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<font size="1"><a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/02/wet-land-solidarity-grows-land-defenders-200214163301407.html">https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/02/wet-land-solidarity-grows-land-defenders-200214163301407.html</a>
</font><h1 class="gmail-reader-title">'RCMP off Wet'suwet'en land': Solidarity grows for land defenders</h1>
<div class="gmail-credits gmail-reader-credits">by Jillian Kestler-D'Amours - February 14, 2020<br></div></div>
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<div class="gmail-moz-reader-content gmail-line-height4 gmail-reader-show-element"><div id="gmail-readability-page-1" class="gmail-page"><div id="gmail-body-200771816342556199"><p><strong>Montreal, Canada</strong> - Canada is facing a national crisis.</p>
<p>That was how Sophia Sidarous, a young Indigenous organiser and member
of Metepenagiag First Nation in New Brunswick, described the feeling
this week, as people across Canada came out to support members of the
Wet'suwet'en Nation who were forced off their traditional lands. </p>
<h4>More:</h4>
<ul><li>
<h4><a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/02/canada-police-clearing-wet-land-defender-camps-200206201913348.html?utm_source=website&utm_medium=article_page&utm_campaign=read_more_links">Canada police begin clearing Wet'suwet'en land defender camps</a></h4>
</li><li>
<h4><a href="https://interactive.aljazeera.com/aje/2019/nations-divided-mapping-canadas-pipeline/index.html?utm_source=website&utm_medium=article_page&utm_campaign=read_more_links">Interactive: Nations Divided: Mapping Canada's pipeline battle</a></h4>
</li><li>
<h4><a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/01/year-rcmp-violent-raid-wet-people-fear-repeat-200107134353922.html?utm_source=website&utm_medium=article_page&utm_campaign=read_more_links">A year after RCMP's violent raid, Wet'suwet'en people fear repeat</a></h4>
</li></ul>
<p>Sidarous was among about two dozen people who occupied the Ottawa
office of Canada's minister of justice and attorney general, David
Lametti, on Monday in solidarity with Wet'suwet'en land defenders
opposed to a pipeline project on their territory in northern British
Columbia (BC).</p>
<p>"We just wanted to remind him ... that he has certain obligations to
fulfil," Sidarous told Al Jazeera in a phone interview, "including
upholding human rights ... [and] upholding a nation-to-nation
relationship, which does not mean you have to bulldoze people over in
order to get a project in."</p>
<p>Federal police (RCMP) officers earlier this month <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/02/canada-police-clearing-wet-land-defender-camps-200206201913348.html">evicted members of the Wet'suwet'en Nation</a> from their traditional territories, where they had set up camps to try to stop construction on the Coastal GasLink project.</p>
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<p><img title="Supporters of the Wet’suwet’en nation indigenous group who oppose the construction of the Coastal GasLink pipeline, protest outside the provincial headquarters of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) in Surrey, British Columbia [Jesse Winter/Reuters]" src="https://www.aljazeera.com/mritems/Images/2020/2/14/a2d8907c1d19416bb67b15c8a0f5c68c_18.jpg" alt="Wet’suwet’en - Canada"></p>
<p>Supporters of the Wet'suwet'en nation, who oppose the construction of
the Coastal GasLink pipeline, protest outside the provincial
headquarters of the RCMP in Surrey, BC [Jesse Winter/Reuters] </p>
</div>
</div>
<p>The Wet'suwet'en hereditary chiefs, who hold authority over 22,000<span>sq kilometres (8,494sq miles)</span>
of land, said they never consented to the 670km (416-mile) pipeline,
which will cut across that area to transport natural gas from northeast
BC to a terminal near the town of Kitimat.</p>
<p>The BC Supreme Court in December granted Coastal GasLink an
injunction to continue building the pipeline and the company said it has
reached agreements with 20 First Nations band councils along the route.
The province also says the project has the necessary permits to move
forward. "This project is proceeding and the rule of law needs to
prevail in BC," Premier John Horgan said last month.</p>
<p>The hereditary chiefs argue that the band councils only hold limited
authority over what happens on reserves, the First Nations communities
established under Canada's Indian Act, while they hold decision-making
power over the nation's traditional territory. The Supreme Court of
Canada ruled in 1997 that the Wet'suwet'en hereditary chiefs never ceded
authority over their lands.</p>
<blockquote>What you do to one Indigenous person or one Indigenous
nation affects all Indigenous peoples across Canada, across Turtle
Island [North America] and across the world.
