Editor, The Times:
Re: Letter in last week’s Times, “Non-violent direct action and the creation of tension,” from Dan Hines.
Of all the letters to the editor that I have read, I’ve never been more disgusted than I am about that one.
Mr. Hines, an Anglican minister, was the Green Party candidate for Kamloops-North Thompson in the last provincial election. He has the nerve to compare the “Gong Show” at Kinder Morgan’s gates in Burnaby with the Civil Rights movement and the writings of Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King. They are not remotely similar.
READ MORE: Green Party candidate canvasses North Thompson (April 2, 2017)
Don’t for one minute think that defying a court order is a non-violent direct action. You would be very wrong.
That doesn’t lead to anarchy; that IS anarchy.
The 200 protesters who were arrested should be charged with civil disobedience and defying a court order. They should be penalized to the full extent of the law.
The two M.P.s who were arrested should have additional charges; I can’t recall anything in the Oath of Office that condones defying a court order.
It’s pretty sad when Elizabeth May, the token federal Green Party M.P., has to break the law, make a fool of herself, and have her sorry butt hauled off to jail just to try to get some attention and publicity.
READ MORE: Elizabeth May should be charged: judge (Apr. 9, 2018)
I really think that a large portion of the millions of dollars wasted on crowd control, policing, and court costs should come from those penalties.
The majority of protesters are from environmental groups, the likes of Greenpeace, the David Suzuki Foundation, and other radical groups who are trying to get some good selfies to post on social media. Some of these wingnuts are calling the protest “The War on Big Oil.” Actually, it should be called “The Party at the Gate!”
The protest is no longer about the pipeline being built; it’s about what is coming through the pipeline.
Premier John Horgan is off to Ottawa to plead his case to the federal government. This meeting should have happened a month ago, but Justin Trudeau was too busy with dress rehearsals and costume parties in India (“Sunny Ways”)!
I’m sure that on the flight to Ottawa, Horgan will have lots of time to reflect on the effects of joining forces with the Green Party to form the minority government. What he thought was going to be a match made in heaven is becoming a marriage made in hell!
Collectively, the NDP and the Green Party remind me of the Marijuana Party from way back when. Its platform was “a chicken in every pot and pot in every chicken.”
The problem now is the “orange and the greens” can’t decide on how big a chicken or how many pots, so they just concentrate on plucking the golden goose!
Jim Lamberton
The Rambling Man
Blackpool, B.C.