#Wet’suwet’en

[allthecanadianpolitics]

The B.C. Supreme Court has ruled that a traditional Wet’suwet’en trespass law cannot “coexist” with the injunction order issued to Coastal GasLink in response to pipeline protests from the nation’s hereditary leadership. As a result, Chief Dsta’hyl, a Wing Chief of the Likhts’amisyu Clan of the Wet’suwet’en Nation who also goes by Adam Gagnon, was found guilty of criminal contempt in a Smithers courtroom on Tuesday morning. To be found guilty of contempt of court, the prosecution needs to establish that a person is aware of a court order and violated it intentionally. To meet the threshold for criminal contempt, the violations must be public in nature. In making the decision, Justice Michael Tammen rejected a defence argument that could have set precedent in cases involving conflicts between Canadian court orders and Indigenous legal orders. [...] The defence argued that “subjugating Indigenous law to colonial law, when they both form part of the law of the land in Canada, brings the administration of justice into scorn, precisely the consequence that criminal contempt proceedings are meant to punish.”

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Tagging @politicsofcanada

#cdnpoli #canada #canadian politics #canadian news #wet’suwet’en #coastal gaslink #pipelines #indigenous sovereignty #settler colonialism #injustice

[miyabilicious]

#honest government ads #Canada #satire #juicemedia #Wet’Suwet’En #Support the Wet’Suwet’En #yintah #cool and normal #fuck all eh? #are we insane? absolutely #friendly horsie police #auspol #cdnipoli

[if-you-fan-a-fire]

“Gary Wassaykeesic, a Land Defender from the Mishkeegogamang First Nation north of Thunder Bay has lived in Toronto for decades and is an Indigenous leader. He was arrested on January 30, 2022 for allegedly taking part in a solidarity action with Wet’suwet’en on November 21, 2021 in Toronto. He was required to report last week to an isolated CP Rail police detachment in Scarborough. Beyond these disturbing facts is the story of a cultural group still being criminalized and harassed on their own land, but also the story of a diverse community determined to unite in support and resistance.

Criminalizing Indigenous sovereignty and solidarity

Coastal GasLink (CGL) is currently constructing a pipeline through Wet’suwet’en Territory without any consent, and the Hereditary Chiefs have sent an eviction notice to CGL. As they explained, “Coastal Gaslink has violated the Wet’suwet’en law of trespass, and has bulldozed through our territories, destroyed our archaeological sites, and occupied our land with industrial man-camps. Private security firms and RCMP have continually interfered with the constitutionally protected rights of Wet’suwet’en people to access our lands for hunting, trapping, and ceremony.” But instead of respecting Indigenous law, the RCMP enforced colonial law: on November 18 and 19, the RCMP raided Wet’suwet’en Territory using assault rifles, attack dogs, and even chain saws. They violently arrested over 30 people, including Land Defenders, supporters, legal observers, and journalists.

In response to the arrests in Wet’suwet’en, Land Defenders in Toronto went to the railroad on November 21. For two hours people blocked a train, sending a message of solidarity to those who’d been arrested. Though police were present at the blockade, at no point on that day did they express any concerns. They did not declare it an unlawful assembly and made no arrests. But a week later they began targeting organizers. The Toronto Police showed up at the home of Indigenous Land Defender, Vanessa Gray, and told her she had to turn herself in for attending that event. A week after that, they ticketed Miguel Avila-Velarde with a fine of over $600.

Police also began following Gary Wassaykeesic from November until the end of January. On January 30 they arrested him with those bogus charges that too many Black and Indigenous people find themselves charged with: “trespass and mischief”, the exact charges that colonial usurpers of this land have been guilty of themselves from the beginning. The police, and the mining companies, railroad companies, construction, and oil companies, etc. all tresspass on Indigenous land, then turn around and deliver harsh punishment against Indigenous people. Our government ignores treaties and human rights, including the right to thrive. It is so cruel and unjust to be routinely traumatized and criminalized like this repeatedly in your own homeland.

