Pseudo Sane
Black Belt
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I haven't seen a post on this, and it is becoming a big deal in Canada, so I thought I would start a thread.
Has anyone else been following this?
For those who aren't aware, Canada has been dealing with a wave of protests Canada-wide, mostly centered on blocking CN rail lines around the country. The rail line is incredibly important for Canadian interprovincial trade, so it's kind of a big deal; about 1500 jobs have been lost so far, and a few $100 million to the economy.
Protesters even disrupted the throne speech of the BC legislature; politicians needed police escorts to get inside: https://globalnews.ca/news/6534705/bc-legislature-cancels-pre-throne-speech-ceremonies/.
The basic issue was triggered by a pipeline going through traditional Wetʼsuwetʼen land in BC, but it has attracted protesters on a number of largely unrelated environmental and aboriginal issues.
What makes this unusual is that there has been massive consultation with the Wetʼsuwetʼen, and a majority of the Wetʼsuwetʼen (including most of the traditional elders, 5 of whom are spearheading the protests), support the project, as do most of the FN groups along the pipeline route.
The protesters have been served court injunctions telling them to shove off, which they are ignoring. The RCMP (Canada's national police force, who act as provincial law enforcement in many provinces) and the OPP (the provincial police in Ontario) have refused to enforce the injunctions. All politicians in power are trying as hard as possible to avoid any hint of responsibility for what is going on, while the politicians out of power are bloviating on what they think should be done.
I understand why they are having a light touch; they don't want another standoff like the Oka Crisis, where hundreds of armed Mohawk faced off with the Canadian military and Swat forces in 1990.
The LA Times has a decent summary for anyone looking to orient themselves: https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2020-02-20/canada-pipeline-rail-blockades-protests
Here's an article on the latest news, which is the RCMP is removing themselves from Wet'suwet'en territory in an attempt (likely futile) to placate the protestors:
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-bc-rcmp-agree-to-move-away-from-wetsuweten-territory/
I am hopeful that this will resolve without bloodshed, but I am deeply troubled by how utterly weak Canada has proven as a polity. With this and the growing separatist movement in Alberta, I hardly feel like I'm living in a real country anymore. Our transportation network is fragile to the point that you can paralyze us as a country without any real difficulty, with only the threat of violence. Any real insurgency--hell, even 100 guys with guns and the will to use them--could tear our country apart with minimal difficulty, it appears.
Has anyone else been following this?
For those who aren't aware, Canada has been dealing with a wave of protests Canada-wide, mostly centered on blocking CN rail lines around the country. The rail line is incredibly important for Canadian interprovincial trade, so it's kind of a big deal; about 1500 jobs have been lost so far, and a few $100 million to the economy.
Protesters even disrupted the throne speech of the BC legislature; politicians needed police escorts to get inside: https://globalnews.ca/news/6534705/bc-legislature-cancels-pre-throne-speech-ceremonies/.
The basic issue was triggered by a pipeline going through traditional Wetʼsuwetʼen land in BC, but it has attracted protesters on a number of largely unrelated environmental and aboriginal issues.
What makes this unusual is that there has been massive consultation with the Wetʼsuwetʼen, and a majority of the Wetʼsuwetʼen (including most of the traditional elders, 5 of whom are spearheading the protests), support the project, as do most of the FN groups along the pipeline route.
The protesters have been served court injunctions telling them to shove off, which they are ignoring. The RCMP (Canada's national police force, who act as provincial law enforcement in many provinces) and the OPP (the provincial police in Ontario) have refused to enforce the injunctions. All politicians in power are trying as hard as possible to avoid any hint of responsibility for what is going on, while the politicians out of power are bloviating on what they think should be done.
I understand why they are having a light touch; they don't want another standoff like the Oka Crisis, where hundreds of armed Mohawk faced off with the Canadian military and Swat forces in 1990.
The LA Times has a decent summary for anyone looking to orient themselves: https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2020-02-20/canada-pipeline-rail-blockades-protests
Canada pipeline project brings paralyzing rail blockades and protests
A protester stands beside smoke at the closed train tracks in Tyendinaga Mohawk Territory near Belleville, Ontario on Thursday Feb. 20, 2020, as demonstrators protest in solidarity with the Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs opposed to the LNG pipeline in northern British Columbia.
(Lars Hagberg / Associated Press)
By DAVID M. SHRIBMAN
FEB. 20, 2020
5:32 PM
DORVAL, Canada —
The latest trouble began in early February with rail blockades in Canada over a natural gas pipeline project that crosses traditional territory of the Wet’suwet’en indigenous band in northwestern British Columbia.
