NDP BC invades sovereign Wet'suwet'en territory, RCMP arrest defenders

Police Arrest Indigenous Land Defenders After Trudeau Demands an End to Blockades

Indigenous lawyer Pamela Palmater says Canada’s government is unduly influencing law enforcement.

epaulo13 wrote:

..hereditary chiefs govern with the will of the people. unlike the elected indian act bands. you just have to understand the processes at work to get it.

The hereditary chiefs are governing with the will of the people?

The people of Wet'Suwet'En want a pipeline. Shouldn't the hereditary chiefs listen "to the people"?  That's what a democracy is.

Wet'Suwet'En people are being ignored by the hereditary chiefs.

‘Disappointment, fear and anger': Indigenous communities blindsided by Teck's decision to pull Frontier project

https://business.financialpost.com/commodities/energy/disappointment-fea...

14 indigenous groups who signed benefits are out in the cold. Wonder why Teck pulled the plug?

re: pipeline

..asked and answered paladin. i'll not engage with you on this topic any more.

epaulo13 wrote:

re: pipeline

..asked and answered paladin. i'll not engage with you on this topic any more.

I just went through the last 60 posts. You absolutely did not explain how natural gas pipelines threaten our water in Canada.

But you're not engaging anymore so I guess thats that.

Paladin1 wrote:

epaulo13 wrote:

re: pipeline

..asked and answered paladin. i'll not engage with you on this topic any more.

 

I just went through the last 60 posts. You absolutely did not explain how natural gas pipelines threaten our water in Canada.

But you're not engaging anymore so I guess thats that.

..this was your question. sorry that you had to go through that.

The people of Wet'Suwet'En want a pipeline. Shouldn't the hereditary chiefs listen "to the people"?  That's what a democracy is.

A person is arrested for blocking the Port of Vancouver at Clark Drive and East Hastings Street on Tuesday. The blockade came together in support of Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs on Monday. (Maggie MacPherson/CBC)

BREAKING NEWS: New from Lennoxville, Quebec

epaulo13 wrote:

Paladin1 wrote:

epaulo13 wrote:

re: pipeline

..asked and answered paladin. i'll not engage with you on this topic any more.

 

I just went through the last 60 posts. You absolutely did not explain how natural gas pipelines threaten our water in Canada.

But you're not engaging anymore so I guess thats that.

..this was your question. sorry that you had to go through that.

The people of Wet'Suwet'En want a pipeline. Shouldn't the hereditary chiefs listen "to the people"?  That's what a democracy is.

Sorry for the miscommunication. I meant about gas pipelines hurting the water. I'm of the opinion half if not most of the protestors know very little about the issues, like even whats being carried in the pipelines or where Wet'Suwet'En territory is.

I'm going to read the links Krop kindly provided and get a better informed opinion on the dangers to the water system.

..my bold

Far Right Vigilantes Attack Land Defenders and Organized Workers

“Rule of Law” and Class Violence

Fascism is bare knuckle capitalism. A key element of fascist mobilizations is a fighting street force. Vigilantes ready and willing to attacked organized members of the working class, exploited, and oppressed. With fascism on the rise across many of the so-called Western liberal democracies, including Canada, we can see horrible manifestations of far Right vigilantism. And we can see how it is legitimated by mainstream conservatives, including elected members of governments. The street fighting groups are key parts of fascists terror to break resistance of the exploited and oppressed. And they operate with the approval of the formal parliamentary party wings.

In the Canadian context we can see troubling manifestations of this far Right vigilantism moving specifically and openly to break the crucial struggles of the current moment – the Wet’suwet’en land defense, and solidarity actions, asserting Wet’suwet’en sovereignty against an invasion by RCMP in the service of the Coastal GasLink pipeline and the Unifor pickets of the Coop Refinery in Regina by locked out workers and supporters. These mobilizations now face a dual threat of formal state repression and criminalization by police (as politicians increasingly use terms like “illegal” to describe them) and informal vigilante violence, specifically by far Right and neofascist elements.

