VANCOUVER – Lawyers for Trans Mountain will be back in court today to ask a British Columbia judge to amend an injunction order limiting people from protesting within five metres of two work sites in Burnaby.
B.C. Supreme Court Justice Kenneth Affleck granted the order in March, when he turned down a request for a 50-metre exclusion zone at the Burnaby Terminal and the Westridge Marine Terminal.
Trans Mountain says in its notice of civil claim that protesters have changed their tactics to maximize disruption at the construction sites and to avoid arrest for breaching the injunction order.
It says a group of protesters obstructs access to a facility and when RCMP arrive, they are advised to comply with the order within 10 minutes to prevent arrest.
The notice says shortly before that time is up, all or most of the blockade participants leave, only to be replaced by a second group to which police also read the injunction order, before a third group arrives and repeats the process.
Lawyer Maureen Killoran told the judge Thursday that participants are expected to further escalate their protests starting today.
The notice of claim says plans to block trucks, contractors and workers “hour by hour” without getting arrested have been posted to a public Facebook page by a group called the Justin Trudeau Brigade.
“Blockade participants are structuring their tactics to avoid the spirit and intent of the injunction order,” the notice says. “The amendments to the injunction order Trans Mountain seeks are necessary to prevent blockade participants from engaging in further unlawful activity that contravenes the injunction order and interferes with Trans Mountain’s work, operations and legal rights.”