Four more pipeline protesters convicted of contempt for violating TMX injunction near Kamloops airport

Photo: John McNamer/We, the Secwepemc/Facebook

Miranda Dick is arrested at a Trans Mountain work site near Kamloops Airport on Oct. 17, 2020.

Four more pipeline protesters were found guilty of contempt in B.C. Supreme Court on Friday after blocking access to a Trans Mountain work site near Kamloops Airport two years ago.

Miranda Dick, Heather Lamoureux, Susan Bibbings and Laura Zadorozny were convicted at the conclusion of a week-long trial at the Kamloops Law Courts.

The four protesters were arrested on Oct. 17, 2020, after police were called to an area near Tranquille Road and Airport Road, where demonstrators were blocking access to a work site gate.

B.C. Supreme Court Justice Shelley Fitzpatrick ruled Friday that the four were guilty of criminal contempt for violating the terms of a 2018 injunction — a court order that laid out a five-metre buffer zone around all Trans Mountain work sites in B.C.

“The actions of the accused were unlawful and in breach of the injunction when they placed themselves where they blocked the gate,” Fitzpatrick said in her judgement.

“The accused are not in any position to dictate to Trans Mountain how to conduct its operations to accommodate their unlawful actions.”

Court heard Trans Mountain security called police to the site after the protesters showed up. Mounties attended and read the protesters portions of the injunction.

Two of the accused — Zadorozny and Bibbings — covered their ears while police read the court order aloud. Fitzpatrick called their behaviour “childlike.”

“All of your actions were meant to prevent Trans Mountain from conducting its lawful activities,” the judge said.

“You were all well aware of the injunction but instead chose to blatantly ignore it. You violated the terms of the injunction seemingly in support of your own causes and in violation of the law.”

Bibbings stood up and walked out of the courtroom moments before Fitzpatrick found her guilty. The judge sent a deputy sheriff to follow her to make sure she returned.

Fitzpatrick and Bibbings were involved in a testy exchange in court on Wednesday while Bibbings gave evidence — the only one of the four accused to do so. In her decision on Friday, Fitzpatrick called Bibbings' testimony "inaccurate," describing it as "a creative recitation of the events."

After Friday's ruling, Dick took to social media to call the judgement a decision of a "kangaroo court."

“This was all to bring awareness to stopping Trans Mountain pipeline and to conduct ceremony as in our tradition and culture — to acknowledge land, water, air and the people," she said.

At trial, court heard 18 to 20 protesters were present when Trans Mountain security showed up at the site on the morning of the arrests. Police told everyone inside the buffer zone, which was marked by a line spray-painted on the ground, that they were violating the injunction. Those who still refused to leave were arrested.

This was the second of two contempt trials for protesters arrested during the same week at different Trans Mountain work sites in Kamloops. Last week, Fitzpatrick found four others guilty of contempt for violating the injunction on Mission Flats on Oct. 15, 2020.

Sentencing in both cases is expected to take place in late February.