RCMP enforcing gas pipeline construction

In British Columbia, the Unist’ot’en Camp has been operating for years to try to keep fossil fuel pipelines out of the traditional territory of the Wet’suwet’en Nation.

Anticipating RCMP enforcement of a court order to allow access for the construction of the Coastal GasLink natural gas pipeline to Kitimat, the Gidimt’en checkpoint was more recently established to protect unceded lands from pipeline construction.

That checkpoint has now been demolished with 14 arrests.

The Unist’ot’en Camp may be the next target for police action.

Rallies in support of the Wet’suwet’en have taken place in a number of Canadian cities, including Toronto, with more being planned.

All this highlights at least three major contradictions. The British Columbia government is trying to be a climate leader, while also trying to develop a liquified natural gas (LNG) industry which may cause more climate damage than coal once leakage from fracking and the rest of the gas network is taken into account. Canada is also simultaneously trying to develop fossil fuel export infrastructure while trying to play a productive role in global decarbonization. Thirdly, the Trudeau government is trying to undertake reconciliation with Canada’s Indigenous peoples, while simultaneously being willing to use the power of the state to force fossil fuel project construction in spite of Indigenous opposition.

Author: Milan

In the spring of 2005, I graduated from the University of British Columbia with a degree in International Relations and a general focus in the area of environmental politics. In the fall of 2005, I began reading for an M.Phil in IR at Wadham College, Oxford. Outside school, I am very interested in photography, writing, and the outdoors. I am writing this blog to keep in touch with friends and family around the world, provide a more personal view of graduate student life in Oxford, and pass on some lessons I've learned here.

62 thoughts on “RCMP enforcing gas pipeline construction”

  1. The Free Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC) protocol used by the Unist’ot’en is a request of permission to enter the lands of the traditional chiefs and matriarchs. Visitors are asked to identify themselves and their relationship to the hosts, as our ancestors did. Like a border crossing, the protocol questions make Unist’ot’en land a safe place. FPIC ensures peace and security on the territory.

    In ancient times and even today in canoe journeys, and community resistance building gatherings, there exist Protocols where visiting peoples have shown who they are in relation to asking permission to enter the Traditional Lands from the Traditional Chiefs and Matriarchs of the hosting lands.

    This is a living breathing assertion of the Traditional Laws of the Wet’suwet’en, which have been asserted via protocols like this on the lands for thousands of years, and renewed by today’s sovereigntists.

    Free Prior and Informed Consent is now also written into the United Nations Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP).

  2. Using violence to enforce a court order in favour of the pipeline hardly seems like a firm of reconciliation. To me it seems oppressive and humiliating. I expect better from Canadian leaders and especially our courts. A very disappointing day indeed.

  3. Prime Minister Trudeau and Premier Horgan still think expanding the fossil fuel industry is acceptable public policy, and Canada’s whole political and legal system has long maintained natural resource extraction as a top priority.

    A lot of the opposition to fossil fuel development has been motivated by the desire to protect particular places from spills, pipelines, and extraction projects like bitumen mines and fracking. It seems to be a lot harder for people to accept the long-term global position that it’s the proper functioning of fossil fuel projects that really endangers us.

  6. Who speaks for the Wet’suwet’en people? Making sense of the Coastal GasLink conflict

    …

    The legal reality is that band councils are a creature of the colonial Indian Act and have limited delegated authority tied to reserves. They do not have inherent authority, nor are they self-governing or an expression of self-determination. They cannot simply represent the proper rights holder – the broader group that shares a common language, culture and tradition – and typically there is more than one band within a given territory of an Indigenous people.

  9. Protests over B.C. pipeline halt Via Rail trains in Ontario

    Rail traffic on a key line in southern Ontario has been halted due to protests supporting the Wet’suwet’en Nation, whose members oppose a natural gas pipeline in British Columbia.

