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Minnesota police have billed over $1.7 million to account set up by Canadian company building Line 3 tar sands pipeline

By
Brent Patterson
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On August 4, Ojibwe water protector Tara Houska told Democracy Now! about the funding relationship between Calgary-based Enbridge Inc. and police forces in Minnesota.

Houska said: “It’s, at this point, a pretty known thing that police officers are reimbursed for any costs associated with Enbridge Line 3 protests, and it seems like they welcome the opportunity. One police officer was actually grinning and smiling and said he had a great time [arresting us] and couldn’t wait for us to come again.”

She then highlighted: “They’ve billed over $1.7 million to the Public Safety Escrow Trust, in which Enbridge is dumping millions of dollars to incentivize and encourage police officers to repress, suppress and surveil, harass Indigenous people and our allies that are helping us try to stop this pipeline from happening in our treaty territory.”

Emily Atkin has reported in Heated: “Enbridge established a financial relationship with Minnesota law enforcement in May 2020, when the state Public Utilities Commission approved Line 3’s route permit. That permit required the oil giant to set up a special fund that would reimburse police responding to anything pipeline-related.”

Payments to police departments

Atkin further highlighted the reimbursement requests from the police (as of this past March) include “nearly $72,000 worth of riot gear and more than $10,000 in ‘less than lethal’ weapons and ammunition, including tear gas, pepper spray, bean bag and sponge rounds, flash-bang devices, and batons.”

On April 26 of this year, the Duluth News Tribune reported: “From the start of Line 3 construction Dec. 1 to mid-March, agencies have been reimbursed more than $537,000 for expenses resulting from responding to anti-pipeline protests.”

Earlier this month, the Alexandria Echo Press reported Cass County had billed the Enbridge escrow account for 7,500 hours of “overtime” over a three-month period and that “Beltrami County was recently reimbursed more than $170,522 for expenses related to Line 3 construction site law enforcement.”

And on July 22, The Intercept reported that in November 2020, Aitkin County Sheriff’s Deputy Aaron Cook emailed a gun seller: “I’m hoping the pipeline will give us an extra boost to next year’s budget, which should make it easy for me to propose an upgrade/trade to your rifles rather than a rebuild of our 8 Bushmasters [assault rifles].”

Escalating police violence

Minnesota police are now escalating their violence against water protectors.

The Giniw Collective recently posted: “For the first time in this campaign, police used pepper spray, mace and ‘less than lethal’ bullets on unarmed Water Protectors just south of Thief River Falls on July 29th at Red Lake River crossing at the Red Lake Treaty Camp.”

Export pipeline threatens wild rice

The Calgary-based Enbridge Inc. 760,000 barrel per day Line 3 tar sands pipeline would run from Hardisty, Alberta to Superior, Wisconsin (just south of Duluth, Minnesota). 531 kilometres of the 1,659 long kilometre pipeline would cross Minnesota.

It would also cross over 3,400 acres of wild rice waters. Anishinaabe water protector Winona LaDuke has stated: “Wild rice is our life. Where there’s Anishinaabe there’s rice. Where there’s rice there’s Anishinaabe. It’s our most sacred food. It’s who we are.”

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau approved the construction of the Line 3 tar sands export pipeline in November 2016.

The Rainforest Action Network (RAN) has documented that the top five financiers of Enbridge are Canadian banks: TD Bank, Bank of Montreal, Scotiabank, RBC and CIBC. Collectively they have provided billions of dollars in financing to Enbridge.

You can follow this struggle on Twitter at @GiniwCollective and @zhaabowekwe.

PBI-Guatemala accompanies Indigenous community council verifying water pollution from sugar mills

By
Brent Patterson
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On August 4, PBI-Guatemala posted: “PBI accompanies the Retalhuleu Community Council (CCR) and Virginia Tech University experts in verifying water pollution in rivers of the Champerico region.”

PBI-Guatemala has previously explained: “The CCR consists of more than 18 communities in the department of Retalhuleu (mainly the municipality of Champerico), belonging to the Mam, K’iche’ and Ixil peoples.”

Abelino Mejia Cancino of the CCR says: “We need people to realize that when they consume sugar, it has an impact on the life of the communities and on the right to water for all. We call for the consumption of what is healthy and good produced by the campesinos and not products made by the big companies.”

Notably, the Guatemalan Sugar Association (ASAZGUA) has identified Canada as the top export destination for Guatemalan sugar.

