by Steve Kidd / Penticton Western News

Grand Chief Stewart Phillip was true to his word as he put himself forward to be arrested this morning on Burnaby Mountain, standing up in protest to Kinder Morgan’s proposed pipeline route.

“I have a duty to grandchildren to be arrested here,” Phillip is reported as saying by Derrick O’Keefe in a tweet from the mountain. “”I’m here to be arrested … to show our vehement opposition to pipeline.”

Phillip, president of the Union of BC Indian Chiefs was arrested at about noon [yesterday], when he joined a group of protestors marching on a borehole site and was taken away by RCMP.

Phillip said he and the UBCIC stand in solidarity with the First Nations protesting the pipeline route through their traditional territories. He spoke to the Western News earlier, when taking part in a rally at the BC Supreme Court in support of protesters undergoing a lawsuit from Kinder Morgan.

“We have to fight the battles that need to be fought and certainly this is one of them. The whole issue of climate change and global warming is real and as you’re aware, I have 14 grandchildren and I am very concerned about what the future holds for them in terms of the environment,” said Phillip at that time. “We have to undertake these challenges and speak out, be very vocal and visible in our opposition to these proposals that are driven by corporate greed.”