<p><span>Sophia Sidarous, member of Metepenagiag First Nation</span></p>
</blockquote>
<p>More than two dozen Wet'suwet'en land defenders and their supporters
were arrested, APTN reported, in separate RCMP raids on a forestry road
where camps and blockades had been erected to impede construction on the
pipeline.</p>
<p>"When we see elders being disrespected by foreign entities like
pipeline companies and when we see the Canadian government not
respecting Indigenous peoples' rights, well that doesn't really fly with
us," said Sidarous. "What you do to one Indigenous person or one
Indigenous nation affects all Indigenous peoples across Canada, across
Turtle Island [North America] and across the world."</p>
<h2>Solidarity actions</h2>
<p>Sidarous is one of many Indigenous people across Canada who have
organised actions in solidarity with the Wet'suwet'en hereditary chiefs
and land defenders.</p>
<p>Rallies, sit-ins and blockades have been organised in provinces from
coast to coast to demand that RCMP officers leave Wet'suwet'en territory
and that both the federal and BC provincial governments respect
Indigenous sovereignty and rights.</p>
<p>In BC, people blocked access to the Port of Vancouver late last week
and police arrested 43 people on Monday when they refused to clear the
area. Traffic has also been temporarily halted in downtown Vancouver and
on a bridge leading into the city, while Indigenous peoples and their
supporters also blocked access into the provincial legislature in
Victoria on Tuesday.</p>
<p>Natalie Knight, a Yurok and Navajo organiser based in Vancouver, was
among dozens of people who occupied the office of BC Attorney General
David Eby on Thursday morning.</p>
<p>Knight told Al Jazeera in a telephone interview from the sit-in that
people were calling on Eby to respect Wet'suwet'en law and uphold the
principles of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous
Peoples (UNDRIP), among other demands.</p>
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<p><img title="Supporters of the Wet’suwet’en nation indigenous group who oppose the construction of the Coastal GasLink pipeline, protest by blocking a road outside the provincial headquarters of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) in Surrey, British Columbia [Jesse Winter/Reuters]" src="https://www.aljazeera.com/mritems/Images/2020/2/14/b7314a35c3b942ca814f217218d7f221_18.jpg" alt="Wet’suwet’en - Canada"></p>
<p>Supporters of the Wet'suwet'en nation protest by blocking a road
outside the provincial headquarters of the RCMP in Surrey, BC [Jesse
Winter/Reuters] </p>
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<p>Passed into law in BC in November 2019, UNDRIP states that Indigenous
peoples should have "free, prior and informed consent" on matters that
affect their rights, including resource development projects like the
Coastal GasLink.</p>
<p>"This moment is a moment to take action and express our dissent," said Knight.</p>
<p>She said many people have rallied around the Wet'suwet'en because
their struggle touches on deeper issues such as Indigenous land rights
and sovereignty, and continuing colonialism in Canada. "People are
really coming together, and community is being built in an incredible
way on the streets," she added.</p>
<h2>Railways blocked</h2>
<p>Major railways have been blocked in solidarity with the Wet'suwet'en, as well.</p>
<p>On Thursday afternoon, Via Rail Canada - the country's passenger rail
company - announced it was cancelling service along its network
"effective immediately and until further notice". Via Rail operates more
than 500 trains per week across 12,500km (7,767 miles), the company
says.</p>
<p>Service had been suspended along the popular Toronto-Montreal line as
a result of a blockade in Tyendinaga Mohawk Territory in Ontario. More
than 250 trains and over 42,000 passengers had been affected, CBC News
reported earlier this week, while industry experts said millions of
dollars have been lost due to the stoppage.</p>
<p>Similar blockades also were erected in northern BC and in Manitoba, a province in central Canada.</p>
<p>The Gidimt'en Access Point, a blockade and camp erected by members of
the Wet'suwet'en Nation's Gidimt'en clan, welcomed the news of the Via
Rail shutdown on Thursday. "Canada is officially shutting down! We are
so grateful for all the actions of solidarity," the group wrote on
Facebook. "Keep up the pressure! We want the RCMP and CGL off our yintah
[land]! We will not stop until they are."</p>
<p>South of Montreal in the province of Quebec, a Canadian Pacific
Railway line has also been forced to stop operating after people from
the Kahnawake Mohawk First Nation set up a blockade on their territory
in solidarity with the Wet'suwet'en hereditary chiefs and land
defenders.</p>
<p>On Thursday morning, four people huddled around a fire next to the
Kahnawake blockade. A plastic chair sat atop a large pile of snow set on