In September 2020 it reported Guatemala exported 333,596 metric tons of sugar to Canada.

Water pollution, river diversions by sugar mills

The defenders have stated: “We organize ourselves in a peaceful way to publicize the consequences of sugar cane, the diversion of rivers that the mills have.”

PBI-Guatemala has noted: “The CCR began to organize in 2015 as a result of adverse effects caused by the expansion of the monoculture of sugar and the use of large-scale agrochemicals and pesticides used by the mills in the region.”

Their article adds: “In recent years there has been drought and pollution of wells, rivers and lagoons, as well as the destruction of livelihoods, causing lack of access to water and health problems such as malnutrition and respiratory and renal ailments.”

As a result of their defence of the right to water, four members of the Retalhuleu Community Council have been criminalized by the El Pilar and Magdalena sugar mills.

PBI-Guatemala has accompanied them since April 2020.

New fighter jets will miss 2025 climate target, military decarbonization plan needed now

By
Brent Patterson
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On August 5, the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives released a new report titled Leading the way? A critical assessment of the federal Greening Government Strategy.

The federal government is responsible for 2,128 kilotonnes (kt) of carbon pollution each year, a figure that has been increasing since 2015.

DND = 59% of federal government emissions

The CCPA report specifies: “The Department of National Defence [DND] alone accounted for 59% of federal emissions in 2019–20.”

It also notes that the sub-category of “security operation” emissions increased by 12% in the 2005-19 period to 951 kt [45% of total federal government emissions] and specifies: “Aviation emissions accounted for 62% of the category total in 2019–20.”

Fighter jets exempt from 2025 emission reduction plan

“The most obvious and serious challenge is the outsized contribution of national security operations to federal government emissions. The [Department of National Defence is] exempt from key commitments in the Greening Government Strategy [of reducing emissions by 40% below 2005 levels by 2025]. Specifically, while [DND is] beholden to the 2025 target for facilities and administrative fleets, their operational fleets [i.e., the air force] are only subject to the 2050 target [of net zero emissions].”

Fighter jet contract to be signed in 2022

The report also notes that the Department of National Defence is required to develop a decarbonization plan by 2023 for its operations. This is the year after it is expected to commit $76.8 billion to a new fleet of 88 carbon-intensive fighter jets.

“To date, the government’s approach in this area has been to focus on lower-carbon fuels. For example, Budget 2021 included $228 million toward a new Low-Carbon Fuel Procurement program for air and marine fleets. Although this approach will likely lead to incremental reductions in security related emissions, the government has not committed to moving away from fossil fuel-powered security fleets more broadly.”

Militarism and the COP26 climate summit

World Beyond War has explained: “As a result of final-hour demands made by the U.S. government during negotiation of the 1997 Kyoto treaty, military greenhouse gas emissions were exempted from climate negotiations. The 2015 Paris Agreement left cutting military greenhouse gas emissions to the discretion of individual nations.”

The CCPA adds: “The U.S. and most of Canada’s other NATO partners haven’t made any serious commitments to reduce (or even to report on) national security emissions.”

The World Beyond War petition asks COP26 to set strict greenhouse gas emissions limits that make no exception for militarism, include transparent reporting requirements and independent verification, and do not rely on schemes to “offset” emissions.

While the Department of National Defence is required to develop a decarbonization plan by 2023, the urgency of the climate crisis and the imminent signing of a contract in 2022 for new fighter jets suggests that plan should be completed by the COP26 summit taking place November 1-12 this year.

With Canada’s national security operations exempt from Canada’s 2025 emissions reduction target, the first delivery of the new fighter jets in the mid-2020s with their “full operational capability” in the early-2030s, it does not appear credible that the Royal Canadian Air Force would meet the 2050 target of net zero emissions.

The iPolitics article on the CCPA’s report can also be read here.

PBI-Colombia accompanies NOMADESC and victims of police violence in Cali to a meeting with the Canadian Embassy

By
Brent Patterson
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On August 4, PBI-Colombia tweeted: “Victims of police violence in Cali accompanied by @Nomadesc that include cases of arbitrary executions, torture, gender violence, threats and disappearances culminates a round of meetings with the diplomatic corps with @CanadayColombia. Victims demand no more impunity.”

Prior to the meeting with Canada, PBI-Colombia accompanied NOMADESC and the victims of state violence at meetings with Embassy officials from the United States, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, Norway and Ireland.