According to Barbara Perry, Criminology professor and hate crime researcher at the University of Ontario Institute of Technology, there are, at minimum, 130 active far Right extremist groups operating across Canada. Perry reports that this represents a 30 per cent increase from 2015. It becomes even more crucial for broader solidarity efforts to coalesce to defend these struggles against state and extra-state violence.

Far Right Vigilante Attacks

On Wednesday, February 19, 2020, far Right vigilantes set upon and tore down a blockade set up outside Edmonton by Indigenous people acting in solidarity with Wet’suwet’en land defenders. At Edmonton, RCMP, who they and politicians say are sent to the blockades as matters of “public safety,” notably stood by while the far Rightists confronted the solidarity blockaders and took down the blockades. It is important to point out, in the context of rule of law narratives, that no injunction had been served against the blockaders at the time the far right vigilantes assailed the blockade. They were not breaking the law.

Those who put out calls to dismantle blockades and those who showed up claimed openly to be involved with far Right groups including the Yellow Vests Canada (YVC) and wexit (western Canada exit movement), and involved people who were part of the United We Roll (UWR) mobilization on Parliament Hill last year. These are groups that have been identified as far Right, extremist hate groups and have been associated with neofascism in Canada....

kropotkin1951 wrote:

bekayne wrote:

NDPP wrote:

Trudeau's Handling Of The Wet'suwet'en Blockades Critical To His Political Credibility, Say Pollsters and Former Cabinet Minister Nault

https://www.hilltimes.com/2020/02/24/very-slippery-ice-wetsuweten-blocka...

"...It clearly is becoming a moment in Canada where everyone's paying attention,' said Mr Lyle. 'If they [the Liberals] handle it wrong, if they create a situation in which the NDP and the Bloc know that they can no longer support the Trudeau government and maintain their credibility with their own voters, then if the Tories move a motion of non-confidence, in a minority the government is precarious, and any big issue could be politically damaging..."

You omitted the next part:
Mr. Lyle said this issue could be politically damaging in swing ridings across the country, especially in the GTA, which plays a key role in the outcome of every election. The Liberals have to be careful about the reaction by the “victims of the blockade,” such as people running out of propane, workers who have been laid off, or people who had travel plans but were not able to proceed, he said.

Yes the message is subtle but I agree with it. Clearly a majority of Canadian voters don't give a fuck about anyone's rights except their own and if those damn protestors are not stopped they will vote for a party that will take off the velvet glove and use the full iron fist.

Yup.

https://www.ipsos.com/en-ca/news-polls/Growing-Proportion-of-Canadians-Have-Unfavourable-View-Of-Blockades

..my my the powers that be are getting desperate. 

Quebec premier alleges assault weapons behind barricade while Mohawk officials call it peaceful

Quebec Premier François Legault said on Wednesday he has learned from “good sources” about the presence of dangerous assault rifles in Kahnawake as the railway blockade continues.

“We have information that confirms that there are AK-47s for example,” he alleged. “Very dangerous guns.”

Legault told reporters in Quebec City that provincial police are being cautious about enforcing an injunction to dismantle the blockade for that reason. He described it as a “situation that is not easy.”

“There are people who are armed and it’s delicate,” he said.

quote:

While Legault has said he’s worried about the presence of weapons, members of the community south of Montreal have described the resistance as peaceful and called for discussions.

Kenneth Deer, secretary of the Mohawk Nation in Kahnawake, said earlier in the day he hopes that the Canadian Pacific Railway will withdraw its injunction to dismantle barricades. He said people do not want to see the ruling enforced.

“I wouldn’t want to see this escalate,” he said.

Statement on the Arrest of Documentary Filmmaker Melissa Cox

We are outraged by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) decision to arrest our long-time colleague, journalist and filmmaker Melissa Cox, on the evening of February 24th 2020, at New Hazelton on unceded Gitxsan territory.

Ms. Cox has been documenting Wet’suwet’en land defenders’ efforts to resist Coastal GasLink’s pipeline project for nearly two months, filming for a documentary by the working title YINT’AH of which we are the producers, and filing video reports with other media outlets.

