Harsha Walia (left) makes her #KMFace at Toronto Police during the 2010 G20
There was bad news for the protesters who’ve been causing trouble on Burnaby Mountain the past few weeks. After spending the past week in damage control, trying to reassure their followers there was no way Kinder Morgan could win their injunction, KM won in a very big way. Associate Chief Justice Austin Cullen made it clear that the protester’s antics were well beyond what one would call free speech:
“I am satisfied that as much as the right of the public dissent must be carefully protected, what is at issue in the present case goes beyond that.”
Just a couple days earlier Kinder Morgan announced that they have no intention to pursue financial damages against the protesters. That wasn’t good enough for SFU professor, and gifted amateur protester Lynne Quarmby, who was quoted in the Vancouver Observer spreading FUD explaining how she’s still worried KM will sue. BROKE Burnaby has made it clear they don’t plan to encourage others to violate the injunction- Quarmby has said she’s uncertain if she will.
But behind all of the sweet demeanor of professor Quarmby, and the innocent stance taken by BROKE Burnaby, there’s a dark side to the protests. We’ll cover more of this in the upcoming Kinder Morgan Protest Unmasked Part III (Part I can be read here). But for today there’s some breaking news, despite their attempts to appear innocent, and disapproving of militant tactics, this evening BROKE promoted an event led in-part by Canada’s most visible advocate for protest violence…
Sent through their email list this afternoon, BROKE promoted what’s being called a “town hall” where protesters can discuss their “burning Kinder Morgan injunction Questions”. Clicking the provided Facebook link, one discovers the protest has some dubious leaders behind it:
If you’ve been following this website for any period of time it probably didn’t take you long to realize the problem. Harsha Walia is the leader of the militant anarchist group No One Is Illegal, a cheerleader for the violence that happened in Vancouver 2010 Olympics, and was on the front-line shielding Black Bloc anarchists during the Toronto G20. Walia promotes “de-arresting”, a criminal act involving pulling protesters away from the police- G20 ringleader Alex Hundert spent hard time in prison for promoting this tactic.
The best way to understand the danger Walia poses to any protest movement is to listen to her explaining her position in her own words:
You’ll also notice a couple of other familiar names organizing tomorrow’s meeting. First there’s professional protester “AJ Klein” who is representing the AstroTurf group PIPE-UP (we’ll talk about this group in the next couple days in Part II). Next we see Brigette DePape, the union backed “rogue page” who made her name by getting fired for interrupting the Senate with her “Stop Harper” sign (a cause Canadians “numerically” disagree with). Walia and DePape have a history working together- the former was on the board where the latter worked at ShitHarperDid.ca
BROKE Burnaby’s Karl Perrin contributed to the event’s Facebook event page:
Stay tuned for Part II, on its way soon, where we’ll dig-up the turf and examine the AstroTurf backing behind the “grassroots” battle against Kinder Morgan…