The Association for Social Research and Action (NOMADESC) tweeted that these meetings were “evidencing the systematic nature of repressive practices against social mobilization from 2005 to date by the public force” and that “since the murder of Jhonny Silva in 2005, the attempted murder of Duvan Villegas in 2019 and more recently, eye mutilation of Giovanny García, the arbitrary murder of Kevin Agudelo and Maicol Aranda in the 2021 national strike, citizen mobilization continues to be repressed.”

The hashtags in those tweets by NOMADESC included #NoMasESMAD (no more ESMAD riot police) and #ProhibidoOlvidar (never forget).

The recent Amnesty International report Cali: In the Epicenter of Repression highlights: “Since 28 April 2021, in the city of Cali, capital of the department of Valle del Cauca in western Colombia, there have been mass demonstrations. At the same time, the gravest human rights violations and crimes under international law committed in the country in this period have been concentrated in this city.”

Across the country, Temblores has documented that (as of July 15) there have been 1,661 victims of physical violence by the police, 90 victims of attacks against their eyes, and 35 victims of sexual violence committed by the public force.

Despite the Canadian government’s stated commitment to a feminist foreign policy, it has not called on Colombian President Ivan Duque to give an unequivocal order to the security forces to stop the sexual assaults and violent repression.

Instead, as when Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Marc Garneau met with Colombian Vice-President Marta Lucía Ramírez on July 14, Garneau generically noted: “Canada’s concerns regarding violence in Colombia, both in the context of social protests and against social leaders and ex-combatants working to implement peace.”

Garneau then “called on Colombia to keep its commitment to fully investigate and hold anyone who has violated human rights to account for their actions.” This despite the impunity that Human Rights Watch has documented.

Human Rights Watch has noted: “The police chief said on May 31 that the police had opened disciplinary investigations into 170 officers for possible misconduct during the current wave of protests. Of those, three are under disciplinary investigation for homicide and have been temporarily suspended, two have been suspended for other alleged infractions, and the rest continue their regular work.”

It has also reported: “The Inspector General’s Office has also failed to achieve meaningful progress. On May 10, the office told Human Rights Watch that it had opened 24 investigations of police abuses during the 2019 protests and another five during the 2020 protests. No officer had been disciplined and most cases remained in preliminary stages.”

This is the impunity that victims told Canada must be stopped.

PBI-Colombia has accompanied NOMADESC since 2011, and its president Berenice Celeita (who was present at the meeting with the Canadian Embassy) since 1999.

Did Canadian warplanes bring peace and human rights to Libya?

By
Brent Patterson
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A primary use of Canada’s fleet of CF-18s over the past 30 years has been the bombing missions in Iraq, Yugoslavia, Libya, and Syria. Canada’s fighter jets have conducted at least 1,598 bombing missions over these countries.

As Canada prepares to spend $19 billion to purchase 88 new fighter jets next year, and close to another $60 billion to operate and sustain these airplanes, it is appropriate to look at the aftermath of the war where they were used the most.

In March 2011, Canada joined the NATO mission in Libya.

CF-18 fighter jets conducted 733 bombing sorties, making up 10 per cent of NATO air strikes, and dropped 696 bombs of various types.

Investigative journalist Nafeez Ahmed has written NATO “debilitated Libya’s water supply by targeting critical state-owned water installations.” That included bombing a state water utility in Sirte in April 2011 and the water-pipe factory in Brega in July 2011. Ahmed adds: “By September 2011, UNICEF reported that the disruption to the GMR [Great Man-Made River water supply system] had left 4 million Libyans without potable water.”

Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi was killed on October 20, 2011, and the war was declared over on October 23, 2011.

On that day, then Prime Minister Stephen Harper stated: “We join Libyans in welcoming the post-Gaddafi era and the transition of the country to a democratic society – one that respects human rights and the rule of law. Canada will continue to work with transitional leaders as the new Libya takes shape.”

By November 4, 2011, the CF-18s had returned to Canada.

Attempts to build a democratic state after Gaddafi was toppled quickly disintegrated into a new civil war that began in May 2014.

By July 2014, the Canadian Embassy in Tripoli was closed due to security challenges.

In May 2020, The Guardian reported: “Under Gaddafi’s brutal rule, Libya had one of the highest standards of living in Africa. [Now] more than 200,000 people are internally displaced and 1.3 million are in need of humanitarian assistance, according to the UN.”

