RCMP moves in on anti-pipeline camp, makes arrest, protesters against Coastal GasLink say
At least one person has been arrested on traditional Wet’suwet’en territory, protesters say, one day after the RCMP said it was ready to enforce an injunction order against protesters of the Coastal GasLink pipeline in northern B.C.
Protesters said more than a dozen RCMP officers moved in past the police checkpoint before dawn on Thursday
At least one person was arrested at kilometre 39 — one of three camps built by supporters of the Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs — on Morice Forest Service Road, Gidimt’en clan spokesperson Molly Wickham said in a Facebook video.
“They’re clearing out 39-kilometre camp, which is the supply camp. We have word they started tearing down the tents,” Wickham told CBC News by phone, just before watching several RCMP trucks drive past her.
“[We’re] frustrated and worried about people.”
CBC has reached out to the RCMP for comment but has not yet received confirmation of any arrests.
Last-ditch talks between the B.C. government and Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs, aimed at finding a peaceful resolution to an ongoing standoff over the natural gas pipeline’s construction, broke down late Tuesday.
An injunction issued at the end of December prohibits ongoing physical obstructions along the snowy forest road in the heart of Wet’suwet’en territory. Protesters had built the blockages to stop workers from accessing the pipeline construction site.
The Coastal Gaslink pipeline would run through Wet’suwet’en territory to LNG Canada’s $40-billion export facility in Kitimat, B.C.
The Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs say their protest against the $6-billion, 670-kilometre pipeline is and will remain peaceful.
On Thursday, as RCMP moved in, Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs launched a court challenge against the pipeline’s environmental approval.
The application is asking for a judicial review of the B.C. Environmental Assessment Office’s decision to extend an environment certificate for the pipeline for another five years.
A statement said the certificate was extended “despite over 50 instances of non-compliance” by Coastal Gaslink as well as a failure to incorporate recent findings of the Inquiry on Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls, which found links between resource-extraction projects, “man-camp” environments and increased violence against Indigenous women.