrupting its
operations last week.
(BTW - it is absolutely outrageous that the reporter (or his editor)
is linking the tar sands actions to the Encana gas pipeline bombings
in this article, with the inference being GP is somehow connected to
the bombings.)
Suncor takes Greenpeace to court - $1.5M lawsuit comes after protest at mine
By Shaun Polczer, Calgary HeraldOctober 9, 2009 9:08 PM
CALGARY - Environmental protesters say they will continue to target
oilsands facilities in the face of lawsuits and criminal charges after
Suncor Energy filed a $1.5-million lawsuit against the environmental
group Greenpeace in the wake of a protest at its Fort McMurray mine
earlier this month.
Greenpeace leader Mike Hudema confirmed the group has been served with
a statement of claim in relation to the Sept. 30 incident in which 23
activists forced their way into Suncor’s plant site and occupied an
oilsands ore processing unit. The standoff ended after RCMP moved in
to arrest the demonstrators.
“We’re going to continue to do this work,” he said in a phone
interview from Edmonton. “I think it’s criminal that these companies
can get away with what they’re doing. The damage they’re doing pales
to the actions of peaceful protesters. For them to prosecute peaceful
protesters at the end of the day is wrong.”
Suncor spokeswoman Sneh Seetal confirmed the company filed the
statement of claim on Oct. 7 as part of a broader injunction seeking
to bar Greenpeace protesters from its plant site. The statement of
claim is a necessary component of the injunction, which was filed
Sept. 30, and the
$1.5 million is a preliminary figure based mostly on the value of lost
oil production, she added. “We are continuing to review what the total
damages may be in relation to the civil claim,” she said in an
interview.
The Suncor protest was one in a series of actions against oilsands
producers carried out by Greenpeace in recent weeks, including a
similar demonstration at Shell Canada’s Scotford upgrader near Fort
Saskatchewan last weekend featuring live webcam footage, media
interviews and commentary that was made available over the Internet.
The Shell incident earned Greenpeace a rebuke from Premier Ed
Stelmach, who vowed to use “the force of the law to deal with these
people.” Greenpeace in turn accused the premier of using his political
influence to undermine the justice system.
On Thursday, the protests shifted to France, where activists entered a
Total refinery in Normandy and hung banners denouncing the French
state oil company’s involvement in northern Alberta. On Friday, the
group defaced four Total billboards in the Edmonton area, accusing the
company of being committed to “environmental destruction.”
In a media release, Greenpeace claims 37 of its members from Canada,
France, Brazil and Australia have been arrested in the past three
weeks on charges ranging from break and enter, trespassing and
mischief.
Other oilpatch protests have been less than peaceful. On Wednesday in
B.C., Dawson Creek RCMP urged local residents to be vigilant on the
first anniversary of a series of bombings against EnCana Corp.’s
natural gas pipelines. The company has posted a reward of $1 million
after six bomb attacks in the past year. The perpetrator remains at
large.
John Redekop, a professor emeritus at Sir Wilfrid Laurier University
in Waterloo, Ont., who also teaches part time at Trinity Western
University in Abbotsford, B.C., said western cultures have a tradition
of disobeying laws perceived to be unjust extending back to biblical
times. He has lectured extensively on the topic and written a book,
The Christian and Civil Disobedience, that has been translated into
multiple languages.
He said civil disobedience is “moral” provided that nobody is hurt and
all other avenues of appeal have been exhausted. As with Greenpeace,
perpetrators are often willing to be arrested to make a point, he
added, similar to Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King, who were both
arrested protesting U.S. racial laws in the 1960s.
Civil disobedience is more common in British Columbia, where protest
groups, including Greenpeace, have disrupted logging operations in old
growth forests. In that sense, Redekop said, he’s prepared to assert
the validity of the oilsands protests, but refused to condone the
bombings.
“Some trespassing, some disruption, I can accept,” he said. “But that
(the EnCana bombings) is not civil disobedience, it’s a crime.”
Seetal argued that Greenpeace didn’t respond to overtures to meet with
the company and its members placed themselves and others in harm’s
way. Protesters at the site refused the company’s offer to provide
basic protective equipment such as hard hats and safety glasses, she
said. Consequently, the company chose to shut down operations until
the demonstration ended.
“The fact of the matter is that they were trespassing. Not only were
they putting themselves in danger, but they put our employees in
danger, our subcontractors in danger along with all the other visitors
on the site.”
spolczer@theherald.canwest.com
© Copyright (c) The Calgary Herald
