Poets, prisons, and pipelines

I've been thinking an awful lot about Rita Wong these last few days. That's what happens when a friend goes to jail, but this isn't a standard imprisonment. She has described herself as a political prisoner, and that's precisely what she is.

Please visit the Talon Books website to read her sentencing statement, and please join me in thanking Talon for their voice!

Rita was arrested during the final day of protests against the Trans Mountain pipeline before the Federal Court of Appeal declared that the pipeline must not be built. The court held that there had been inadequate consultation with Indigenous groups, and inadequate attention to environmental questions, before construction permits had been given for construction. Those were precisely the grounds of Rita's protest, that construction was contrary to natural law and Indigenous law. In response, she has been sentenced to 28 days in prison, for her actions taken individually the day before the Federal Court of Appeal agreed with the principles behind her actions.

Is that a technicality? Sure, of course, because the protests against the Trans Mountain pipeline have deeper roots than simply the legality of one pipeline. But on the other hand: the Federal Court of Appeal agreed with at least some of the protestors' rationale, and the BC Supreme Court--the lower of the two courts--has sent the protestors to jail anyway.

Rita was standing for the melting glaciers; the rising seas; the changing weather patterns; the rapid shifts in biogeoclimatic zones; and the impact of all this on Indigenous peoples in what's currently called Canada (and elsewhere), which overlays the impacts of ongoing colonialism. All of this damage and destruction and harm is directly linked to anthropogenic climate change, and there's no longer any doubt about that connection.

I stand with Rita Wong, and with everyone she stood for. Visit the GoFundMe page set up for her. Don't just shake your head at the injustice. Justice needs to be worked at, and the presiding judge failed to recognize this in declaring that his only task was in determining whether a court order had been breached.

Let's work, friends.

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