WATCH: Jordan Armstrong reports from the Toast the Coast event
In 1970, Jane Fonda was arrested while marching with indigenous people during the occupation of Fort Lawton in Seattle, Wa.
Forty-five years later, the Academy Award-winning actress says she’s willing to be placed in handcuffs again while defending British Columbia’s coast from oil tankers.
“I have a hit TV show now. If I get arrested it’ll bring even more attention to the issue,” Fonda deadpanned in an interview with The Canadian Press. “I hope I get arrested.”
Fonda was in town to give a speech at Toast the Coast, an event organized by Greenpeace at Jericho Beach to draw attention to the possible dangers of increased pipelines and tankers in British Columbia.
Fonda said she stands with local First Nations who have opposed Kinder Morgan‘s proposed Trans Mountain pipeline expansion, which would lay almost 1,000 kilometres of new pipe along an existing line from Edmonton to Burnaby, B.C.
“I feel totally committed with every ounce of my being to stopping Bil Oil from doing what they’re doing,” said Fonda during an interview with Global BC. “Both drilling in the Arctic and piping tar sand oil across the land into this coast, which is so pristine.”
WATCH: Jane Fonda attended Greenpeace Canada’s Toast the Coast event to protest oil development. Fonda explained to Global News the day before why this cause is so dear to her heart.
If approved by the National Energy Board, the project would triple the pipeline’s bitumen-carrying capacity to 890,000 barrels a day and increase the number of tankers in Burrard Inlet seven-fold.
The 77-year-old star said she was inspired by Canadian author Naomi Klein’s latest book, “This Changes Everything,” which targets climate change as the era’s most pressing issue.
“It put everything in such clear relief, it explained everything,” said Fonda. “I went from saying, ‘you know something, we don’t deserve to survive’ to ‘that’s a bad attitude and I’m going to go back to the barricades.'”
READ MORE: Trans Mountain tank farm risk downplayed: report
She said development of the Alberta oil sands must stop, adding that she hopes Canadians signal their opposition to the industry at the next federal election.
Fonda said she wants to be on the “right side of history” when it comes to fossil fuels.
The Toast the Coast event took place Saturday from 4 p.m. to 10 p.m. at Jericho Beach.
-with files from Global News
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