HALIFAX – As protesters in several Canadian cities blocked bridges today to bring attention to the climate crisis, police were surprised and dismayed to discover that many of the protesters were high ranking officers in fossil fuel extraction companies.

“After my third arrest for protesting pipelines, I realized that the only way I could continue to agitate for a habitable planet was if I were somehow above the laws created to protect monied interests and stifle dissent. And there is no one in our society more above the law than extraction CEOs,” said Hugh Anders, environmental protester and the chief executive officer of Oily Oil Oil Co. “Once I created an oil company, boom, no more arrests.”

“The police have to call me ‘sir’ now, too.”

More and more climate activists are creating oil, gas, and mining companies to provide themselves with cover so they can continue to protest the government’s lack of meaningful action on the climate emergency without the threat of arrest or government oversight.

“I used to be on a CSIS watch-list for my work to keep our environment livable, but ever since I created my own oil company, CSIS works with me,” said Joyce O’Conner, CEO and sole employee of Bitumen In Tights Ltd. “They’ve stopped monitoring my phone calls and even give me a heads up when protests are starting near my company headquarters. Of course, I already knew about them, because the headquarters is my apartment and I start those protests.”

“Turns out all it took to get the government working with me to try to save our biosphere was to convince them I’m trying to destroy it. And the millions in taxpayer funded subsidies I can apply for now that the authorities assume I’m treating our atmosphere like an open sewer will definitely come in handy.”

Law enforcement officers are not happy about the trend, with several complaining that these protesters are unfairly taking advantage of a system designed to only allow powerful, wealthy tycoons to operate with impunity and contempt for the law.

“It’s a real shame, these protesters are making a mockery of the sacred Western belief that titans of industry are exempt from the rules everyone else has to follow,” lamented Constable Kevin Jones.

“But what can we do? If we arrest even one of these so-called CEOs for trespassing or blocking traffic, it might open the floodgates, and we’ll have to arrest all of the CEOs. Some of them for literally opening actual floodgates and releasing toxic sludge into our water tables.”

While many white environmentalists are enthusiastically incorporating to avoid arrests, people of colour have, for some reason, found far less success with the strategy.