    Via Rail said trains departing from Ottawa and Montreal en route Toronto, and from Toronto to Ottawa and Montreal, have been interrupted “due to protesters blocking the tracks” near Belleville, Ont.

  10. Protesters block intersections in support of Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs

    VANCOUVER — Protesters blocked an intersection in East Vancouver near the entrance to the city’s port Thursday afternoon, calling their actions a “blockade” of the port in response to arrests along the planned route of the Coastal GasLink pipeline near Houston, B.C., Thursday morning.

    Those arrests were the result of RCMP enforcement of an injunction against Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs and their supporters, who have set up camps along the Morice West Forest Service Road where the liquefied natural gas pipeline is to be built.

  12. First Nation protests force VIA Rail to cancel trains between Toronto, Montreal and Ottawa

    TORONTO — Anti-pipeline protesters in Belleville, Ont. have forced VIA Rail to suspend service between Toronto, Montreal and Ottawa for the second day in a row.

    The protests, in support of the Wet’suwet’en First Nation, come after six people were arrested near a worksite in northern British Columbia where the RCMP had recently enforced an injunction against the Nation’s hereditary chiefs and their supporters.

    At issue is the $6.6-billion Coastal GasLink pipeline, which will deliver natural gas from the Dawson Creek area to a facility near Kitimat, B.C.

    The company behind Coastal GasLink has signed agreements with 20 elected First Nation councils along its 670-kilometre path with the exception of the Wet’suwet’en who say the project has no authority without their consent.

  14. More than 50 people arrested in enforcement of Vancouver Fraser Port Authority injunction

    Vancouver police have cleared a blockade at one of the entrances to Canada’s largest port. And Delta police have done the same at another entrance on Deltaport Causeway.

    That’s resulted in 43 arrests in Vancouver around the intersection of East Hastings Street and Clark Drive and 14 arrests at Deltaport.

    The police enforcement actions came in response to a B.C. Supreme Court injunction obtained last evening by the Vancouver Fraser Port Authority.

    Both the VPD and Delta Police have issued news releases saying that those arrested refused to comply with the court order.

    Around 5 a.m., about 40 officers arrived at the intersection of East Hastings Street and Clark Drive in Vancouver.

    This came after four days of protests by sympathizers of Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs, who oppose the $6.6-billion Coastal GasLink pipeline crossing their unceded territory.

  15. Welcome to the Canadian Rebellion of 2020, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Premier John Horgan
    by Charlie Smith on February 10th, 2020 at 10:42 PM

    This evening, the RCMP issued yet another news release suggesting that the situation in northern B.C. is under control.

    Seven people were arrested at the Unist’ot’en camp at the 66-kilometre point on the Morice West Forest Service Road.

    In Metro Vancouver, another 57 people were arrested today following shutdowns at Port of Vancouver operations in Vancouver and Delta.

    Meanwhile, a large group of demonstrators has gathered at the B.C. legislature in advance of tomorrow’s speech from the throne.

    And another group blocked a railway in Vancouver’s Strathcona neighbourhood going into the Port of Vancouver.

  18. Sit-in at Trudeau’s office takes place in solidarity with Wet’suwet’en

    Written by Abeer Almahdi & Rachel Habrih on February 11, 2020

    Across Canada, students are mobilizing in solidarity with the Wet’suwet’en Nation in British Columbia (BC) that is resisting a Coastal GasLink pipeline project. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) raided and arrested protestors late on Feb. 6, enforcing a Dec. 31 2019 Supreme Court ruling that granted Coastal GasLink an expanded injunction. On Feb. 7, McGill students organized a sit-in at Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s constituency office in Villeray.

    Catie Galbraith, co-Chair of the Indigenous Student Alliance and member of the Chickasaw Nation of Oklahoma, explained how the sit-in is part of larger resistance movements across Canada and the US.

    “We’re here sitting in today in solidarity with the Wet’suwet’en and all the other folks who are resisting the RCMP on their land, we’re here as part of a broader solidarity movement,” Galbraith said. “There’s been a number of Indigenous solidarity movements across Turtle Island, both in Canada and in the US, so we just wanted to do what little we can while we are […] here so far away [from B.C.]”

