Category: RT Reportbacks

Report backs from actions and events that Rising Tide affiliates/allies organized. A reportback is almost never also an “announcement.”

Montreal: Freeway Blockades in Solidarity with Wet’suwet’en

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pic via MTL Counter-info

cross-posted from Montreal Counter-Info

In the middle of rush hour, Thursday morning, about fifty people blocked an exit of Autoroute 720 in downtown Montreal, in solidarity with indigenous Wet’suwet’en people struggling against the construction of a pipeline on their unceded territory. Barricades were lit on fire at the corner of St-Marc and René-Levesque in order to block car traffic. A #WetsuwetenStrong banner was hung from highway signage to express solidarity with indigenous sovereignties.

This action takes place in the context of events organized in support of the Wet’suwet’en who have been resisting the destruction of their territory for over ten years. In Montreal and across Canada, many actions respond to the call for solidarity made by the Wet’suwet’en in response to the RCMP action preventing access to their territory on January 13th.

In the middle of rush hour, Thursday morning, about fifty people blocked an exit of Autoroute 720 in downtown Montreal, in solidarity with indigenous Wet’suwet’en people struggling against the construction of a pipeline on their unceded territory. Barricades were lit on fire at the corner of St-Marc and René-Levesque in order to block car traffic. A #WetsuwetenStrong banner was hung from highway signage to express solidarity with indigenous sovereignties.

This action takes place in the context of events organized in support of the Wet’suwet’en who have been resisting the destruction of their territory for over ten years. In Montreal and across Canada, many actions respond to the call for solidarity made by the Wet’suwet’en in response to the RCMP action preventing access to their territory on January 13th.

The Canadian state, via its armed forced and colonial justice, is attacking the Wet’suwet’en land defenders in order to ensure the deployment of 670 km of the Coastal GasLink liquified natural gas pipeline.

In this critical moment, let’s continue to respond to the call of the Wet’suwet’en and support their struggle by all means necessary.

More info at https://unistoten.camp

#WetsuwetenStrong

Guelph, ON: Community Members Occupy Royal Bank of Canada in Solidarity with Wet’suwet’en

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cross-posted from NorthShore Counter-Info

From Dee Colonize (Facebook page)

The Wet’suwet’en Nation is currently engaged in an ongoing struggle to protect their unceded, sovereign territory from the Coastal Gaslink pipeline project (CGL) and the Canadian State. Although the hereditary chiefs of the Wet’suwet’en Nation have not consented to the CGL pipeline, the BC Supreme Court has violated Wet’suwet’en Law by allowing the RCMP to invade Wet’suwet’en sovereign territory to pave the way for Coastal Gaslink’s construction of a natural gas pipeline. In an era of so-called “reconciliation” the Canadian state continues to occupy unceded Indigenous lands while violating and dismissing Indigenous sovereignty.

One year after the Wet’suwet’en people experienced a violent, militarized RCMP raid of their territory, there are threats of another raid. Updates from the Unist’ot’en Camp have revealed that the RCMP are blocking media, food, medicines and important winterizing gear from entering the camp as well as not allowing Wet’suwet’en people and their allies to leave the camp. Now more than ever we must stand with the Wet’suwet’en Nation as allies and accomplices in their resistance against industry. Following a call for solidarity actions from the Wet’suwet’en Nation in what we now know as Northern British Columbia, around 40 community members occupied RBC in protest of its role in financing CGL and fueling the ongoing violence on the Wet’suwet’en Nation and their lands.

The aim of occupying this space is to send a clear message to RBC, as well as all other financial institutions involved, those being TD and HSBC, to stop funding the violence and destruction that Coastal GasLink and the RCMP are inflicting upon Wet’suwet’en people on their unceded lands. We know that RBC, TD and HSBC are currently acting as financial advisers to the shareholders of the Coastal Gaslink Pipeline Project. By helping to fund the CGL pipeline project, RBC, TD and HSBC are directly implicated in and responsible for the criminalization of Wet’suwet’en land defenders, the violation of Wet’suwet’en law, the RCMP’s ongoing attacks and the destruction of unceded Indigenous lands.