That second war lasted until October 2020.

In July 2021, the International Organization for Migration said at least 1,146 people died attempting to reach Europe across the Mediterranean Sea in the first six months of 2021. The route between Libya and Italy was the deadliest, claiming 741 lives.

Furthermore, this year 13,000 people have been forcibly returned from sea to Libya. The International Organization for Migration says those people are subjected to arbitrary detention, extortion, disappearances and torture.

In October 2011, Canada’s Prime Minister said he looked forward to the Libya that would take shape after the war.

What emerged has been described as a nightmare.

The Government of Canada now says: “Despite these challenges, there remain significant commercial opportunities in Libya for Canadian companies in the oil and gas, infrastructure and education sectors.”

As we approach the tenth anniversary of the end of Canada’s bombing missions in Libya we can ask: Did the 696 bombs we dropped on Libya bring peace and human rights? Do we bear some responsibility for the migrants now fleeing Libya and drowning in the Mediterranean Sea? What lessons were learned? What could have been done differently?

A public debate on the use of Canada’s fighter jets is crucial as the Canadian government prepares to spend $19 billion on new fighter jets in 2022.

Photos of CF-18s during Libyan war.

PBI-Guatemala accompanies Retalhuleu Community Council assembly where access to land, health care and electricity services are discussed

By
Brent Patterson
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On August 3, PBI-Guatemala posted: “PBI accompanies the Retalhuleu Community Council community assembly in the community on February 15, where they address the situation of lack of access to land and health and electricity services.”

The “Comunidad Agraria 15 De Febrero” is located near Champerico.

Electricity services

Prensa Comunitaria has reported that several communities around Champerico “have declared themselves in resistance, due to the high energy charges that the [private] company Energuate.” There are also complaints about the poor service provided by Energuate.

That article adds: “Since last February, residents of the South Coast denounced the suspension of electricity service that affected 18 communities. Some of the villages that have paid also do not have the service.”

Con Criterio has also reported: “A walk by residents of 17 villages in Champerico arrived in the capital [this past March], claiming the right to electricity, after a month without service. There are 10 reconnected communities to which Energuate cut off the fluid since February 10, after residents of seven other communities did not pay their bill.”

Health care

More broadly, Aljazeera has reported: “Guatemala’s chronically underfunded public health system is always stretched thin and the pandemic has exacerbated the crisis, as many hospital intensive care units and temporary COVID-19 facilities periodically far surpass their capacity.” The Borgen Project has also noted: “Although the Guatemalan constitution guarantees healthcare … the Guatemalan government spends very little money on healthcare. In fact, Guatemala only spends about $97 per person on healthcare.”

Access to land

About 40 per cent of the population of Guatemala is indigenous. Indigenous and peasant farmers were dispossessed of their land in the 18th century through Spanish colonization which drove them to the less fertile highlands. Land distribution in Guatemala continues to be deeply unequal. There are now at least 1,000 land conflicts happening in Guatemala, many of which are related to concessions given to foreign companies for mining, sugar cane and palm oil farms, and hydroelectric dams, all of which deepen dispossession.

PBI-Guatemala has explained: “The Council of Communities of Retalhuleu (CCR) consists of more than 18 communities in the department of Retalhuleu (mainly the municipality of Champerico), belonging to the Mam, K’iche’ and Ixil peoples.”

PBI-Guatemala began to accompany the CCR in April 2020 due to the risks and threats experienced by its members.

PBI-Honduras observes town hall meetings in Atlántida opposed to ZEDEs “special regimes”

By
Brent Patterson
-

On August 3, PBI-Honduras posted: “This weekend PBI observed the open meetings held in the municipalities of Tela, Masica and San Francisco, in the department of Atlántida. The municipalities in the north of the country declared themselves free from #ZEDEs, exercising the right to participation.”

It highlights: “The population assures that ‘the territory is not going to be sold to foreign capital’.”

PBI-Honduras adds that: “The Movimiento Amplio [Broad Movement] mentions that ‘with these actions in all these municipalities every day there are more territories that are offered to protect their territories.’”

ZEDEs are Economic Development and Employment Zones. They are also referred to as charter cities, startup cities or free private cities.