Soon protesters created a rail roadblock in Ontario, and sympathy protests popped up as far away as the Maritime Provinces, more than 2,800 miles from the site where Coastal GasLink plans a $5-billion project.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau characterized the situation as “a critical moment for our country and our future.”
The controversy has stalled transport, disrupted business operations, created new tensions between Canada’s white majority and its indigenous people — and presented Trudeau with the biggest challenge of his more than four years in office.
Besieged by demands from business leaders, criticized by political foes and frustrated by his inability to satisfy campaign promises to native Canadians, the prime minister is pleading for calm and rejecting demands from business and political leaders to use force to disengage the protesters who oppose the pipeline. It would run 416 miles from northeastern British Columbia to the Pacific coast.
Demonstrations have clogged the streets of downtown Montreal and the highways of rural Manitoba. New tensions have flared between the government and Canada’s tribes. And uncertainty remains over whether chiefs in northern British Columbia will consent to a meeting that might end the impasse that has disrupted the travel plans of tens of thousands of people.
Protesters in solidarity with the Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs opposed to the pipeline in northern British Columbia block an intersection in Ottawa on Feb. 12, 2020.
(Adrian Wyld / Associated Press)
Canadian National Railway Co. said this week that it was laying off about 450 employees temporarily as a result of the travel stoppage created by the blockades. Via Rail Canada, which operates passenger service, also is cutting 1,000 employees. Business leaders claim millions of dollars of commerce already has been lost, energy company executives say crucial supplies of propane used in heating homes are at risk, and food distributors worry that perishable meat and poultry shipments are endangered.
This is a classic Canadian imbroglio in a country that experiences persistent cold and snow and can be preoccupied with the ability to move people and products from place to place in winter. It involves questions about who rightly owns the vast continental expanse of the country and even the legitimacy of Royal Canadian Mounted Police checkpoints. Indeed, the decision of the Mounties late Thursday to move off tribal territory offered a glimmer of hope that the impasse might be broken with negotiations.
A bewildering element of the pipeline episode — frustrating to Trudeau, to First Nations National Chief Perry Bellegarde, and to the nearly three dozen business associations that are demanding that Trudeau bring the crisis to an end — is confusion about how to defuse the matter. Individual provinces and territories have a lot of power— a phenomenon that has been the subject of continuing, and enormous, contention for half a century.
The current controversy covers a lot of ground, including the environmental concerns about the effect the pipeline would have on British Columbia’s rivers and risk of a rupture of the gas pipeline; climate activist Greta Thunberg has demonstrated her support to the protesters in a tweet to her 4 million Internet followers.
It also illustrates continuing conflicts over the rights of businesses to conduct their affairs in lands that native Canadians consider theirs and thus should be controlled by them. Long-standing property and civic issues date to colonial times — and grow out of conflicting views of the Mounties, who have roamed the Canadian West since the country’s confederation in 1867, when they were known as the North-West Mounted Rifles. They have not been forgiven by the tribes for their role in enforcing the residential boarding school system in which aboriginals were abused and native customs were erased.
Canadian Prime Minister-designate Justin Trudeau speaks during the rally to celebrate his party’s majority victory in Canada’s election.
(Chris Roussakis / European Pressphoto Agency)
The conflict has befuddled Trudeau, who favors a light touch in politics and who faced criticism in the autumn election campaign for failing to redeem the expansive promises he made to improve living and economic conditions for indigenous Canadians when he first ran for prime minister in 2015.
This week he pleaded for calm, arguing in the House of Commons, “Those who would want us to act in haste, who want us to boil this down to slogans and ignore the complexities, who think that using force is helpful — it is not.”
He did not, however, offer any solutions to the problem. And his remarks served only to inflame his critics.
Andrew Scheer, the Conservative leader whom Trudeau defeated four months ago and who bears the title of opposition leader, derided the prime minister’s handling of the matter as “the weakest response to a national crisis in Canadian history.”
Some of Trudeau’s Liberal colleagues in Parliament have grown impatient. And in a front-page commentary in the conservative National Post newspaper Wednesday, columnist John Ivison, a persistent critic of Trudeau, pilloried the prime minister, arguing, “Trudeau has been prone to being prone on the blockades. Anyone hoping he’d condemn protests by a tiny minority that threatens real hardship for the vast majority were sorely disappointed.”
