[News] Ignoring the Links Between "Man Camps" and Violence Against Indigenous Women

[Anti-Imperialist News]

https://orinocotribune.com/ignoring-the-links-between-man-camps-and-violence-against-indigenous-women/ 



  Ignoring the Links Between "Man Camps" and Violence Against Indigenous
  Women

February 17, 2020
------------------------------------------------------------------------

*Canada’s National Inquiry on Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women 
found “substantial evidence” natural resource projects increase violence 
against Indigenous women and children and two-spirit individuals. Yet, 
British Columbia ignored this link.*

By Carol Linnitt – February 15, 2020

Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs are requesting a judicial review of a 
decision made by the B.C. Environmental Assessment Office to extend the 
environmental certificate for the 670-kilometre Coastal GasLink pipeline.

The request, filed Feb. 3, argues an extension should not have been 
granted in light of more than 50 instances of non-compliance with the 
conditions of Coastal GasLink permits and in light of the findings of 
Canada’s National Inquiry on Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women.

The inquiry found there is “substantial evidence” that natural resource 
projects increase violence against Indigenous women and children and 
two-spirit individuals.

A final report released from the National Inquiry Committee in June 
found “work camps, or ‘man camps,’ associated with the resource 
extraction industry are implicated in higher rates of violence against 
Indigenous women at the camps and in the neighboring communities.”

“Increased crime levels, including drug- and alcohol-related offences, 
sexual offences, and domestic and ‘gang’ violence, have been linked to 
‘boom town’ and other resource development contexts. … There is an 
urgent need to consider the safety of Indigenous women consistently in 
all stages of project planning,” the report states.

Concerns about Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls are on 
visible display at the Unist’ot’en camp, located along the intended 
route of the Coastal GasLink pipeline, where for the past months red 
dresses — symbols of the epidemic of violence against Indigenous women 
and girls — hang on signposts or dangle in the air from lines of 
suspended wire.

Karla Tait, psychologist and director of clinical services at the 
Unist’ot’en Healing Centre, said the idea came about when the 
Wet’suwet’en learned of a proposed 400-person worker camp planned for 
just 13 kilometres from the healing centre.

“We put a call out for red dresses to be sent here, inviting anyone to 
send red dresses in honor of any missing and murdered Indigenous women 
in their lives and to help us raise awareness and visibility as Coastal 
GasLink workers were traveling into our territory and doing 
pre-construction work,” Tait, who is a Unist’ot’en house member, told 
The Narwhal.

RELATED CONTENT: Canada: Protests go Mainstream as Support for 
Wet’suwet’en Pipeline Fight Widens 
<https://orinocotribune.com/canada-protests-go-mainstream-as-support-for-wetsuweten-pipeline-fight-widens/>

The RCMP are currently enforcing a court injunction against members of 
the Wet’suwet’en and supporters occupying cultural camps in areas of 
Wet’suwet’en traditional territory that prevent work along the Coastal 
GasLink pipeline route. Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs, representing all 
five clans of the Wet’suwet’en nation, argue the pipeline was permitted 
without their consent as legal custodians of the nation’s territory 
under Wet’suwet’en law and as recognized by Canada’s Supreme Court in a 
1997 ruling known as the Delgamuukw decision.

Chiefs issued an eviction notice to Coastal GasLink workers in early 
January and after weeks of tense waiting, RCMP began arresting 
individuals within a designated exclusion zone, which extends from an 
RCMP checkpoint to beyond the Unist’ot’en camp, on Feb. 6.

RCMP officers arrived at the Unist’ot’en camp, located at the 
66-kilometre mark along the Morice River Forest Road, on Saturday 
morning following two days of arrests while dismantling Wet’suwet’en 
camps along the pipeline route.

Wet’suwet’en at the camp have refused to comply with an RCMP request to 
surrender.

Unist’ot’en camp founder and spokesperson, Tsake’ze Howilhkat, who also 
goes by Freda Huson, said the camp is located 66 kilometres from the 
infamous Highway of Tears, notorious for its connection to the 
disappearance and murder of Indigenous women in B.C., many of whom she 
knew personally.

“Some of them are family, extended family, cousins and children. The 
latest one was our cousin’s daughter-in-law, left a one-year-old baby 
behind,” Huson told The Narwhal.

She recounted the experience of being on a search party for Frances 
Brown, who went missing while mushroom picking with her partner. The 
RCMP called off their search after five days.

“I, with many others, was out there for 35 to 37 days, every day from 
seven in the morning until seven at night we searched,” Huson said. “We 
were popping Tylenol because our bodies hurt so bad but we kept going 
out every day searching and we didn’t find any clues.”

Huson said she is angry the RCMP will deploy enormous resources to 
enforce an injunction against Indigenous people defending their 
territory but not to investigate the murder of Indigenous women or 
locate missing women or their remains.

“Maybe some of them are out here, somewhere,” Huson said of the area 
surrounding the Unist’ot’en camp. “Because of lot of them went missing 
and they could have easily went on these back roads. A lot of this 
territory was hardly used, so they could have been brought out here 
somewhere.”

There are 14 work camps planned to support the construction of the 
Coastal GasLink pipeline. Nine are already in operation, with additional 
camps expected to be built in 2020, according to a spokesperson with TC 
Energy, formerly TransCanada, which owns the pipeline.

