Even with the criminal charges, Christine LeClerc has no regrets.
The 30-year-old was one of four Greenpeace activists arrested in the dead of night Thursday after the organization targeted the downtown Vancouver offices of Enbridge, smeared “B.C. Next?” on the company’s front door using oil taken from the Gulf of Mexico, and staged a 14 hour sit-in.
“I tried to put myself in a zone and focus on why I was there,” LeClerc said of the bold and lengthy action against the Calgary-based company’s proposed Northern Gateway Pipeline project from Edmonton, Alta, to Kitimat, B.C. “It helps me not suffer anxiety and stress when things get heated.”
The brazen, orchestrated action garnered national attention, especially with Enbridge currently dealing with a sizable oil leak in one of its pipelines in Michigan State. But it wasn’t until Vancouver was fast asleep that authorities finally tried to remove the green vigilantes.
“It was maybe just after midnight when a bunch of cops came into the office and told us it was time to go,” LeClerc said. “We said no, that we wanted our message to be heard and they arrested us.”
The activists were escorted to the basement of One Bentall Centre on Burrard St. where a police van was waiting to take them to jail.
“I definitely think they did it in a way that would draw as little attention to us as possible,” the former UBC student said.
LeClerc, along with two other protesters, were charged with mischief and assault by trespass.
The fourth activist was charged only with mischief.
But none of that matters to LeClerc who was adamant Greenpeace got its message across loud and clear.
“The gravity of the issue makes me willing to take that risk,” she said after being discharged from jail Thursday morning. “[The charges] is something I was well aware off when I put myself in that position. Everyone at Enbridge, right up to the CEO, I’m sure, knows we were there.”
Matt Kieltyka reports for 24 Hours.
2
Login or register to post comments
morechatter
1 year ago
Jury decides that threat of global warming justifies breaking th
Greenpeace members are no stranger when it comes to the law but when it comes to breaking the law Greenpeace is found exempt.
A jury decides the threat of global warming is so great that campaigners were justified in causing more than £35,000 worth of damage to a coal-fired power station. In a verdict that will have shocked ministers and energy companies the jury at Maidstone Crown Court cleared six Greenpeace activists of criminal damage.
ASKBiblitz.com
1 year ago
Is an oil spill any less compelling than an Indian and claim?
The criminal sanctions bravely faced by the good souls like Ms. LeClerc who protest the environmental risks our super-subsidized oil industry likes to take with reckless abandon are far more extreme than most Canadians may realize.
I would hope that Ms. LeClerc and her comrades will receive the same deference shown by the courts to native protesters in Ontario, who recently held up traffic and development for months and perhaps years to prevent the construction of housing that had been OK'd by planning authorities on land that was still subject to an aboriginal claim. Although protesters wreaked all kinds of economic and social havoc not one was ever prosecuted.
Surely the risk of environmental devastation wrought by a miscalculation by the oil industry is at least as worthy.
Leo Biblitz, founder
ASKBiblitz.com