the train tracks behind them. "RCMP OFF Wet'suwet'en LAND" read a
cardboard sign leaning up against a snowbank next to the bright red flag
of the Mohawk Warrior Society. "NO PIPELINE!" read another.</p>
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<p><img title="Signs from Kahnawake, a Mohawk First Nation, where people have set up a blockade of a commuter rail line, and in Delson, Quebec, one of the stops along the route where service has been suspended [Jillian Kestler D'Amours/Al Jazeera]" src="https://www.aljazeera.com/mritems/Images/2020/2/14/3b3c421d0b974a92b91a0b786dcfa57c_18.jpg" alt="Canada - Wet’suwet’en"></p>
<p>Signs from Kahnawake, a Mohawk First Nation, where people have set up a blockade [Jillian Kestler D'Amours/Al Jazeera] </p>
</div>
</div>
<p>People at the blockade did not answer Al Jazeera's requests for
comment. "We're fighting so they can live in a country with free people
and clean water. We're fighting for life," James Nolan, who was at the
site this week, told The Montreal Gazette newspaper.</p>
<p>In the nearby town of Delson, Quebec, a railway station on the
affected line was empty on Thursday. "Service interrupted due to a
protest near the train tracks," read a message in French displayed on a
screen on the train platform.</p>
<p>"It's incredibly inspiring and powerful to watch because this is the
greatest display of sovereignty since Standing Rock," said Catie
Galbraith, 19, referring to the Indigenous-led movement in opposition to
the Dakota Access Pipeline project in the United States.</p>
<p>"It feels as though we have reached a turning point, that Indigenous
peoples are more powerful than we've ever been and we're fighting back
in a way that's more effective than it's ever been. It just feels like
we're on the verge of a real shift."</p>
<p>Galbraith, a member of the Chickasaw Nation of Oklahoma and co-chair
of the Indigenous Student Alliance at McGill University in Montreal,
helped organise a sit-in last Friday and a demonstration on Monday at
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's constituency office in the
city.</p>
<p>About 30 people participated in the sit-in, she said, while a few
hundred people took part in the demonstration. "There was just kind of a
feeling of having to do something," Galbraith told Al Jazeera.</p>
<p>People were especially moved to act because a member of the
Indigenous community at McGill was arrested at one of the Wet'suwet'en
camps. "It hit very close to home," she added.</p>
<h2>'Not standing down'</h2>
<p>On Wednesday, Horgan, the BC premier, criticised the recent
Wet'suwet'en solidarity rally in Victoria. "It was unacceptable to me
and I know it's unacceptable to a vast majority of British Columbians,"
said Horgan about the participants who blocked staff from entering the
provincial legislature.</p>
<p>"Peaceful demonstration is fundamental to our success as a democracy,
but to have a group of people say to others, 'You are not legitimate.
You are not allowed in here. You are somehow a sell-out to the values of
Canadians,' is just plain wrong," he said.</p>
<p>Late on Thursday, the BC Supreme Court issued an injunction giving
the authorities the power to arrest anyone impeding the work of the
legislature or blocking access to the buildings. People will be
picketing BC government offices on Friday to show continued support for
the Wet'suwet'en.</p>
<div>
<div>
<p><img title="Supporters of the Wet’suwet’en nation indigenous group who oppose the construction of the Coastal GasLink pipeline, protest outside the provincial headquarters of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) in Surrey, British Columbia [Jesse Winter/Reuters]" src="https://www.aljazeera.com/mritems/Images/2020/2/14/cded6cf850f844e3970531c2a891c1ca_18.jpg" alt="Wet’suwet’en - Canada"></p>
<p>Supporters of the Wet'suwet'en nation protest outside the provincial
headquarters of the RCMP in Surrey, BC [Jesse Winter/Reuters] </p>
</div>
</div>
<p>Trudeau addressed the demonstrations this week, saying that while he
respected peoples' right to protest peacefully, Canada "is also a
country of the rule of law".</p>
<p>"We need to make sure those laws are respected. That is why I am
encouraging all parties to dialogue to resolve this as quickly as
possible," the prime minister, who had promised to make reconciliation
with Indigenous peoples a top priority, told reporters.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, federal Indigenous Services Minister Marc Miller on
Thursday offered to meet some of the protest leaders if they promised to
discontinue their railway blockades.</p>
<p>But Knight said she and others were undeterred as their demands had
not been met. "In the same spirit of the [Wet'suwet'en] hereditary
chiefs not standing down, not being bullied by the RCMP … we will do the
same in the streets here in Vancouver. We are not standing down."</p></div></div></div>
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