Meanwhile, sympathetic groups were recruiting allies to participate in the protests, even promising travel stipends.
On Tuesday protesters descended on the home of British Columbia Premier John Horgan, whose budget they argued would ‘’fund further injury’’ to indigenous peoples and threatened to make a citizen’s arrest. Canadian authorities also have made threats, though they have not pressed a court injunction to end the blockade on Tyendinaga Mohawk territory near Belleville, Ontario, the site of the original protests.
There are echoes from a 78-day episode in 1990, when Mohawks, who have been in the Montreal area since they were lured there for religious conversion from ancient tribal lands by Jesuit missionaries in early 18th century, erected a blockade to protest plans to expand a golf course into lands they claimed in Oka, Quebec. That dispute quickly become part of Canadian popular culture, spawning movies, books, even a punk rock song.
The National Film Board of Canada produced a documentary called “Acts of Defiance” that itself spawned protests, including claims that the Mohawks were portrayed in heroic defiance of legitimate political authority. A second film, “Kanehsatake,” portrayed the confrontation — as characterized by Randolph Lewis, a professor of American studies at the University of Texas — as a conflict between “state violence and indigenous sovereignty.”
That is precisely the characterization that Trudeau — who described the pipeline dispute as unacceptable — wants to avoid three decades later.
Here's an article on the latest news, which is the RCMP is removing themselves from Wet'suwet'en territory in an attempt (likely futile) to placate the protestors:
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-bc-rcmp-agree-to-move-away-from-wetsuweten-territory/
Ottawa ‘hopeful’ barricades could come down as RCMP offer to leave Wet’suwet’en outpost
KRISTY KIRKUP, BILL CURRY AND LES PERREAUX
PUBLISHED 2 DAYS AGOUPDATED 1 DAY AGO
589 COMMENTS
Police serve an injunction to protesters at a rail blockade in St-Lambert, south of Montreal, Que., on Feb. 20, 2020. Some Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs oppose the passage of a $6.6-billion natural gas pipeline through traditional territory, but the project has received support from elected band members.
RYAN REMIORZ/THE CANADIAN PRESS
The RCMP are offering to move a temporary post in northern British Columbia to a nearby town, a development the federal government hopes will defuse anger among First Nation chiefs and spur a negotiated end to blockades across the country.
Hereditary chiefs from the Wet’suwet’en Nation opposed to a natural-gas pipeline going through their traditional territories had asked the RCMP to move out of the area before they would meet with federal and provincial ministers.
Opinion: As the RCMP retreats from the Wet’suwet’en blockades, the delicate trust it is building with Indigenous women remains at risk
Canadian ports on two coasts congested due to rail blockades
Public Safety Minister Bill Blair said the government is “very hopeful” the RCMP’s decision will satisfy the protesters’ demands and help to restore halted rail service, end temporary layoffs of rail employees and bring about a peaceful resolution.
“The condition that people said was the reason for the barricades has now been met,” he said.
Some Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs oppose the passage of a $6.6-billion natural gas pipeline through traditional territory on its way from northeastern B.C. to Kitimat on the coast, but the project has received support from elected band members.
Mr. Blair said Thursday the RCMP make all their own operational decisions but added the force has made a “very sound” decision in the goal of peacekeeping.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is facing increasing political pressure this week to provide specifics on what the federal government is doing to address the issue and what he calls “unacceptable” disruptions, shutdowns and layoffs.
Open this photo in gallery
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau delivers a statement in the House of Commons on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on Tuesday, Feb. 18, 2020, regarding infrastructure disruptions caused by blockades across the country.
SEAN KILPATRICK/THE CANADIAN PRESS
Mr. Trudeau held a conference call with premiers on Thursday evening to discuss the issue. The Prime Minister’s Office said in a statement Mr. Trudeau highlighted the need for Canada’s railway system to be fully functional, adding the government is looking at options to resolve the “current interruptions given the impact on our economy.”
“The Prime Minister spoke with the Premiers about the importance of ending the blockades as quickly as possible and reaching a peaceful and lasting resolution, in a way that builds trust and respect among all parties involved,” it said.
One of the Wetʼsuwetʼen Nation hereditary chiefs said they not only want the RCMP off their territory, they expect Coastal GasLink to remove its workers too. Na’moks, who also goes by John Ridsdale, said progress is being made, while reminding supporters to remain peaceful.
Crown-Indigenous Relations Minister Carolyn Bennett and B.C. Indigenous Relations Minister Scott Fraser are seeking a meeting with Wetʼsuwetʼen Nation hereditary chiefs who oppose the pipeline project. But Na’moks also said his counterparts won’t meet with cabinet ministers in Ottawa.
