(Houston) The access road that has been blocked by Indigenous protesters since Sunday has been cleared by the RCMP and can now be used to bring water and other supplies to more than 500 pipeline workers, said Coastal GasLink.
RCMP officers in northern British Columbia said earlier Thursday that they were enforcing an injunction prohibiting protesters from blocking the road used by workers on the pipeline project.
Coastal GasLink said in a statement the company has been told the road is not yet secure for public travel.
The RCMP did not say if any arrests were made, but a spokesperson for the protesters who put up the blockade along the road said in a video posted online that officers read the order. ‘injunction, then began to arrest people.
The blockade was put in place on Sunday by members of the Gidimt’en clan, one of five in the Wet’suwet’en Nation, cutting off access to more than 500 pipeline workers. Workers had been given eight hours’ notice to vacate the premises, the group said in a statement.
Gidimt’en clan spokeswoman Sleydo ‘, who also goes by the English name Molly Wickham, said the court-ordered injunction had no authority over their land.
The Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs and our clans have full jurisdiction here, she said in the video released Thursday. They intrude, violate human rights, violate indigenous rights, and most importantly, they violate Wet’suwet’en law.
The spokesperson for the Gidimt’en clan, Sleydo ‘
However, a statement released on Wednesday by the elected Wet’suwet’en council said the protesters did not consult them before blocking the road and that their actions “cannot claim to represent members of the Gidimt’en or any other in the First Nation ”.
Officers were called in to help as several hundred workers were “illegally blocked by protesters, who also prevented essential supplies and services from entering the camp,” RCMP said in a statement Thursday.
“We were hopeful that a solution would be found without resorting to law enforcement, however, it became very clear to us that our discretionary period has come to an end and that the RCMP must now enforce (court orders) ). ”
Chief Superintendent John Brewer said in the statement that the RCMP had “serious concerns” about the cutting of trees by protesters, the vandalism of heavy machinery and damage to the logging road in an attempt to prevent logging. industry and the police to move on.
The dispute over the 670-kilometer pipeline has already erupted in 2019 and 2020, and protesters who defied the court order have been arrested.
Opposition to the pipeline among Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs at the time sparked solidarity rallies and rail blockades across Canada last year. The elected Chief and Council of the Wet’suwet’en First Nation and others in the area had approved the project.
Since then, a memorandum of understanding has been signed between the federal and provincial governments and the Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs, easing tensions so far.
Jennifer Wickham, media coordinator for the Gidimt’en checkpoint, said chartered planes with RCMP officers had arrived in the past two days and a number of arrests had been made until now, including those of two Wet’suwet’en elders.
“I think it’s absolutely crazy that they are sending all these RCMP members up north right now when there is a state of emergency in the province,” she said during an interview, referring to the floods and landslides that hit the province last weekend.
The pipeline that would transport natural gas from Dawson Creek in northeastern British Columbia to Kitimat on the coast is more than halfway completed with most of the road cleared and 200 kilometers of the pipeline installed so far, the company said.