Photo by Marco Simonsen-Sereda.
The Council of Canadians Montreal chapter was at a solidarity rally in support of Standing Rock yesterday.
APTN reports, “A few hundred people took to the streets of Montreal in support of the anti-pipeline movement in North Dakota. That’s where thousands of Native Americans and First Nations people from Canada are fighting the Dakota Access pipeline. The marchers were aiming their signs and chants at Canada’s major banks.”
La Presse adds, “A few hundred protesters gathered in downtown Montreal Monday noon in solidarity with the Sioux who oppose the DAPL pipeline. They gathered in Victoria Square and walked the streets of downtown to denounce three Canadian banks have together invested $600 million in the project.”
The Dakota Access Pipeline is being built by Texas-based Energy Transfer Partners and Calgary-based Enbridge Inc. The pipeline could carry up to 570,000 barrels per day of fracked oil from North Dakota to Illinois. It would cross 200 waterways, including the Missouri River, which is upstream of Lake Oahe, the Standing Rock Sioux tribe’s main source of drinking water, and the Mississippi River.
Enbridge has a $1.5 billion share in the pipeline, while TD Securities, Scotiabank and RBC have provided project-level loans to the companies involved in it.
Mint Press reports, “About 3,000 people are assembled in the region, divided among five encampments, including three which are largely situated on reservation territory. The gathering of Native Americans representing almost 375 tribal nations and other non-Native American groups is unprecedented in modern history.”
The Council of Canadians first expressed its solidarity on August 19 and since then the Regina, Chilliwack, Kent County and Montreal chapters, along with staff in Vancouver and Ottawa, have participated in solidarity rallies. On October 28, Maude Barlow tweeted her solidarity with the Kahnawake Peacekeepers and their action in support of the water protectors. On October 30, we sent 1000 pairs of earplugs to the water protectors at Standing Rock given they have been subjected to police use of sound cannons that cause great pain and permanent hearing loss. On November 5, our Fredericton, Saint John, Kent County and Moncton chapters expressed their solidarity with Standing Rock at a Peace & Friendship Alliance meeting in Sackville.
#RezpectOurWater #NoDAPL #DakotaAccessPipeline