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HRD Attack

1 Jan 2020

Wet'suwet'en defenders Wet'suwet'en community

Incident date
1 Jan 2020
Date accuracy
Year and Month Correct
Not applicable
Indigenous peoples
Intimidation & threats
Target: Group, Organisation or Institution
Location of Incident: Canada
TC Energy (formerly Transcanada) Canada Oil, gas & coal, Nuclear energy
LNG Canada Canada Oil, gas & coal
Other actors

Sources

In January 2019, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police arrested 14 indigenous activists protecting a proposed natural gap pipeline that would run through the traditional territory of B.C.'s Wet’suwet’en First Nation. The police were enforcing a December 2018 court injunction that gave Coastal GasLink (a subsidiary of TC Energy) access to the road where Wet’suwet’en people against the pipeline had erected a checkpoint. TC Energy says it signed agreements with all First Nations along the proposed pipeline route. However, hereditary chiefs have said that under Wet'suwet'en law the band councils don't have authority or jurisdiction over what happens in the nation's traditional territory and have "condemn[ed] the RCMP’s use of intimidation, harassment, and ongoing threats of forceful intervention and removal of the Wet’suwet’en land defenders from Wet’suwet’en unceded territory." On 31 December 2019, the Supreme Court of British Columbia ruled that Coastal GasLink suffered irreparable harm after protestors built blockades and camps to stop work crews from accessing parts of the natural gas pipeline and granted both an injunction and enforcement order. Wet’suwet’en Hereditary Chiefs representing all five clans of the Wet’suwet’en Nation rejected this decision and urged the province to "meaningfully uphold its commitment to implement UNDRIP, and to withdraw the RCMP from our territories where they oppress our people and criminalize our authority to the benefit of industry."