The wave of actions comes following the RCMP raid on encampments at strategic points central to the construction effort. These actions range in scope and scale, and the people organizing and participating in them represent a diverse array of forces, but the thread uniting them all is the call to respect indigenous rights and to end the RCMP assault on Wet’suwet’en land.

While all solidarity actions are important to the broader movement, some serve a more strategic function. Beyond the rallies, there have been many occupations of government buildings and the offices of Canadian government officials, the RCMP and private businesses connected to the pipeline project.

For example, youth activists in the country’s capital Ottawa in Ontario have taken over the Ministry of Justice. They say in a statement released to the press that they will not be leaving “until the RCMP stand down, the demands of the hereditary leadership of the Wet’suwet’en people is respected, and all land defenders are released and cleared of all charges.”

In other cases, roads across the provinces have been blocked, delaying traffic and resulting in numerous arrests. In one instance an angry driver plowed through a crowd of nearly 100 people in Regina, Saskatchewan. In British Columbia, where the struggle for Wet’suwet’en sovereignty is sharpest, two separate ports near the Vancouver area were blocked by activists. Nearly 40 people were arrested at one of these demonstrations.

Perhaps the most significant – and impactful – actions have involved blocking railway tracks across the country. In three provinces – British Columbia, Quebec and Ontario – railway disruptions have been reported. These demonstrations have resulted in numerous delays and cancellations. One of these railway actions, in the Tyendinaga Mohawk Territory of Ontario, passenger and freight rail traffic have been stopped outright for a week. This rail corridor is among the busiest in all of Canada.

What these cross-country demonstrations do is force the issue of Wet’suwet’en national oppression to remain in the national news. The fight of the Wet’suwet’en people for their sovereignty is a part of the broader struggle against the ruling class, not only in Canada, but also in the U.S. and wherever else indigenous people are fighting for survival.

The same forces that are behind the attacks against the Wet’suwet’en Nation are behind the attacks against workers, such as the lockout of Unifor Local 594 members at the co-op refinery in Saskatchewan. The greater the unity between the various movements of the working class and oppressed people, the more likely each will end in success. Hands off Wet’suwet’en!

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This escalation is only the most recent incident in a conflict which began back in 2018 but whose true origins extend back to when the first settlers arrived in the land now known as Canada.

In October 2018, an initial announcement was made about a large scale industrial energy project involving the building and operation of a terminal for the liquefaction, storage and loading of liquefied natural gas (LNG) in the port of Kitimat, British Columbia, Canada. The $40 billion project, known as LNG Canada, marks the largest private sector investment in Canadian history.

The Coastal GasLink (CGL) pipeline, which will be built and owned by Canadian energy company TC Energy Corp, marks the first phase in the process. The purpose of the $6.6 billion endeavor is to transport gas from where it is extracted in northeast British Columbia to the previously mentioned terminal in Kitimat. All of these plans were made without first consulting with the First Nations people whose land will be most impacted, namely the Wet’suwet’en.

Large swathes of land in British Columbia and other parts of the country have never been ceded to the Canadian government or impacted by any treaties. This fact was recognized in a 1997 decision of the Supreme Court of Canada. The CGL pipeline cuts directly into that unceded land.

While 20 First Nations band councils along the proposed route have signed agreements in support of the project, the Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs – the leaders of the nation’s governance system in place before the forced imposition of the Indian Act in 1876 – have not. The hereditary chiefs argue that band councils only have jurisdiction over reserve lands, not unceded territories. Each of the 13 hereditary chiefs rejected all oil and gas pipelines in their territories.

In an act of resistance against an attack on their sovereignty, members of the Wet’suwet’en nation and their supporters established at least three camps along a key access road that the pipeline construction team requires. One of these camps is actually the Unist'ot'en healing village, which began as a Wet'suwet'en-operated checkpoint on the road in 2009.

These justified actions were met with an interim court injunction, demanding an end to protests and for the workers to be able to go about their jobs unimpeded. Police came to violently enforce the injunction at the Gidimt'en camp on January 7, 2019, arresting 14 people. This prompted an agreement between the nation's hereditary chiefs and police to allow pipeline workers through Unist'ot'en for pre-construction work. This agreement did not end the resistance to the intrusive project.

Tensions flared again near the end of 2019 following the December 31 court ruling of Justice Marguerite Church. Church ruled in favor of Coastal GasLink (CGL), ordering specific Wet’suwet’en defendants and supporters to stop preventing contractors from accessing the lone service road. The judge claimed CGL had all the required approval to proceed with their pipeline project. This represented an obvious assault on the sovereignty of the Wet’suwet’en Nation.

On January 5, 2020, less than a week after the Canadian court order to cease and desist all obstruction, the Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs issued an eviction notice to CGL, citing their own trespass laws. As a part of their defiance of the Canadian government and the private energy corporations, Wet’suwet’en activists felled trees along the service road to block passage. They also notched other trees (making them prone to falling) and constructed other obstacles such as stacks of tired, kindling and jugs of oil and gas products.

After the hereditary chiefs held a press conference on date marking one year since the imposition of the initial court order which led to 14 arrests, CGL announced that it would hold off on redeploying workers to begin construction, but posted the court order, triggering a three-day timeframe for the road to be cleared. The company requested to meet with the chiefs, but they refused, citing their desire to only communicate government-to-government. This refusal was met by an RCMP-imposed blockade of all routes into and out of the territory.

The British Columbian provincial government, headed by Premier John Horgan, and the 13 Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs agreed to meet for a week of diplomatic discussions, which began on January 30. Less than a week later, on February 4, all parties involved released statements explaining that talks had broken down and a resolution was not reached. The pre-morning raids discussed earlier are the direct result of this breakdown.

This struggle of the Wet’suwet’en Nation against the violation of their national sovereignty at the hands of capital and the Canadian state is part and parcel of the broader struggle of oppressed nations and peoples against imperialism. The eyes of the world should be on Wet’suwet’en as 2020 unfolds, just like they were on Standing Rock in the United States in 2016.

The resistance movement is calling for solidarity actions from indigenous and non-indigenous communities who uphold indigenous sovereignty and recognize the urgency of stopping resource extraction projects that threaten the lives of future generations. For more information, readers are encouraged to visit the website of the Unist’ot’en healing house and resistance camp at www.unistoten.camp.

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