Open this photo in gallery
Wet'suwet'en Hereditary Chiefs from left, Rob Alfred, John Ridsdale, centre and Antoinette Austin who oppose the Costal Gaslink pipeline take part in a rally in Smithers B.C., on Friday January 10, 2020.
JASON FRANSON/THE CANADIAN PRESS
The company responsible for the pipeline issued a statement Thursday in support of the RCMP’s proposal to move its regional operations to the town of Houston.
“Coastal GasLink continues to seek a negotiated resolution to the issues outlined by the Hereditary Chiefs,” the company said, adding the project will provide long-lasting benefits to the Wet’suwet’en people.
For their part, some hereditary chiefs are expected to meet Friday morning with representatives of the Mohawk Nation in Ontario who have also erected blockades in support of the Wet’suwet’en chiefs. In Tyendinaga Mohawk Territory, near Belleville, a handful of protesters were at the blockade as it entered its 15th day.
Indigenous Services Minister Marc Miller, who met with members of the Mohawk Nation over the weekend, said Thursday he and Ms. Bennett are available to join the meetings on a moment’s notice should that be requested. He also urged patience while he conceded Canadians are hurting as a result of the issue.
“There is a real opportunity here to show the world we can resolve these issues in a peaceful way,” Mr. Miller said.
Meanwhile, a bailiff accompanied by Longueuil police delivered a court injunction to end a rail blockade in a suburb south of Montreal and ordered protesters to leave. Quebec Premier François Legault had said police would dismantle the blockade in Saint-Lambert as soon as an injunction was granted. Some protesters said they would not obey the court order.
Open this photo in gallery
A protester at a rail blockade in St-Lambert, south of Montreal, Que. reads a statement to the media on Thursday, February 20, 2020 in solidarity with the Wet'suwet'en hereditary chiefs opposed to the LNG pipeline in northern British Columbia.
RYAN REMIORZ/THE CANADIAN PRESS
The Premier told reporters that because the blockade is not on First Nations land, it is easier for the government to take action.
The Saint-Lambert blockade postponed the resumption of service from five daily Via Rail trains that travel between Montreal and Quebec City and also disrupted commuter service for 9,500 passengers a day. The blockade also stopped Canadian National Railway’s main cargo route from Montreal into the United States. Still, Mr. Legault said the Belleville blockade remains his biggest concern.
Jennifer Strachan, the Commanding Officer of the B.C. RCMP, sent a letter Wednesday to the Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs informing them of a police decision to reassess the force’s presence in northern B.C.
Sergeant Janelle Shoihet, a spokesperson for the B.C. RCMP, said in an e-mail the letter thanked the chiefs for previous meetings and addressed the community’s concerns with a temporary detachment in the area called a Community Industry Safety Office (CISO).
An internal communique to all RCMP employees in B.C. praised the staff for their professionalism and indicated an openness to shutting down the temporary detachment.
“We are fully aware that the presence of our CISO has been referenced as a barrier to further dialogue and decisions and we support the efforts under way to find a long-term solution,” Sgt. Shoihet said.
The Conservative Party launched a full day of debate Thursday on a motion calling on the House of Commons to “stand in solidarity” with the Wet’suwet’en people who support the Coastal GasLink project and to “condemn the radical activists who are exploiting divisions with the Wet’suwet’en community, holding the Canadian economy hostage, and threatening jobs and opportunities in Indigenous communities.”
Conservative MP Todd Doherty, who represents the northern B.C. riding of Cariboo-Prince George, said the motion he presented is about highlighting the voices of the many Wet’suwet’en people who support the project while Ms. Bennett said the Conservative motion was divisive and would not be supported by the government.
Public Safety Minister Bill Blair says the RCMP in British Columbia have met conditions set by traditional leaders of the Wet'suwet'en First Nation opposing a pipeline project on their territory. He says he believes barricades set up in solidarity with that nation should come down.THE CANADIAN PRESS
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I am hopeful that this will resolve without bloodshed, but I am deeply troubled by how utterly weak Canada has proven as a polity. With this and the growing separatist movement in Alberta, I hardly feel like I'm living in a real country anymore. Our transportation network is fragile to the point that you can paralyze us as a country without any real difficulty, with only the threat of violence. Any real insurgency--hell, even 100 guys with guns and the will to use them--could tear our country apart with minimal difficulty, it appears.