*Coastal GasLink permit extended without due process: lawyer*
Dinï ze’ Smogelgem, Hereditary Chief of the Laksamshu (Fireweed and Owl) 
clan said the Wet’suwet’en’s application for judicial review of Coastal 
GasLink certificate extension also points out the connection between the 
project and threats to women.

“My cousins are listed among the murdered and missing women and girls,” 
he said in a statement announcing the case. “B.C. must not be allowed to 
bend the rules to facilitate operations that are a threat to the safety 
of Wet’suwet’en women.”

Caily DiPuma, legal counsel for the Wet’suwet’en with Woodward and Co., 
said the request for judicial review is about questioning the integrity 
of the environmental assessment process.

Coastal GasLink has not substantially started construction within the 
five years of its environmental certificate, granted in 2014, as is 
mandated in the permit. The company requested the Environmental 
Assessment Office grant a permit extension.

When considering a permit extension, the office is required to consider 
new significant and adverse impacts of the project and consider a 
proponent’s compliance in the five years in which they’ve been 
operating, DiPuma told The Narwhal.

“The EAO didn’t do either of those things properly,” she said.

“We know there is a correlation between camps of workers, what are 
called ‘man camps,’ and violence against Indigenous girls and women and 
queer people,” DiPuma said, adding that the Calls to Action from the 
National Inquiry direct decision-makers “like the EAO to undertake an 
assessment of gender-based harms for these kinds of projects.” Similar 
calls to action are directed at industry.

RELATED CONTENT: Wet’suwet’en Supporters: “Reconciliation is Dead and we 
Will #ShutDownCanada” 
<https://orinocotribune.com/wetsuweten-supporters-reconciliation-is-dead-and-we-will-shutdowncanada/>

Despite this, the Environmental Assessment Office did not properly 
conduct an assessment of risks to Indigenous women from the Coastal 
GasLink project when extending its permits, DiPuma said.

“The EAO said Coastal GasLink would be prepared to consider doing so in 
the future. So, instead of creating a legally binding requirement for 
them to consider these harms, they took industry at its word that it 
would voluntarily do so at some point in the future.”

Coastal GasLink has also been found out of compliance with the 
conditions of its environmental certificate in more than 50 instances, 
according to the Environmental Assessment Office’s compliance program, 
including by restricting access to traplines and failing to adequately 
dispose of camp garbage.

Despite these many instances of non-compliance, the Environmental 
Assessment Office decided the company’s permit should be extended, 
DiPuma said.

“They haven’t explained to the public or my client why that should be.”

*Red dresses sentinel as RCMP raid looms*
The Unist’ot’en healing centre currently houses the remaining 
Wet’suwet’en members and supporters facing arrest by the RCMP.

The $2 million Unist’ot’en healing centre, which has received $400,000 
from B.C.’s First Nations Health Authority to run land-based trauma and 
addictions treatment programs, is designed to provide services to 
vulnerable individuals, including youth in trauma treatment programs.

Tait said the red dresses hanging around the centre — some of which bear 
the initials of women people in the camp have lost — will act as a 
confrontation to the RCMP officers performing arrests.

“It’s a chance for the RCMP to confront those women, in a way, and be 
held to account on their failure to protect their safety,” Tait said.

But, she added, it’s also an opportunity for these lost and voiceless 
women to stand in solidarity with their community and family.

“We have a line of red dresses across the bridge because we think it’s a 
very powerful statement and it’s an invitation to the spirits of those 
women to come and stand and face the RCMP who are failing to seek 
justice on their behalf, who failed to protect their safety by being 
complicit in this epidemic that our communities are facing.”

Tait, who faces imminent arrest herself, said she believes women have a 
particular responsibility to protect Wet’suwet’en territory.

“We are a matrilineal culture, so our women are our strength. The women 
make the decisions about the land, because we know our children depend 
on the land, they inherit our territory after we’re gone and that’s all 
through the mother’s line. So it really feels like it’s a deep 
responsibility for us as women to make sure there’s territory intact, 
there’s a safer future for our children that are coming and that these 
lands will remain here and remain a sanctuary for our people.”

The Wet’suwet’en application for a judicial review was served to Kevin 
Jardine, associate deputy minister of the environment and the executive 
director of the Environmental Assessment Office, as well as Coastal GasLink.

DiPuma said her office has yet to hear back from the substantive parties.

“They’ve got some time to consider their position on this. It’s up to 
them to determine if they reconsider the permit or if they want to go to 
court.”

/[Carol Linnitt is a journalist, editor, illustrator and co-founder of 
The Narwhal. With files from Amber Bracken.]/

/On February 13, Canada’s CN Rail and Via Rail were forced to shut down 
huge sections of their railway networks as blockades by Mohawk and other 
Indigenous activists continued to cripple the country’s transportation 
systems. The activists have said they won’t end their demonstration 
until the RCMP leaves the traditional territory of the Wet’suwet’en in 
northern British Columbia where hereditary leaders had been blocking 
road access to a construction site for the Coastal GasLink pipeline, a 
key part of a $40-billion LNG Canada liquefied natural gas export project./

/Featured image: Red dresses, signifying missing and murdered Indigenous 
women, hang near Unist’ot’en camp in the Wet’suwet’en First Nation 
territory in British Columbia, Canada. , Amber Bracken / The Narwhal/




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