Two seniors sentenced to 7 days in jail for pipeline protest

Senior Trans Mountain protesters sent to jail Two local protesters are off to jail for violating a court order. As Jon Woodward reports, both women are senior citizens.

Two senior citizens have become the first Trans Mountain pipeline protesters to be sentenced to jail time for defying a B.C. Supreme Court injunction.

Laurie Embree, 70, and Constance Lasheras pleaded guilty but continued their stand against the pipeline during an address to the court before they were sentenced to a seven-day jail term.

“I have lived my 70 years abiding by the law,” Embree told Justice Kenneth Affleck. “But if we look back into our history there have been many times when our laws support injustices.”

Embree used as an example laws supporting child labour, slavery, seizing First Nations land and children, as well as a protest by the director of the Canadian Wheat Board who took grain to sell in the U.S. without an export permit. That director was pardoned by former Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

“The law sir, that you have created, and that I, and many others are peacefully challenging, is unjust. It supports an industry that is not just harming children, or black people, or women, or Indigenous peoples. Your law, in fact, is supporting an industry that has been scientifically proven to be harming the whole world and every living thing on it,” she said.

There have been 214 arrests and 88 sentences for those opposing Justice Affleck’s injunction earlier this year against blocking the work to twin the Trans Mountain pipeline, which runs between Edmonton and Burnaby.

Crown prosecutors said that each of the arrested people were given opportunities to leave their sites, but did not. Politicians including Green Party Leader Elizabeth May and Vancouver mayoral candidate Kennedy Stewart were among those arrested and fined.

On May 28, as arrests mounted, officials warned that they would pursue jail time for anyone else violating the injunction.

“I have no doubt these protests have been carefully organized,” said Justice Affleck. “They did so to gain publicity for a cause in which they believe. That is not a basis they can defy this injunction without consequences.

“I am not persuaded that either of the persons are likely to repeat the contempt but I am convinced there needs to be a general deterrence. It is regrettable that prison sentences must be imposed. But that must be the outcome,” he said.

Several other pipeline protesters made a first appearance after arrests on June 30, including Vancouver COPE council candidate Jean Swanson.

Constance Lasheras, who works in Surrey, said she was not interested in getting recognition.

“I am a mother and I worry about the future of my children,” she said. “Climate change is very real.”

Senior citizens should not escape punishment, said Crown lawyer Monte Rattan, arguing that protesters will simply pick the elderly to be arrested.

“This is the population that must be deterred,” Rattan said, prompting laughter from the gallery.