Just about one year ago, ten thousand people marched behind Grand Chief Stewart Phillip and Indigenous leaders from across Turtle Island to make concrete our commitment to stop the disastrous Trans Mountain pipeline and tanker project. 

That day, we built Kwekwecnewtxw, a Coast Salish Watch House. Structures like Kwekwecnewtxw have been used here for thousands of years to watch for enemies and protect communities. 

Over the next 6 months we held dozens of actions and hundreds were arrested putting their bodies on the line at Kinder Morgan's tank farm and tanker terminal. 

Our unity and resolve forced the Texas-based Kinder Morgan to exit the pipeline and tanker project expansion altogether.

But instead of letting the project die a natural death, Trudeau and his ministers frantically worked to buy it outright, at a premium, with a major court case still to be settled.

Kinder Morgan's shareholders approved the $4.5 billion sale just minutes before the Federal Court of Appeal quashed the approval.

Since then our struggle has taken on a new shape. Instead of accepting the court's decision and putting an end to the ill-conceived project, Trudeau directed the NEB to "reconsider" its assessment. Sure enough, after a rushed process to include marine impacts, the NEB once again recommended that the pipeline and tanker project was in Canada's "national interest". 

Now Canadian politics is boiling over with revelations from Jody Wilson-Raybould laying bare the cosy relationship between the Canadian government and certain large corporations - it is hard to tell where SNC Lavalin begins and the Canadian government ends.

We've been saying it for years about Kinder Morgan - the federal bodies responsible for overseeing large projects are captured by industry and the highest priority of the Canadian government is to protect them - not Canadians.

As the climate crisis intensifies, the calls to action will get louder and the importance of grassroots movement work will be even more crucial. Together we will build a new world, a world where our children and grandchildren will thrive. It will not be easy. But together we can make it happen - and we WILL make it happen. 

We will not stop. We will not give up. This struggle is life or death for the planet and for our coast. It is a privilege to be on this journey with you.