Daily BrewGreenpeace Canada hangs banners from cross while European cohorts occupy nuclear power plant
Environmental activists in Montreal successfully perpetuated the age-old practice of climbing on things and hanging banners on Tuesday, when 10 members of Greenpeace hung massive banners from the city's Mount Royal Cross deriding Canada's logging industry.
The act of "activist vandalism" took aim at Resolute Forest Products, a company involved in "destructive logging practices" in the defenseless Boreal Forest.
Images of the banners speak for themselves, but to understand the artistic vision of the endeavor, here is Greenpeace's take:
Two giant scales were suspended from the arms of the cross: the heavy side with Resolute’s logo, and on the lighter side, trees representing the forest and the communities and wildlife that depend on it. On the vertical section of the cross, a 12 meter banner asks the question: “Justice?”
According to the environmentalist group, Resolute logs in First Nations' territory without consent, destroys critical caribou habitat and recently lost three of it Forest Stewardship Council certificates (which identify products coming from responsibly managed forests).
A company spokesman said the company was ethical and responsible, telling CBC News the certificates had been suspended and that a dispute with First Nations groups was being mediated by the Quebec government.
[ Related: Canada’s seal hunt still fighting public perception as WTO reconsiders European Union ban ]
Also on Tuesday, European Greenpeace activists breached a French nuclear power plant and hung banners that read "Stop Risking Europe." As many as 60 protesters took over the plant and forced French police into a standoff. It was a bit more serious than Montreal's "Justice?" banner, to say the least.
Greenpeace has made a custom of hanging banners from large Canadian structures as part of their protests. Last year, a group of activists scaled Montreal's Biosphere to hang a banner calling for the release of Russian activists... who were arrested while scaling an Arctic drilling platform.
And early this month it was reported that RCMP security costs nearly quadrupled after Greenpeace activists picked apart security measures on Parliament Hill in 2009, hanging several banners from several buildings deriding the government's environmental efforts.
On that count, perhaps we should be grateful. Greenpeace activists only intended to hang banners, but managed to point out security flaws that could have been abused by more nefarious types.
Who knows that those banners would have said?
Want to know what news is brewing in Canada?
Follow @MRCoutts on Twitter.
