For any spark to make a song it must be transformed by pressure There must be unspeakable need, muscle of belief, and wild, unknowable elements. I am singing a song that can only be born after losing a country.
Harjo, Joy. Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings: Poems. W. W. Norton & Company. Kindle Edition
I continue to share what I am learning about the Wet’suwet’en peoples and their fight to prevent several pipelines from being built through their territories. Their land is unfortunately between the Alberta Tar sands as well as natural gas fracking areas, and shipping terminals on the Canadian Pacific coast.
Tensions are escalating as a recent British Columbia court has ruled against the Wet’suwet’en peoples. There is a buildup of militarized Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) forces at the territory boundaries. Last year RCMP with assault rifles broken through the Wet’suwet’en barriers and 14 were arrested. Documents show the RCMP discussed using lethal force.
Contact information and a sample letter to British Columbia Premier John Horgan can be found here: Bear Creek Friends (Quaker) meeting supports Wet’suwet’en peoples.
This is a microcosm of Indigenous rights versus corporate profits.
It’s a blustery Saturday in northern B.C. and Green party interim leader Adam Olsen has just stepped off a plane in Smithers.
BC Green Leader Crosses RCMP Checkpoint, Visits Wet’suwet’en Camps. Adam Olsen urges new approach to pipeline conflict, while Premier John Horgan visits LNG plant site. By Amanda Follett Hosgood 20 Jan 2020 | TheTyee.ca
He is heading to the Office of the Wet’suwet’en and a meeting with the hereditary chiefs fighting the Coastal GasLink pipeline through their traditional territory.
Tensions have been rising in the region since Dec. 31, when the B.C. Supreme Court granted Coastal GasLink a permanent injunction allowing the company access to the pipeline route. Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs responded by evicting CGL from the area on Jan. 4 and closing the Morice forestry road, which leads to the pipeline construction site.
On Jan. 13, the RCMP created a checkpoint on the Morice road and limited access to the area.
The same day, Horgan told media the provincial government would not respond to the Wet’suwet’en requests for a meeting.
“This project is proceeding, and the rule of law needs to prevail in B.C.,” he said.
Olsen said Horgan’s position is troubling, especially as in November the legislature unanimously passed Bill 41, which commits the government to accept the provisions of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People. That includes recognition of the right to participate in any decision-making through their own procedures and law.
The Wet’suwet’en Nation is currently engaged in an ongoing struggle to protect their unceded, sovereign territory from the Coastal Gaslink pipeline project (CGL) and the Canadian State. Although the hereditary chiefs of the Wet’suwet’en Nation have not consented to the CGL pipeline, the BC Supreme Court has violated Wet’suwet’en Law by allowing the RCMP to invade Wet’suwet’en sovereign territory to pave the way for Coastal Gaslink’s construction of a natural gas pipeline. In an era of so-called “reconciliation” the Canadian state continues to occupy unceded Indigenous lands while violating and dismissing Indigenous sovereignty.
Report Back From Recent Wet’suwet’en Solidarity Action In Guelph, Ontario At A Branch Of The Royal Bank Of Canada, January 26, 2020
One year after the Wet’suwet’en people experienced a violent, militarized RCMP raid of their territory, there are threats of another raid. Updates from the Unist’ot’en Camp have revealed that the RCMP are blocking media, food, medicines and important winterizing gear from entering the camp as well as not allowing Wet’suwet’en people and their allies to leave the camp. Now more than ever we must stand with the Wet’suwet’en Nation as allies and accomplices in their resistance against industry. Following a call for solidarity actions from the Wet’suwet’en Nation in what we now know as Northern British Columbia, around 40 community members occupied RBC in protest of its role in financing CGL and fueling the ongoing violence on the Wet’suwet’en Nation and their lands.
The following is from a detailed document about Wet’suwet’en Fracking Dangers
The Coastal Gaslink (CGL) pipeline project is a 670 kilometer pipeline currently under construction through unceded “British Columbia”. It is owned by TC Energy, who was known as TransCanada Corp prior to May 2019. The fractured gas, also called liquid natural gas (LNG), that would be transported by the CGL pipeline is fracked in the Montney Shale Formation. A number of smaller pipelines take this gas from the wells dispersed throughout the region to the CGL line. The CGL pipeline is proposed to run from the Montney region in North Eastern BC and Western Alberta, Dunne-za territory, through unceded Indigenous lands including those of the Wet’suwet’en, to the LNG Canada export terminal to be built at the head of the Douglas Channel in Kitimat, unceded Haisla territory. LNG Canada proposes to export 12 million tonnes of LNG per year to start, with a plan to double that to 24 million tonnes, with a project lifetime of 40 years. The LNG Tankers will then travel the many turns south on the Douglas Channel before reaching the open water of the Hecate Strait – a total distance of approximately 160 nautical miles that can take up to 20 hours to navigate. Once the LNG arrives at its destination, it is regasified, sold and shipped in its original state.
Wet’suwet’en Fracking Dangers
Quakers, social justice and revolution 