On December 3, 2014 Conservative Member of Parliament Wai Young introduced private member’s Bill C-639, an act intended to amend the Criminal Code to protect Canada’s critical infrastructure. Young noted how the people interfering with our country’s infrastructure put our country at risk and how their acts “should be considered more than just petty crimes”.
Needless to say, Young’s proposed bill upset many people, particularly the activists who’ve been using the gaps in our country’s laws to get away with their (often) cowardly acts. It’s her belief that by increasing the penalties for these acts, we’ll be more able to deter people engaging in economic disruptions. The dangerous clowns at the BC Civil Liberties Association disagreed- going as far as to bring their complaint to the United Nations.
The problem with the BCCLA’s complaint, as we saw on Burnaby Mountain, is that not all protesters are as “peaceful” as they claim. Beyond that, as common sense dictates, protesters don’t have a right to interfere with infrastructure projects- their rights end at the point where they impact the rights of others. There’s no better example of this than a protest posted on YouTube yesterday afternoon.
The protest occurred in Squamish BC in December when a group of young punks, some cowardly wearing masks, decided they would stop workers from Fortis BC from drilling pipes. Fortis delivers natural gas to people’s homes and places of work- the pipes they were laying had nothing to do with natural gas exploration.
As the punks walked up to the workers you can hear them saying in the background “Yo, let’s stop them working today- like, let’s freak them out enough that they say let’s just call it a day”. After standing dangerously close to the worker’s project, and forcing them to stop doing their jobs, it appears that the Fortis employees call-in the RCMP.
The police tried to negotiate with the punks, warning them that if they didn’t move out of the way that they’d be arrested. Fearlessly, the punks were slow to comply, but eventually moved out of the way- allowing the workers to go home (and therefore winning at their goal to stop work). The police left as the workers started to pack up, leaving the punks feeling confident they could conflict with and harass the workers again. Near the end of the video one can see how they began to get physical.
While it’s easy to be angry with the “activists”, we should actually be thanking them. Their behaviour is the best possible evidence that Bill C-639 needs to be passed as soon as possible. Let’s hope we don’t have to wait much longer- enough is enough…
