The Thompson-Nicola Regional District wants a meeting with B.C.’s public safety minister to express concerns about the Tiny House Warriors, a group of pipeline protestors who have been in Blue River since last year.
“This group is escalating. People were actually chasing children. When an eight-year-old asks his father, ‘Dad, what’s rape?’, our community has had enough,” TNRD Thompson Headwaters Blue River director Stephen Quinn told the board on Thursday, May 16.
The Tiny House Warriors are so named because part of their opposition to the proposed Trans Mountain pipeline expansion is to build tiny houses and place them on the planned pipeline route.
Last summer, protesters took to North Thompson River Park, near Clearwater, where they blocked traffic before being removed by Parks BC staff.
Subsequently, the group moved to Blue River, where Quinn said they have been ever since.
“They were not particularly aggressive last summer, more of a nuisance,” he told the TNRD board.
“Recently, it has escalated to the point where people are being harassed, children are being harassed by this group of people and nobody seems to want to do anything about it.”
Quinn said Trans Mountain’s security has said an injunction is not possible until construction of the pipeline expansion is underway. The project is awaiting final approvals from the federal government.
Quinn made a motion, upon recommendation from Kamloops MLAs Todd Stone and Peter Milobar, that the TNRD request a meeting with B.C. Public Safety Minister Mike Farnworth to “discuss the community public safety concerns.”
The motion carried.
Quinn told KTW the TNRD will ask that RCMP presence be boosted to reduce the alleged harassment.
KTW reached out to the Tiny House Warriors, but has not yet heard back.