At 8 a.m. Tuesday morning, the RCMP began moving in to arrest 71-year-old “protesting grandpa” Terry Christenson, who early Monday morning climbed a tree inside the Westridge Marine Terminal that has an eagle deterrent on it and erected a mid-air camp to protest the Trans Mountain Pipeline.
Christenson has been 100 feet up the tree for 28 hours. It is unknown how quickly or even if the RCMP will be able to extract Christenson from the tree.
A court-ordered injunction against pipeline protesters is still in place on both Trans Mountain properties in Burnaby. This is Christenson’s second violation of the injunction. Others arrested under the injunction have faced up to one month in jail, as recommended by the Crown.
“I’m more afraid of climate change than I am of jail, and I’m willing to risk arrest to send a message to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau: Canada shouldn’t be building more dirty pipelines. This project doesn’t have the consent of many of the First Nations it passes through, and thousands of people, including myself, aren’t going to stand by and let it get built,” said Christenson.
Christenson was arrested for a similar protest in March 2018 in Burnaby, where he stayed in a tree for more than 16 hours as part of a week of action organized by Protect the Inlet to slow pipeline construction ahead of a tree clearing deadline.
Trans Mountain places eagle deterrents in trees on several of its properties in order to prevent eagles from nesting in trees where they have in the past, which could potentially interfere with any planned tree clearing activities if pipeline construction resumes.
