Last Sunday, I visited the "Defend our Coast Toronto Solidarity Event." There weren't many people at first, but once Olivia Chow came into the park on her bike, people started to gather. Olivia started the event with having people singing. She then had a spokesperson from Greenpeace talk about the pipeline and its potential impacts.
After the speeches, papers with a picture of a pipe was given to people participating in the event. The pipe pictures were used to display people's messages and each person was suppose to hold up their pipe while standing beside another two people holding up their pipes. The idea was to make a pipeline with people's messages. I did not have the chance to take a picture of the people in line with their pipes, but there were a few others there that did along with videos. Olivia said that she would send the pictures and videos to Harper.
There were stickers and information flyers being handed around during the event. The larger flyer had good facts as to why the pipeline shouldn't be built. I did not know that the current running pipelines had 804 spills between 1999 and 2012, but then, I would have wanted more information on the size of the spills and how serious their discharges were.
I didn't stay for the latter half of the event, because I had a meeting later in the day. I have never been to a solidarity event before, so I did not know what to expect. I was wondering if it was more like a forum, but it turned out to be a series of short activities. I wonder if this solidarity event will have an impact to the pipeline construction decision? Guess I'll never know.
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