Gary spoke with me last week about the illogical charge of trespassing for an Indigenous person. Where else would he be? Where else should he be standing? This has always been the homeland of his people; and yet he has never felt any need to routinely arrest any of us for trespassing. We spoke about how governments have it all backwards since they are not the rightful authorities of this land. They have set themselves up as the legal and God-given authority, as if this entire country is their sole property when it never was. They’ve set up a network of violence to try to uphold this lie, doing everything to portray Indigenous people as if they are enemies for merely existing. This is wrong, and so is dragging out already nightmarish generational trauma into long-lasting, re-traumatizing, and unwarranted arrests.

Re-traumatizing arrest and legal support

Gary was strategically subjected to this lengthy drawn-out process of police harassment and intimidation tactics. Who gets arrested two months after an alleged criminal activity at an event where police voiced no problems in the first place? As Gary explained, “The Toronto Police stalked me, waited, and then arrested me, traumatizing me in the process. This has become the strategy of the Toronto Police. How many more others are they going to do this to?”

The timing of the arrest was also designed to increase harm and trauma: police arrested Gary after he led a vigil for the 93 children found in those unmarked graves at Williams’ Lake Residential School. They disrespected this community leader by callously arresting him right after this emotional memorial service, as he was mourning the tragic loss and discovery of mass-murdered children from his beloved community. Police heartlessness was a tactic as they watched, waited, and closed in on him shortly after the service ended, waiting until after he was separated from this gathering of fellow mourners. They timed it carefully, waiting until he took a streetcar home so they could storm onto the vehicle and violently pull him off in handcuffs. He was alone, but in front of strangers. Maybe some of the streetcar passengers could see the truth behind who was the real aggressor.

Then a month later police told Gary to report to an obscure, isolated location to get processed, hoping he’d have no real or supportive friends who would come to his aid. Gary had cooperatively provided his address to the police, but later noticed that his file stated he had “no fixed address”. What prompted their failure to make note of Gary’s actual address, and write those three words instead? They willfully replaced the facts with a mainstream stereotype (and this is falsifying police records, isn’t it?). The police wanted Gary to be deemed homeless by not recording his home address that he provided to them. Their omission added to their narrative to assume a mainstream stereotypical story about him having no friends who would care about him. Also, by characterizing him as homeless, they actually reveal the harsh truth of their intentions which indict themselves; if Gary and others of his community are experiencing homelessness, then this is entirely the fault of the colonial state which has literally stolen their homeland!

With all the harassment and legal persecution, Gary told me he’s so thankful for the group of friends and allies who showed up last week to accompany him in this continuing trauma. At least 10 of us waited for him outside, and one entered the building with Gary. When the officer demanded of her, “Why are you here?” Gary’s friend said, “I’m here to support him,” and added that she is a member of an international human rights organization. Upon hearing this, the officer decided to tone down his very intimidating attitude and lower his voice. Gary gave thanks for these caring communities willing to turn up for him, some people even risking incarceration themselves, no matter how cold and icy, no matter how early in the morning. He spoke with all his friends that day, old ones and new ones, some of whom he only just met that morning, many of whom will likely turn up to support him at his next painful court date.”

- Loretta Fisher, “Stop the police persecution of Land Defenders.” Spring Magazine. March 21, 2022.

#land defender #toronto #solidarity action #wet’suwet’en #coastal gaslink #rule of law #settler colonialism in canada #violence of settler colonialism #first nations #indigenous people #indigenous rights #treaty rights #loss of treaty rights #law and order in canada #thunder bay #northwestern ontario #mishkeegogamang first nation #police repression #political prisoners

[masterstaff]

(PG VERSION) Honest Government Ad | Canada 🇨🇦

Well, so much for moving to Canada.

#youtube #thejuicemedia #Honest Government Ads #FML #Canada #North America #British Columbia #Wet’Suwet’En #WTF #The Juice Media #...

[auressea]

Call to Action

Dear allies,

The images published by the Narwhal this week are nothing short of heartbreaking. So I will be brief.

