Access to YVR airport expected to be blocked by protest Monday afternoon

Photo: Extinction Rebellion

An environmental activist group will be disrupting traffic at Vancouver International Airport on Monday afternoon as part of a two-week series of climate protests.

Extinction Rebellion’s Vancouver chapter plans to block Grant McConachie Way, the main road leading in and out of YVR airport, as a way to call on the B.C. government to take urgent action on the climate emergency.

According to a Twitter post, the goal of the protest is to “make ending fossil fuel subsidies a national priority.”

The group will assemble at Miller Neighbourhood Park at 4:30 p.m. before making their way to the protest location.

Simultaneously, Extinction Rebellion’s Toronto chapter will also be disrupting the Toronto Pearson Airport for the same reason.

This will be the ninth consecutive protest by the group in Vancouver, which has seen 21 arrests so far.

“The chief executives of the airports are guilty of being complicit in a mass extermination project being carried out by the Canadian government, known to us as the climate emergency,” says Zain Haq, an organizer of Extinction Rebellion, in a press release.

“We will not stand by this, they can arrest us, put us in prison, whatever it takes.”