On May 19, the Government of Honduras stated: “The ZEDE presents new opportunities for investors, in particular those who are looking to diversify their supply chains; also, help facilitate greater trade between through various fiscal and non-fiscal incentives.” NACLA more critically notes: “The 2013 ZEDE law provided unprecedented legislative, administrative, judicial, and financial autonomy to investors for a wide range of territorial ventures, including urban development and resource extraction.”

The National Union of Rural Workers (CNTC), that PBI-Honduras has accompanied since May 2018, says that ZEDEs will lead to the privatization and sale of territory and natural goods to foreign capital. They have also expressed concerns about other social impacts including forced displacement, increased violence, loss of cultural heritage, and increased repression along with environmental impacts such as deforestation, pollution, biodiversity loss, and the destruction of protection natural areas.

Rather than improving economic development, the CNTC warns that ZEDEs would mean “subordination of the national economy to the interests of global capital.”

There is also the concern that the affected areas are abundant in natural resources and contain large Indigenous and Afro-descendant populations who have already been impacted by land conflicts, extractive projects, criminalization and serious violations of their human rights as a result of their defence of their territory. There is the further concern that ZEDEs would serve to undermine the right to free, prior and informed consent that Indigenous peoples have on their ancestral lands.

PBI-Honduras observes town hall meetings on ZEDEs

June 19: PBI-Honduras observed the open town hall gathering in La Ceiba where the population of that community said no to ZEDEs.

June 22: PBI-Honduras was present at the Supreme Court of Justice in Tegucigalpa when Honduran civil society organizations affirmed their opposition to ZEDEs and their commitment to stop them.

July 3: PBI-Honduras observed the open town hall meeting in Trujillo where the municipality was declared free of ZEDEs.

July 23: PBI-Honduras observed the town hall meeting in municipality of Arizona where the municipality was declared free from ZEDEs and extractive projects.

July 30/31: PBI-Honduras observed the open meetings held in the municipalities of Tela, Masica and San Francisco, in the department of Atlántida that declared themselves free of ZEDEs.

To read more about Economic Development and Employment Zones (ZEDEs), please see the PBI-Honduras article: “Honduras will not be ZEDE-d”.

PBI-Colombia accompanies CREDHOS at press conference on attacks against Afro-descendant settlement at El Llanito in Barrancabermeja

By
Brent Patterson
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On August 3, CREDHOS tweeted: “Press conference #Credhos due to the events that occurred in the El Llanito district of #Barrancabermeja against the attacks against the Humano Eucalipto settlement, by the National Police and Esmad.”

CREDHOS has previously highlighted in this Urgent Action:

On Friday July 23, there was an attempt by the national police and ESMAD to evict the Afro-descendant and fishing population of the El Llanito district of Barrancabermeja. There was the indiscriminate use of force and arbitrary acts on the part of the public force resulting in several people injured, including human rights defenders from CREDHOS.

This is a population exercising the right to social protest to avoid the eviction of approximately 350 families that have established a settlement on what they argue is part of their ancestral and collective territory.

The leaders at El Llanito claim that their ancestral and collective territory has been damaged, mainly to the water sources (such as the Llanito ciénaga/wetland), by the hydrocarbon industry and are the responsibility of Ecopetrol. This impacts their fundamental right of subsistence.

Then on Saturday July 24 at 8:30 pm there was an attack with firearms against the community. The attackers wounded 50-year-old Rosmira Olaya Cabarca in her right leg. She is an Afro-descendant woman and fisherwoman at the protest. At the time of the attack, four people entered the sector on two motorcycles taking advantage of the nighttime and the inexplicable shutdown of public lighting.

CREDHOS has demanded that the commanders of the police forces stop the repression and abuse of authority against the protest

It has also asked international human rights organizations, including the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and the United Nations, that they inform the Colombian state that they are monitoring this action and ensure the life and integrity of the population of El Llanito exercising their right to social protest and right to territory along with the human rights defenders who accompany them.

The full Urgent Action by CREDHOS can be read here.

PBI-Guatemala accompanies Council of Communities of Retalhuleu assembly meeting

By
Brent Patterson
-

On August 2, PBI-Guatemala posted: “PBI accompanies the community assembly of the Council of Communities of Champerico, Retalhuleu in the village of El Triunfo.”

PBI-Guatemala has explained: “The Council of Communities of Retalhuleu (CCR) consists of more than 18 communities in the department of Retalhuleu (mainly the municipality of Champerico), belonging to the Mam, K’iche’ and Ixil peoples.”