I am sad and furious that this has been allowed to happen. I want people to call the “regulators” who have been deliberately asleep at the wheel.

Our Sacred headwaters, The Wedzinkwa river that we drink from, shows up muddy which should be clear! This is devastating and unacceptable!

Pipeline construction work drowned in a wetland used by salmon, a food that has fed our people for well beyond thousands of years.

But three individuals have the power to stop this work immediately. I have had my allied team set up this link so you can call them. CALL THEM NOW PLEASE!!!

We have warned this would happen forever. We were ignored.

We will never tire of speaking our truth. This river is a part of us. The Land is a part of us.

CGL has proven reckless and violent. They do not care!

Please click this link to call the ministers who have the power to stop this now!!

The work continues on the Wet’suwet’en struggle for autonomy. We thank you for your ongoing support.

Standby for more…

Eve

*** this will take you to an Autodialer Phone Train- which connects you to the voicemail of the relevant 'authorities'. have a script ready

#cgl off the yintah #land defenders #water protectors #landback #Wet’suwet’en #uncolonizing #unsurrendered traditional lands #CKA British Columbia #take action #stop CGL #no more pipelines #leave it in the ground #we said NO! #indigenous people #indigenous land

[stevemaclellan]

Coastal GasLink is drilling under the Wedzin Kwa (Morice River) as spawning salmon lay their eggs throughout the river system.

The work is being done during a period outside of the “least-risk window” for in-stream construction, according to reports filed with the B.C. Environmental Assessment Office. Put another way, Coastal GasLink is putting its pipeline under the river at the riskiest time for salmon.                                                                   

While laying the pipeline under Wedzin Kwa doesn’t include major construction directly in the river, the question of whether this work will impact the gravel beds where salmon lay their eggs remains unanswered by the company and provincial and federal regulators. Coastal GasLink has to drill to a depth of 11 metres under the river to complete the work.

Mike Ridsdale, environmental assessment coordinator with the Office of the Wet’suwet’en, an administrative body that works on behalf of the Hereditary Chiefs, said he was never satisfied with the company’s plans, which were approved by the B.C. government in 2014.

“The lack of sufficient adequate baseline data in terms of fish populations and least-risk windows was out to lunch — they were terrible,” he told The Narwhal. “Right now, there’s eggs that are in the gravel. All that vibration, what’s that going to do to them? Are they going to develop correctly?”

#environment #salmon #coastal gaslink #bcpoli #wet’suwet’en

[telekitnetic-art]

Arthur Morgan: born too late for the golden age of the west, born too early for modern healthcare, BUT was born just in time to hypothetically head up to a little area in British Columbia and kill Father Adrien-Gabriel Morice

#shitpost comprehensible to Wet’suwet’en and Gitxsan ppl only #and maybe those who know indigenous history of bc too #Arthur morgan #rdr2 #telekitnetic's silly mind box #this would be like truth and reconciliation and healing 2 me

[fuckyeahmarxismleninism]

The Indigenous people of the Wet’suwet’en, Canada.

Via Noureddine Salhi

[allthecanadianpolitics]

Demonstrators gathered in 40 locations across Canada on Saturday to voice their opposition to the Royal Bank of Canada's funding of fossil fuel projects. The protests, part of a nation-wide effort dubbed Fossil Fools Day, unfolded in cities including Edmonton, Toronto, Ottawa, Winnipeg, Halifax and Vancouver. One protestor said the demonstrations were intended to raise awareness of the bank's looming Annual General Meeting, scheduled to take place in Saskatoon on April 5.

