A 'Hundred Voices of Conscience' urgent action is being called for Thursday morning, February 21st, meeting at the Shell Station at Spencer's Rd. and the Trans-Canada Highway at 7 am. Pledge-makers and their supporters will meet at this time for final action planning and legal briefing.

Hundred Voices is a campaign of non-violent civil resistance aimed at halting further construction of the Bear Mountain development and its interchange and preventing unneccessary destruction of the natural world.

Over three days a large number of pledges for peaceful direct have been signed and with your participation we can continue to halt work on the interchange.

To have some sense of what kind of action we can co-ordinate for this day it would be appreciated if pledge-makers could RSVP; along with any questions regarding this action (hundredvoice@gmail.com). Legal info/support and child care will be provided to those who need it.

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Hundred Voices of Conscience


Call to Mass, Peaceful, Direct Action

Against the Bear Mountain Development and
Further Construction of the Interchange


This past week's paramilitary-style police operation
sanctioned by the City of Langford, to circumvent the
growing legitimate public opposition to the Bear
Mountain interchange, was a heavy-handed assault
against land, local democracy and current, widespread
ecological consciousness.

At a time of unprecedented ecological crisis, it is
the moral obligation of the entire human community to
take immediate action to prevent unnecessary harm and
destruction to the natural world and all its inhabitants;
and to reverse developments that systematically destroy
the life-support systems of the earth for profit.


Hundred Voices of Conscience, inspired by the
Ghandian tradition of mass civil resistance, is a call:

1. To gain the pledge of a minimum of 100 conscientious
citizens who will peacefully, simultaneously and with dignity,
incur the risk of arrest, to cross police lines surrounding the
forest of the proposed Bear Mountain interchange;

2. To intervene between the land and earth-moving
machinery;

3. And to act on our civic duty to prevent unnecessary
harm to the delicate ecosystems around Spencer's Pond
and the Langford Lake caves; and to prevent further
build-out of the Bear Mountain development on Spaet (Skirt)
Mountain, shared traditional territories of Coast Salish peoples.

We seek solidarity with like-minded individuals
willing to make a commitment to a community initiative
of mass non-violent direct action at an undisclosed
time and place. Legal training and support will be provided.


If you wish to be one of the Hundred Voices of
Conscience, please sign the pledge and arrange to return
it by emailing hundredvoice@gmail.com as soon as possible.

PLEDGE

I pledge to participate in the Hundred Voices of
Conscience to peacefully take a stand of non-violent
civil resistance to the unwise, destructive and unjust
construction of the Bear Mountain Development and
interchange.

By so doing, I agree to the Hundred Voices of
Conscience Code of Conduct.



Hundred Voices of Conscience – Code of Conduct

1. I refrain from any action that harms or damages
nature or property.

2. I treat everyone I meet with friendliness and
openness about my intentions and motivations for
participating in this action.

3. I look after the safety of my fellow resisters.

4. I expect to be treated with dignity and respect –
free from harassment, harm and injury by all who I encounter.


Name_____________________________
Date _____________________________
Phone_____________________________
Email______________________________


Email hundredvoice@gmail.com as soon as possible.

Maybe you don't know what your are saying. It seems like you come from a good place with what you say so I do not want to critisize you, but what you say about shorter commutes and all that crap is highway industry propaganda and not even relevant to this interchange. Ok, so 18,000 cars go through that intersection every day, and maybe a third of them stop at the light for 20 seconds at a time, and yes that is idling. But most of the congestion happens at the Malahat, where the road narrows to two lanes. The interchange will make this worse because it will allow Bear Mountain to build out another 5000 or more units and that means (these are wealthy people who would never ride a bus) much more traffic. So we're trying t9o stop this development from building out by stopping this interchange and therefore slowing traffic down and keeping more traffic on the road.
Secondly, yes, the logging companies did log it all to hell, but now it's going to be paved over. What's worse. And when the zoning changed from forest reserve land, it removed all sorts of restrictions and meant that the logging companies could clearcut it beofre they developed it, which they couldnt do under TFL regulations. They are not getting maximum space out of the land out there and it is the worst kind of unsustainable sprawl. Besides, it doesn't matter if they were building cob houses and ecovillages out there, this is a sacred mountaib to five different First Nations. This is unceded First nations territory and has sacred caves and burial sites. Maybe you think that the amazon is worth protecting more, but try telling that to the Tsartlip people and Saanich and Esquilmalt and Songhees people whose grandparents are buried up there.
Maybe you have chosen your battles wisely and are actually doing something to stop logging on a global scale. If so, right on. But your comment triggers me because the vast majority of people who critisize our choice of target do so from the comfort of their couch where they only action they take to save forests is write letters, emails and encourage McDonalds boycotts. We put our life on the line for something close to home that has more meaning than you have yet to realize. We should be able to without people telling us we should be saving something else. You go save something else, we will continue to work on what is important to us and we shall call it diversity of tactics.
And finally, the people in the Bear Mountain ghetto have places to live, in Calgary and Dubai and other rich places. The majority of the homes on the mountain are second homes. In North America this wealthy vacation home trend is eating up land and destroying sacred sites. These battles are being fought by people who as indigenous people have a family duty to protect sacred sites, and as their neighbours we are showing solidarity by helping them. Please educate yourselfs about this development and all the other developments that it represents. Fly off to Brazil if you want, but if you want to do something close to home, get on the number 50 right now and lock down for something very important.