NDP supporters attending an upcoming fundraising dinner in Esquimalt this week may want to prepare themselves for a few dozen uninvited guests.
On Friday, four local environmental groups — Social Environmental Alliance, Rise and Resist, Youth For Climate, and Friends of Carmanah Walbran — will be hosting a “peaceful picket line and rally” called Hands off the Sooke Hills Horgan!, which focuses on protecting the Sooke Hills and surrounding forests and BC’s environment at large.
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“We plan to disrupt this event, to draw attention to the premier and his abysmal environmental record and to demonstrate boisterous public opposition to this government’s assaults on forests, waterways, wild salmon and the climate,” protest organizers said in a statement.
While the groups’ main goal is to prevent real estate speculation from taking over the Sooke Hills and surrounding forests, the organizers have extended an invitation to all grassroots environmental, social, climate justice campaigns to attend the event and voice their disapproval of the NDP’s “half-ass environmental measures”.
Premier Horgan is the keynote speaker at the $100-a-plate fundraising dinner on Friday, according to the organizers.
“Behind closed doors and with a complete lack of transparency, Horgan and his gang plot out potential ’emergency routes’ through protected forests and watersheds that provide our drinking water and contain remnants of old growth,” adds the environmental groups.
See also: CRD opposes new highway through Sooke Hills Regional Park as alternate Malahat route
“We are told to wait until the ‘studies and reports’ have been completed, something voters never requested in the first place. Highway snarl-ups are used as pretexts for suburban sprawl. Enough is enough!”
This rally comes just days after Rise and Resist and Extinction Rebellion Vancouver Island held a protest on Douglas Street on Monday afternoon.
Hands off the Sooke Hills Horgan!
- When: Friday, April 26th, 5:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m.
- Where: Esquimalt United Church, 500 Admirals Road