It adds: “They began to organize in 2015 because of the adverse effects caused by the expansion of the monoculture of sugar and the use of large-scale agrochemicals and pesticides used by the mills in the region.”

Champerico is a port city situated on the Pacific Ocean about 225 kilometres south-west of Guatemala City.

Shrimp harvesting

This past March, PBI-Guatemala also posted: “Congratulations to the fishermen and their team of lawyers and attorneys at the Law Firm for Indigenous Peoples.”

This refers to the exoneration of six fishers who had been criminalized since 2015 by the Nova Guatemala/Pesca Nova S.A. shrimp company for speaking against the company’s polluting of traditional fishing areas in the Champerico estuary.

Electricity rates

Then in mid-April, PBI-Guatemala expressed concern about the massive police presence in the village of El Triunfo.

At that time, the National Network for the Defence of Food Sovereignty (REDSAG) tweeted: “We denounce the repression and intimidation experienced by El Triunfo due to the resistance they have had due to the high charges for electricity. At least 200 riot police are found on the outskirts of the community.”

Prensa Comunitaria has also noted: “According to the community, the villagers are asking for the nationalization of electricity, due to the poor service provided by companies such as Energuate.”

Sugar mills

And earlier this month, PBI-Guatemala posted: “Last week, we visited the criminalized defenders and members of the Retalhuleu Council of Communities (CCR). We also met with Governor Ignacio Arreaga Cifuentes to express our concern about the safety of these defenders and the advocate for the right to water.”

Significantly, the Guatemalan Sugar Association (ASAZGUA) has identified Canada as the top export destination for Guatemalan sugar. In 2020, it reported Guatemala exported 333,596 metric tons of sugar to Canada.

PBI-Guatemala began to accompany the CCR in April 2020 due to the risks and threats experienced by its members.

Ojibwe water protector Tara Houska shot with rubber bullets paid for by Calgary-based Enbridge Inc.

By
Brent Patterson
-

On August 2, Ojibwe water protector Tara Zhaabowekwe Houska tweeted: “Rubber bullets bought and paid for by Enbridge. Fuck Line 3. For the land, for the water, for the rice, for love of those to come, we stand.”

Houska is a citizen of Couchiching First Nation (near the Minnesota/Ontario border) who graduated from the University of Minnesota Law School in 2012 and founded the frontline resistance Giniw Collective in 2018 to stop the Line 3 pipeline from crossing Anishinaabe territory in northern Minnesota.

On August 1, the Giniw Collective posted: “Water protectors fighting Line 3 are enduring increased repression and violence from the state and local police.”

It adds: “For the first time in this campaign, police used pepper spray, mace and ‘less than lethal’ bullets on unarmed Water Protectors just south of Thief River Falls on July 29th at Red Lake River crossing at the Red Lake Treaty Camp. Twenty people were arrested and are being held in Pennington County Jail over the weekend including Tara Houska, other members of Giniw & Non-Native Accomplices.”

The water protectors arrested on July 29 were released on August 1.

The Calgary-based Enbridge Inc. 760,000 barrel per day Line 3 tar sands pipeline would run from Hardisty, Alberta to Superior, Wisconsin (just south of Duluth, Minnesota). 531 kilometres of the 1,659 long kilometre pipeline would cross Minnesota.

It would also cross over 3,400 acres of wild rice waters. Anishinaabe water protector Winona LaDuke has stated: “Wild rice is our life. Where there’s Anishinaabe there’s rice. Where there’s rice there’s Anishinaabe. It’s our most sacred food. It’s who we are.”

This past March, Emily Atkin reported in Heated: “Enbridge established a financial relationship with Minnesota law enforcement in May 2020, when the state Public Utilities Commission approved Line 3’s route permit. That permit required the oil giant to set up a special fund that would reimburse police responding to anything pipeline-related.”

That article highlights a reimbursement request from the police for “nearly $72,000 worth of riot gear and more than $10,000 in ‘less than lethal’ weapons and ammunition, including tear gas, pepper spray, bean bag and sponge rounds, flash-bang devices, and batons.”

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau approved the construction of the Line 3 pipeline in Canada in November 2016.

The Rainforest Action Network (RAN) has documented that the top five financiers of Enbridge are Canadian banks: TD Bank, Bank of Montreal, Scotiabank, RBC and CIBC. Collectively they have provided billions of dollars in financing to Enbridge.

You can follow the Giniw Collective on Twitter at @GiniwCollective.

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