CALGARY, Alberta – The city of Calgary was brought to a screeching halt this morning as protesters erected blockade barriers on both the eastern and western ends of 7th Ave, which encapsulates all Calgary Transit C-Train movement within the city’s busy downtown core.
The blockades, at 7th St NW and McLeod Trail SE, were quickly assembled by the crowd of reprobates around 4 o’clock in the morning. Consisting mostly of wooden palettes and old geological maps, the barricades, while simple in structure, were quite captivating in the complexity and futility of the message they carried.
The group of protesters, largely comprising Calgary-based, oil and gas geologists, engineers, landmen, and executives, has blockaded the downtown core in opposition to the City of Calgary’s property tax increases, and rumoured revival of the PNG Operator Urban Royalty proposal.
While largely peaceful in nature, the blockade was undoubtedly inspired by the recent events surrounding other conflicts around the country. This particular protest also suffers from the same mob mentality as other incidents as well, with many joining in to protest issues other than the original issue of excessive taxation.
An eye-witness report recounts a geologist holding a sign that read, “Geologists Need More Crayons,” or the sandwich board worn by an unemployed reservoir engineer demanding “More Perm! More Perm!”
“I could see them from the +15 walkway near the Nexen building, for the most part they just looked lost. At least one geologist choose to streak down the inactive C-Train line with her beard trailing between her legs with a some sort of map and scribbles across her back. IT was strange, but certainly not completely out of the norm.” – Normand Hefferweizen, eye witness
Within the group however there were 50 or 60 protesters huddled around a table of Doritos and Smarties, claiming they, “were just here for the snacks and marijuana provided by Weederford Cannabis, man.”
The focus of this blockade, which is currently trapping more than 1200 Calgarians downtown, seems to be the result of recent property tax increases on the office tower properties in the downtown core. While not directly effected, the protester we interviewed claimed it has had an adverse effect on her working standards at Bendovus Energy.
“They told us due to rising costs we had to make sacrifices. I’ve lost the flavoUred Keurig pods, my adjustable desk was sold at auction so now I stack my screens on old Calculus textbooks. We had to say goodbye to 3-PLY THURSDAYS! They made all the bathrooms gender neutral, then closed one on each floor to save water and cleaning supplies. Now I share a bathroom with this geophysicist, Roger, and he’s just straight-up disgusting. this madness has got to stop. The City has to drop the tax rate so I can have proper amenities again! – Julianda Westerhouse, Activist and Staff Development Engineer, Bendovus
Calgary Police have not yet interfered with the protesters, as most of them are still laughing at the geologists’ Tilley hats and zip-off pant shorts. There have been 3 reported anti-protest protesters confronting the oil and gas minded group, but all 3 were apparently bored nearly to death by mid-level operations executives in the group, and required immediate transport to Foothills Hospital.