Sandpoint, ID: Protest of Fossil Fuels Train Pollution

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cross-posted from Wild Idaho Rising Tide

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: January 30, 2020

Media contact: Helen Yost, Wild Idaho Rising Tide. wild.idaho.rising.tide@gmail.com, 208-301-8039

Saturday Protest of Fossil Fuels Train Pollution

February 1, 10 am rally & carpool at Sandpoint City Beach Park, & 11 am march from Bonners Ferry Visitors Center

Wild Idaho Rising Tide (WIRT), #No2ndBridge, and regional climate activists are hosting a Fossil Fuels Train Pollution Protest in Bonner and Boundary counties on Saturday, February 1.  Participants are gathering at 10 am around the City Beach Park pavilion in Sandpoint, Idaho, for a brief, information sharing rally.  Carpoolers are next traveling to the Gateway Visitors Center in Bonners Ferry, Idaho, to march at 11 am and return to Sandpoint by 1 pm.

This community event commemorates the one-month anniversary of the January 1, rockslide derailment and January 26 removal and current disassembly of a Burlington Northern Santa Fe (BNSF) Railway, mixed freight train locomotive that submerged and leaked at least 2,100 gallons of diesel fuel and engine oil into the Kootenai River near Moyie Springs, north Idaho.  Resistance to ongoing, coal, oil, and hazardous materials train pollution and derailment risks and impacts to public and environmental health and safety is increasing across the Idaho Panhandle.  Rural, rail corridor residents continue to oppose bridge, track, and operations expansions that compound these threats, such as BNSF’s inherently perilous, present and proposed, fossil fuels pipelines-on-rails across north Idaho, along the Kootenai River, and almost one mile over Lake Pend Oreille.

After dozens of derailments along waterways and deadly and injurious railroad collisions in north Idaho and western Montana during the last decade, frontline activists are demanding that multiple government agencies provide to the public and enforce several measures, to prevent and remediate the ecosystem and economic devastation imposed on rural communities by the Kootenai River wreck and similar disasters.  Through comment letters, they are requesting derailment oil spill information, independent water quality and environmental monitoring, protection of native and endangered fish and wildlife, a Federal Railroad Administration incident investigation and penalties, and railroad operation revisions and locomotive recovery plans.

Protest organizers ask that participants dress for winter warmth and dryness, bring friends, family, and creative, relevant signs and banners, assist with event transportation, and sign the Petition to Deny and Revoke Permits for the BNSF Sandpoint Junction Connector Project [1].  Contact WIRT for further event and emerging issue information, also described through the linked event flyer and announcements [2] and compiled photos and updates [3] on WIRT facebook and website pages.

[1] Petition to Deny and Revoke Permits for the BNSF Sandpoint Junction Connector Project

https://sign.moveon.org/petitions/petition-to-deny-revoke

[2] Fossil Fuels Train Pollution Protest

https://www.facebook.com/events/538778857035285

https://wildidahorisingtide.org/2020/01/27/fossil-fuels-train-pollution-protest

[3] BNSF Kootenai River Wreck and Spill 1-1-20

https://www.facebook.com/pg/wildidaho.risingtide/photos/?tab=album&album_id=1610550912427743

MN: Water Protectors Stage Direct Action in solidarity with the Wet’suwet’en Fight Against the Coastal Gaslink pipeline

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For immediate release: January 28, 2020 , 11:00 AM CST

 Indigenous and Non-Indigenous Water Protectors Stage Direct Action in Fond du Lac in solidarity with the Wet’suwet’en Fight Against the Coastal Gaslink pipeline

Photo included

Fond du Lac, MN. –– A group of Indigenous and Non-Indigenous Water Protectors, blockaded an access road to a TC Energy work site where the Canadian company—formerly known as TransCanada—is performing work on natural gas lines on the Fond du Lac reservation. Today’s action is in solidarity with the Wet’suwet’en Nation’s fight to protect their traditional territories from fossil fuel expansion. The hereditary chiefs representing the five clans of the Wet’suwet’en are currently blocking construction on a section of TC Energy’s C$6.6-billion Coastal Gaslink pipeline, which would run through their ancestral lands in northern B.C.

“We will stand for no colonial resource extraction on Indigenous lands any longer, in solidarity with our Wet’suwet’en brothers and sisters in so-called Canada who are fighting the Coastal Gaslink pipeline,” said an Indigenous Water Protector. “We are a new generation of warriors and we have awoken with the call in our hearts to protect the sacred. It is no longer a rallying cry, it is something that we mean to live by.”

Local resistance to pipelines has been mounting in recent years in opposition to Enbridge’s proposed Line 3 tar sands pipeline which would violate Anishinaabe treaty rights to hunt, fish, and gather in their treaty territories. Line 3 and TC Energy’s gas pipelines threaten Indigenous sovereignty and full access to their lands.

“This is a call to arms from Indigenous elders who believe that showing solidarity with other struggles is very needed and very necessary in the fight moving forward,” said another Indigenous Water Protector.

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