On February 24th, she was filming as Gitxsan hereditary chiefs and supporters blocked the tracks at New Hazelton in solidarity with the Wet’suwet’en and the Mohawks of Tyendinaga. She was wearing a press credential from the National Press Photographers Association.

Ms. Cox had just filmed as the RCMP arrested Gitxsan hereditary Chief Spookw. In spite of the fact that she was clearly marked press, RCMP officers chose to arrest her, thus making it impossible for her to carry out her work documenting and bearing witness to the events underway.

Moreover, RCMP used an undue amount of force, twisting Ms. Cox’s left arm in a painful manner as multiple officers pried her camera out of her other hand, which ripped her headphones off. They tossed her camera on the ground, and later appeared to be manipulating the camera and pressing various buttons. A legal observer asked repeatedly if she could pick up the camera to protect it, requests ignored by the RCMP.

RCMP cuffed Ms. Cox with her hands behind her back which aggravated a pre-existing injury in her left shoulder. She repeatedly stated that her injury was being aggravated and requested that they change the position of the cuffs, which they refused to do as they read her rights and searched her. By this point, she was in tears from the pain.

Having been arrested herself, Ms. Cox was unable to document the arrest of 71 year-old Head House Chief and Matriarch Gwininitxw (Yvonne Lattie), and other arrests made subsequently by the RCMP.

Ms. Cox was held by the RCMP approximately 7 hours and released on restrictive conditions including that she “keep 10 meters off any CN property or work-site.” Abiding by that condition would restrict her ability to cover further rail blockades. Moreover, she is required to appear in court on April 24th, 2020 to face further prosecution.....

Wet’suwet’en solidarity: “This movement wouldn’t exist without everything that preceded it”

In order to deepen our reflection on these events, and put them into recent historical context, I interviewed Gord Hill. He’s a member of the Kwakwaka’wakw nation, an artist, the author of the 500 Years of Resistance comic book and the Antifa comic book, as well as the editor of Warrior Publications.

quote:

Dawn Marie Paley: You’ve been following all kinds of struggles in Canada in the US for more than 20 years now… Do you think what’s happening now, since February, with #ShutDownCanada is new, or have you seen these kind of actions before?

Gord Hill: In some ways its new because it hasn’t happened for quite a while, and there’s a new generation of kids and young people getting involved, it’s kind of like the product of several years of these kinds of mobilizations that have been happening in Canada. Idle No More is one that comes to mind, where you had thousands of Native people rallying in the streets and whatnot. There’s a timeline to it that creates the situation today.

But I think if you look back, during Oka, in 1990, there was pretty widespread solidarity actions across the country that included a lot of highway blockades and train blockades. It’s not without precedent. But there’s some differences I find today with this Wet’suwet’en solidarity movement. Its pretty widespread, its a widespread national action but it’s spontaneous, and it just seems like it is kind of unprecedented, certainly for the scale and the time that this has happened within. Oka was a 77 day standoff. So that’s like almost two and a half months. But this has been fairly quickly developing.

Another thing that informs this is the Unist’ot’en because they have done years of organizing and a lot of networking, they’ve travelled back and forth across the country, they’ve created this large network and I think that’s a big part of why this response is really widespread.

And then the train blockade thing as a particular tactic, I think is also unprecedented, even though its a common tactic used by Native people, but to see it on such a large scale, its like this poplar direct action tactic now, and once it started with Tyendinaga on February 6th I think it just kept building and they were like the anchor that established this, cause they’ve been doing it for years there too, but its like this anchor that established and then it just became easier and easier for people to step up and do these train blockades. There must have been over two dozen train blockades over the last few weeks.....

Unpacking the Coastal GasLink injunction and its omissions

Can a company sue for financial damages, if that company’s operations depend on theft of land?

