State NDPs should be at the forefront of fighting climate change, says leadership candidate

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Angali Apadurai wants BC NDP to lead the way when it comes to fighting climate change.

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Liberal Democratic Party Executive Candidate Gives a Lecture A rally protesting the construction of the Trans Mountain Pipeline extension on Saturday in Burnaby.

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“I will fight to bring in the new energy and leadership needed to become a climate leader,” Apadurai told dozens of attendees.

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“Our priorities must lie in the various relationships between our economy, society and the land we live in.”

Apadurai, 32, launched a leadership campaign for the NDP, pledging to shut down Site C and the Trans-Mountain Pipeline and end government subsidies from fossil fuel companies. She has reinvested funds allocated to these projects into employment transition strategies, shifting workers from the fossil fuel industry to the green economy.

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“We need to understand that our economy is inseparable from the climate and the health of our planes,” she said.

Rally organizer Alison Bodine called Apadurai a “major activist” against the Trans Mountain Pipeline, and having her at the event will heighten debate on the pipeline and other important issues. said it would help climate problem.

“We want to hold every leader accountable for their position on Trans Mountain,” Bodine said.

Apadurai spoke with Squamish Elder Robert Nahanne and Indigenous salmon teacher Tim Henry at Saturday’s meeting

Bodine said the rally was a non-partisan event, with members including Protect the Planet, stopTMX, Burnaby residents opposing the Kinder Morgan expansion, and the climate convergence grassroots climate justice organization she hosted. Organized by several organizations opposing the pipeline.

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Burnaby’s salmon-ridden Stoney Creek is slated to be traversed by the TMX pipeline, and Bodine said Climate Convergence observers have already seen construction work involving the clearing of trees and destruction of the creek’s natural habitat. It is said that there is

“We will return to the Stoney Creek area and monitor the construction of Trans Mountain very closely,” she said.

The rally took place after Trans Mountain finished excavating a 2.6-kilometer underground tunnel connecting Burnaby Terminal and Westridge Marine Terminal. The company calls it “major milestone” under construction of the expansion project.

Once the excavation is complete, the company said it will begin installing three pipelines through the tunnel.

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According to Apadurai, her support base is in the fight against climate and pipeline expansion, including members of the grassroots party and Wet’suwet’en hereditary chieftain who opposes the $6 billion, 670-kilometer coastal GasLink pipeline. said to be among the people in focus.

Appadurai is the Campaign Director for the Climate Emergency Unit, a project of the David Suzuki Institute. She ran for the federal NDP in her 2021 election, narrowly losing her Granville constituency to Vancouver by her 258 votes to liberal Talib her Noum Hamed, who was the country’s closest contestant.

With file by Katie DeRosa.

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