Protests resumed at Burnaby’s Trans Mountain terminal Thursday for the first time since Kinder Morgan announced work on the pipeline would stop.
The protest resulted in three arrests for violating the injunction. But when trucks needed to leave and enter the facility, protesters moved out of the way.
Following a procession from the soccer field near Forest Grove Park, past the Tsleil-Waututh watch house, protesters blocked the entrance to the terminal, standing within the five-metre zone covered by Kinder Morgan’s injunction. Three artists were arrested just before 11 a.m., receiving a civil charge for standing in the injunction zone.
But when police asked protesters to move so workers could leave the facility, they complied.
Some 30 people who had been blocking the entrance, but were not within the five-metre zone, moved to allow trucks to leave. Minutes later, three trucks arrived to enter the facility, causing a commotion in the crowd.
One protester, who would not give his name, stood in front of the trucks, saying they had agreed to move to let employees exit, not to let trucks come in. He was approached by police.
"Leaving and entering are two different things," he said to the officers who approached him. "They were waiting around the corner."
"They were down the street, you knew that," the officer replied.
The man appeared visibly upset as he blocked the trucks from entering.
"They mentioned that people are leaving, but they didn't say anything about entering," he told the NOW.
He did not answer a question about why he decided to move, and he was called away by organizers of the demonstration.
The organizers appeared to have advised protesters to move when asked by police.
"I know it was really difficult to watch the work they are doing continuing to be done," Greenpeace activist Mary Lovell told protesters after the trucks passed.
"The only reason why I was hoping for people to stay on the side is not because I don't want people to take action, but because I didn't feel that people understood that they may get arrested without understanding that they were going to.”
Protect the Inlet has protests scheduled for Friday and Saturday.