You may think this question would arise in the dispute over the Coastal GasLink pipeline through Wet’suwet’en Yinta (territory). But the pipeline company effectively avoided the question of stolen land altogether as a judge considered the matter then sided with the company, granting them injunctions in December 2018 and December 2019. These injunctions gave the RCMP the go-ahead to raid the territory and drag Wet’suwet’en people off their own land, to ensure construction of the pipeline would not be further delayed. 

How did this happen? What is the process for getting injunctions, and what rationale did the judge use to grant them?

The origin of the injunctions: a CGL lawsuit seeking financial damages

The Coastal GasLink (CGL) pipeline, as proposed, is a critical component of the largest liquid natural gas (LNG) project in Canadian history. The pipeline would connect fracked gas extraction operations in northeastern B.C. and possibly Alberta to a to-be-constructed shipping terminal on the Pacific Coast near Kitimat, for export. 

Investors in the pipeline, which together act through the company LNG Canada, announced their intention to move forward with the project on October 1, 2018, and pre-construction activities – like setting up work camps – and construction activities began in January 2019, according to CGL. 

quote:

When LNG Canada decided to go ahead with the pipeline project in fall 2018, with Coastal GasLink doing the construction, the actions of the Unist’ot’en camp were no secret. And CGL, which had consulted with the Wet’suwet’en Hereditary Chiefs starting in 2012 and sought their agreement, had been aware since 2014 that the chiefs did not consent to the project, as per decisions made at the Baht’lats (Feast Hall), the forum of Wet’suwet’en governance.

Still, financial backer LNG Canada greenlit the project on October 1, 2018, and CGL filed a civil lawsuit soon after on November 23, 2018, suing two land defenders – Freda Huson and Warner Naziel – for financial damages and seeking an injunction so construction would not be delayed. Naziel holds the hereditary titles Toghestiy and Smogelgem. The lawsuit also applies generally to anyone interfering with construction.

The Yellowhead Institute, an Indigenous think tank, thoroughly analyzed CGL’s injunction application. “They did not name Unist’ot’en or Dark House or any of the other Wet’suwet’en house groups or clans that oppose the pipeline and whose territory is crossed by CGL’s pipeline. [...] By naming Freda and Smogelgem as individuals, CGL identifies them to the court as blockaders. They are represented as individuals whose actions are taken in opposition to an industrial project rather than as people protecting their Yintah, or territory.” The authors of the analysis point out 20 more parts of the application, “highlighting the specific strategies used to weaponize Canadian law over Indigenous law and rights, as well as the resulting financial and time disadvantage forced upon Indigenous communities defending their territories.”

A tale of two injunctions

There have been two main injunction requests considered in B.C. court. They resulted in an interim injunction in December 2018, and an interlocutory injunction in December 2019. 

It is worth noting that these injunction requests are not the full trial. The trial for the civil lawsuit CGL filed against Huson and Smogelgem has not been scheduled. At a trial, more substantive questions can be brought up, debated, and decided. Injunctions are meant to be temporary, lasting only until a trial can decide the issue in question. (The exception to this is when a permanent injunction is granted at a trial.) Pre-trial injunction requests are considered at a “chambers proceeding,” which is a “document-driven process” that is much more limited than a trial, Michael Lee Ross tells Briarpatch. Ross is one of the lawyers who represented the defendants against CGL. The chambers proceeding to decide on the injunction includes minimal oral debate, no witnesses speaking, and no cross-examinations, relying instead on written affidavits.....

Thursday, February 27, 2020 at 7 PM – 11:30 PM

The Great Hall Toronto

1087 Queen Street West

Wet'suwet'en solidarity protesters march through streets of Montreal

Hundreds of demonstrators clogged downtown Montreal streets during rush hour Tuesday to show their solidarity with Wet'suwet'en hereditary chiefs opposing a pipeline project through their territory in northern B.C. — and their opposition to the federal government's handling of blockades across the country.

The peaceful protest brought traffic to a standstill as demonstrators held signs, beat drums and chanted their support for the Wet'suwet'en hereditary chiefs and those who have blockaded rail lines across Quebec and the rest of Canada in recent weeks.

Riot police were standing by throughout the march, which went on for about two hours, but they did not intervene.