  20. Inside a protest movement: How climate activists are taking Wet’suwet’en fight from B.C. to Yonge Street

    VANCOUVER—Major railway shutdowns are being predicted around the country. There are sit-ins and street protests blocking major intersections in Toronto. Ports being tied up in Vancouver.

    How has an Indigenous group’s decade-long fight become a national cri de coeur?

    First there is the cause: The Wet’suwet’sen hereditary chiefs’ crusade against a proposed pipeline on their territory. But the second part of the answer lies with a national network of activists, who cut their teeth organizing Canada’s largest climate marches. They have helped turned the Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs’ message into a firestorm that politicians suddenly cannot ignore.

    By Tuesday, protest groups across Canada had blocked rail lines at six locations from British Columbia to Nova Scotia, forced a meeting with Carolyn Bennett, Canada’s Minister of Crown-Indigenous relations, by occupying her office for 24 hours, and attempted to block B.C.’s legislators from entering their Parliament building on the day of the speech from the throne.

  38. Alberta’s emissions could exceed cap if Teck oilsands mine is approved: federal government

    The province’s 100 million tonne cap on oilsands emissions could be exceeded by 2030 if the $20.6-billion Teck Frontier mine project is approved, Canada’s minister of environment and climate Jonathan Wilkinson is warning.

    In a Wednesday letter obtained by Postmedia to his provincial counterpart Jason Nixon, Wilkinson said there is “significant risk” of exceeding the cap by 30 per cent in a decade if all approved projects proceed and the Teck project gets the green light from federal cabinet.

    “When the Trans Mountain Expansion pipeline project was approved by our government, it was understood that Alberta would implement its 100 million tonne cap on oilsands emissions,” said Wilkinson in the letter. “We continue to encourage Alberta to follow through and fully implement its legislation to limit emissions to 100 million tonnes from the oilsands in 2030.”

    Wilkinson’s letter also raised concerns about measurement guidelines for the emissions cap in the absence of formal regulations. He said it was unclear whether refining emissions count towards the cap, but that the federal government currently excludes them from its calculations.

  43. A former B.C. treaty negotiator is calling out the provincial government for its role in the Wet’suwet’en conflict over the Coastal GasLink pipeline, saying the provincial and federal governments acknowledged long ago that the hereditary chiefs are the appropriate people to negotiate with on matters of rights and title.

    Brian Domney penned an open letter to B.C. Premier John Horgan last week and shared it with CBC News, writing that the conflict today is largely rooted in government “shopping around the First Nations world” to find the individuals or groups that will support its agenda.

    Domney, who is now retired, worked for the B.C. Ministry of Education in Indigenous education and spent the last seven years of his career with the B.C. Treaty Negotiation Office as the lead negotiator for British Columbia at the Wet’suwet’en treaty table.

    He said the current outrage coming from Indigenous Peoples who support the hereditary chiefs is justified.

    “I spent seven years negotiating Wet’suwe’ten rights and title on behalf of the provincial Crown and both the provincial and federal governments had agreed the Office of the Wet’suwet’en — that group representing the hereditary chiefs — had the authority to negotiate the rights and title of the Wet’suwet’en people at the treaty table,” he said in an interview with CBC News.

  49. But for some, Canada’s railways are a tangible example of the country’s history of pushing into Indigenous lands.

    Emma Jackson, an organizer with Climate Justice Edmonton who says she’s been watching the blockades closely, tweeted jokingly Wednesday that this may be the only time she celebrates cancelled trains. For her, targeting the railway means “shutting down the arteries of the settler state.”

    The railway was first built to “enable settlers to go and build their lives on Indigenous lands,” she said, adding that in that sense, rail lines are a fair target when pushing back against pipelines and moving resources through Indigenous land without consent.

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