Does a furrowed brow and frown constitute assault?
Well that’s what a subsidiary of energy giant Kinder-Morgan is alleging. The company, Trans Mountain, is doing exploratory survey work for a pipeline expansion project near Vancouver.
Protestors have been staging demonstrations against the pipeline survey which could potentially pass through a conservation area on Burnaby Mountain.
“There may be an environmental objective that motivates the people generally,”said Bill Kaplan, lawyer for the oil company. Speaking to Associate Chief Justice Austin Cullen on Wednesday, he added, “But the actual specific dominant purpose here … is to harm Kinder Morgan by preventing Trans Mountain (from doing) its work.
The company was in court on Wednesday seeking an injunction against protestors at its exploration sites, ahead of another legal action where it is suing five people for close to $6-million for their part in opposing the pipeline and terminal expansion.
Two of the five are university professors. Lynne Quarmby chairs Simon Fraser University’s microbiology department. Outside the courtroom told the placard-waving crowd outside the court that she believed she was “targeted” in the suit because she had spoken out against climate change.
“I think that is why they are trying to silence me”, she said.
Trans-Mountain is seeking an injunction after two incidents in October, including shouting in a megaphone near a worker’s ear, others chanting “Go back to Texas” and a protester chaining himself under a survey crew vehicle.
Trans-mountain lawyer Bill Kaplan, told the British Columbia Supreme Court the protesters efforts to stop the company from it’s lawful activities should be considered “a conspiracy to harm”
Facial expressions: malicious, violent, constitute assault
He says that erecting protest signs near the site on the mountain does constitute free expression, but then he presented photographs of the protesters with facial expressions he said were malicious.
He then went on to hint that those facial expressions constitute violence
“One of the things I will argue is that is not only intimidation, but that is actually an assault,” he said. “Some of the faces demonstrate the anger, and frankly, the violence demonstrated by some of the people.”
twitter: #KMface
The comment resulted in a flurry of scornful ripostes on social media with people taking photos of themselves grimacing, spreading the derision using “ #KMface “.
The city of Burnaby, and Kinder-Morgan have been confronting each other over the $5.4 billion dollar pipeline expansion, filing legal action and applications to the National Energy Board (NEB).
The NEB however has ruled that Burnaby can’t stop the company’s activities. It says it needs the information from geotechnical analysis in order to make recommendations to the federal government about whether the project should proceed.
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