Having spent the better part of this year covering a wildly succesful, and eventually victorious, social movement in Quebec, I have something of an idea what apprehended victory feels like. Spending the last several weeks in B.C. in the lead up to Defend Our Coast, I have to say, it's starting to feel a lot like Quebec.
As much as a protest, today's Defend Our Coast action at the B.C. Legislature in Victoria at 11 a.m. should be a victory party. Billed as the largest act of civil disobedience in B.C. history, activists will be celebrating their inevitable triumph over the as good as dead Enbridge pipeline. Far more important than laying the final nail in Northern Gateway's coffin, the thousands converging on Victoria will be sending a clear message that they are done with doing nothing. Indeed, there has been far too much nothing done already.
They will serve notice, to legislators on both sides of the aisle (I'm looking at you, Adrian "fracking is fine" Dix) that this is only the beginning. We're mad as hell, and we're not going to take it anymore. No Enbridge, no Kinder Morgan, no fracking. And that's only the beginning.
We stand at a momentous occasion in the history of this country. From coast to coast, a popular movement of a scope and breadth rarely witnessed is building. This week alone will boast today's action, a decentralized follow up day of action on Wednesday at MLA offices and then the kick off of PowerShift 2012. I'll write more on Powershift later this week, but it looks to me to be the most important gathering of progressive minds in years, and I strongly urge you to get there, if you can.
My fondest hope is that today is the beginning of people in B.C. learning the central lesson of the Quebec strike: together, we are unstoppable.
If you're anywhere near Victoria, you need to come, and be a part of making history. This could be the beginning of an unprecedented movement, and do you really want to have to explain to your kids why you weren't there?
You can expect a full review of the action in these pages Tuesday. Also, as always, I'll be live tweeting from the demo, and you can follow me at @EthanCoxMTL. Another good account to follow is @SocialCoastVic, a great Victoria organization that seeks to inject social justice issues into the environmental movement.
I'm excited to be here, and be able to be part of such an exciting action. I hope to see you there!
