B.C. port terminal among sites blocked in co-ordinated pro-Palestinian protests

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DELTA, B.C. — A blockade by pro-Palestinian protesters at a significant port terminal in Metro Vancouver disrupted operations for a number of hours earlier than dispersing on Monday.

Terminal operator GCT Canada mentioned the protesters’ actions had been unlawful and stopped container vehicles from accessing the Deltaport facility by blocking the Roberts Financial institution causeway for a number of hours.

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Photographs and movies despatched by the protesters, who known as the occasion the “Folks’s Picket for Palestine,” confirmed demonstrators standing on the causeway, waving Palestinian flags and chanting slogans corresponding to “victory could be very close to” as they blocked site visitors.

“I’m right here at this time to say that the Canadian authorities and Canadian companies, like GCT Deltaport, should take a stand and refuse to do enterprise with Israel,” protester Atiya Jaffar mentioned in an announcement.

The Port of Vancouver is the biggest port in Canada, and GCT Deltaport is the nation’s largest container terminal with capability to deal with 2.4 million customary 20-foot containers yearly.

GCT spokesman Marko Dekovic mentioned the corporate was not warned of the blockade beforehand and didn’t know why Deltaport was focused.

“There are two different terminals in Burrard Inlet, DP World Centerm and GCT Vanterm, in addition to DP World Fraser Surrey that weren’t blockaded,” Dekovic mentioned in a written response.

Dekovic mentioned Monday’s blockade was at one level “severely impacting” the terminal’s potential to function however declined to debate the port’s restoration capabilities “as it could give the protesters different concepts on easy methods to negatively influence the operation.”

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Commerce and transport infrastructure specialists say whereas the disruption from such a blockade is inconvenient for truckers caught on the terminal gates, it’s unlikely to trigger severe backlogs.

“The cargo in containers just isn’t so perishable or useful {that a} day’s delay makes a distinction,” mentioned Simon Fraser College professor of city research Peter Corridor. “A blockage must go on for some time earlier than it has considerable influence.”

College of British Columbia Sauder college of enterprise affiliate professor Werner Antweiler agreed that the influence of such a blockade must be restricted, regardless of Deltaport seeing about eight trains and three,500 vehicles shifting out and in each day based mostly on a 2021 research.

However Antweiler mentioned a much bigger query could also be on the opportunity of comparable disruptions from protest blockades sooner or later.

“Some provinces corresponding to Alberta have adopted legal guidelines to guard vital infrastructure, B.C. hasn’t.” he mentioned in a written response.

“Protest is a authorized proper, however a blockade just isn’t. If the protest is deemed an unlawful blockade that disturbs the peace, it might _ and may — be eliminated.”

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The Delta Police Division mentioned earlier that its officers had been on the scene and had been working to revive use of the roadway.

Protesters mentioned in an announcement that the demonstration was co-ordinated with protests world wide aimed toward blocking “main choke factors within the economic system” to trigger “essentially the most financial influence.”

Different protests on Monday included one in Chicago the place pro-Palestinian demonstrators blocked a freeway main to 3 terminals on the metropolis’s O’Hare Worldwide Airport, briefly stopping site visitors into one of many world’s busiest airports and inflicting complications for vacationers.

The B.C. protest contingent mentioned greater than 100 demonstrators participated within the blockade.

This report by The Canadian Press was first revealed April 15, 2024.

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