Full article

Tagging: @politicsofcanada

#cdnpoli #canadian politics #canadian news #canadian #canada #RBC #royal bank of canada #fossil fuels #oil #wet'suwet'en #wet’suwet’en strong #all eyes on wet’suwet’en #protests #land defenders #land defense

[workingclasshistory]

On this day, 7 January 2019, a group of Indigenous land defenders was attacked by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) who had been instructed to use violence and were prepared to use deadly force. The activists were defending the Gidimt’en checkpoint, east of the Unist'ot'en protest camp, which had been erected to prevent the construction of a gas pipeline on ancestral lands of the Wet’suwet’en nation in the province of British Columbia, Canada. Senior RCMP officers had stated that “lethal" force was "req'd”, and had instructed police to “use as much violence toward the gate as you want”. During the attack 14 people were arrested and the barricades were destroyed. For more than 20 years, First Nations peoples have been fighting the growing encroachment by fossil fuel companies in the region. Despite the repression, resistance to the pipeline continued. Tlingit land defender Anne Spice told the Guardian newspaper: “The police are here to support the invasion of Indigenous territories… It is what they’ve always done." The paramilitary RCMP was specifically created to facilitate genocide against Indigenous peoples, by violent relocation, to suppress any resistance and forcibly remove Indigenous children from their families in order to place them in residential schools and indoctrinate them into colonialist and capitalist structures. https://www.facebook.com/workingclasshistory/photos/a.294735704044920/2181138992071239/?type=3

[markruffalo]

“This harassment and intimidation is exactly the kind of violence designed to drive us from our homelands.” -Chief Na’Moks

I'm saddened by the persistent harassment from the RCMP. We will continue to uplift our Indigenous family and support the fight.

[survivingcapitalism]

The force also used “lethal-force overwatch” — snipers armed with rifles — during the high-profile enforcement, according to officers with a specialized RCMP response team meant to resolve high-risk situations.

The revelations came as RCMP witnesses began testifying at a hearing on the Nov. 19, 2021, police response to Indigenous land defenders who had occupied two small structures along the Coastal GasLink pipeline route. The hearing follows Justice Michael Tammen’s verdict, Friday, that there is sufficient evidence to convict three people charged during the raid with criminal contempt of court.

Immediately following the decision, Tammen moved to consider an application to dismiss the charges based on police conduct during the arrests. The defendants say they experienced “widespread Charter violations stemming from police misconduct” and “disproportionate and excessive use of force,” according to a statement issued by members of the Gidimt’en Clan.

Among those arrested inside a “tiny house” located next to the pipeline route was Sleydo’, who also goes by Molly Wickham. A prominent figure in the Wet’suwet’en First Nation’s years-long opposition to the project, Sleydo’ was arrested along with Shaylynn Sampson, who is Gitxsan, and several others, including two journalists. One of the journalists, Amber Bracken, is now suing the RCMP over her arrest and detention.

[auressea]

Action- Please Call for accountability!

I know phone calls are hard. Are you actively uncolonizing? Do you support Indigenous Sovereignty and the Land Back movement?

@allthecanadianpolitics

Mar 31 2023

#wet'suwet'en #off the yintah #Gidim’ten #Stop Big Oil #this is an invasion of a sovereign nation #RCMP #corporate goonsquad #ACAB #the state is sending indigenous people to jail for defending their land against a private corporation. #so called 'canada' #BC news #de-militarize the police #current events

[stevemaclellan]

“I’m going to go for a walk in and check on things,” explains Namoks bluntly. He locks eyes with the guard and the eyeglasses resting on the top of his nose catch the glare of the sun.

“I’m going to stay on the main road, people are coming with me for my security and safety because I do not trust you or the RCMP.”

A thick tension permeates the air.

“We will not be impeding the work,” continues Namoks. “We’re just going to go in and check on things and walk.”

The security guard answers sharply, “I just want to remind you that work being conducted here is lawfully authorized and permitted.”

Namoks affirms his sovereign authority. “I am the hereditary chief and I have full jurisdiction over…”

The guard continues, speaking over Namoks, and looking away to face the land defenders, “the Supreme Court of BC injunction is in place with enforcement prohibiting anyone from interfering with, stopping or obstructing work activities.”

Namoks again tells the guard he has the legal right to access the area and requests to see the CGL drill pad site that will destroy this part of his homelands.

#environment #bcpoli #Wet’suwet’en river