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[https://nationalpost.com/news/how-a-local-wetsuweten-protest-grew-into-a-major-crisis-for-the-trudeau-government
How a local Wet’suwet’en pipeline protest grew into a major crisis for the Trudeau government
This is the core of the dispute that has not only sparked a national crisis, but revealed intractable problems in Indigenous governance
Joseph Brean
February 19, 2020
8:24 PM EST
The blockade on the Morice West River Forest Service Road was first set up in 2012, in response to a proposed pipeline for liquefied natural gas that would run through the area of central British Columbia on its way from Dawson Creek, B.C., to the ocean at Kitimat.
Built of wood and barbed wire, later reinforced with metal gates, it was set up on a river bridge by members of the Wet’suwet’en First Nation, under the guidance of a married couple who would later be named as co-defendants in the legal dispute that has led to civil disobedience, police raids, arrests, court injunctions, crippling nation-wide solidarity protests, and now, a major crisis for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
But it began as a simple encampment along a logging road, where Freda Huson and her then-husband, Warner Naziel, arranged for the building of simple structures, and granted limited access to forestry workers who were logging and doing road work. Pipeline activity was stopped dead, though, and remained stalled until a corporate decision to move ahead with the wider project was made in October, 2018, with a contractual deadline of 2021. That is when the legal action kicked off in earnest.
Huson is a spokesperson for the the Unist’ot’en people of Dark House, part of the Gilseyhu (Big Frog) clan, which are a matrilineal group of Wet’suwet’en, as a judge has described them, “with bloodlines that belong to the earliest membership who make up the larger Wet’suwet’en First Nation.”
Her then-husband Naziel is hereditary chief of Sun House, and a member of Likhts’amisyu clan, who holds the hereditary titles Toghestiy and Smogelgem.
They claimed their blockade was in accordance with Wet’suwet’en law, and that the actions of Coastal GasLink were not.
They did not claim provincial or Canadian law does not apply to this bitter dispute over industrial use of traditional indigenous lands, just that Wet’suwet’en law does too, but that it has been ignored, and consent to enter unceded lands has not been given.
Indigenous laws do not become part of Canadian law until they are written into treaties, jurisprudence or legislation, which has not happened with Wet’suwet’en laws, but they can be taken into account as evidence of Indigenous perspective on disputes.
This is the core of the dispute that has not only sparked a national crisis, but revealed intractable problems in Indigenous governance. The Wet’suwet’en are torn between matrilineal traditions, patriarchal hereditary chieftains, and the system of elected band chiefs and councils provided for in Canada’s controversial Indian Act. Some Wet’suwet’en agree to the pipeline, others do not, and it is not clear how this can be finally resolved.
There are 13 Wet’suwet’en houses, each with a hereditary chief, and they are represented by the Office of the Wet’suwet’en. Those houses are also divided into five clans. But there are also five Wet’suwet’en bands under the Indian Act, with elected chiefs and councils, all of which have made agreements to allow the pipeline. There is also a new Wet’suwet’en Matrilineal Coalition, set up to take a more democratic approach to community decision making.
Coastal GasLink is a B.C. company wholly owned by Trans-Canada Pipelines, which runs more than 90,000 kms of pipeline in North America. It has obtained all its necessary permits and authorizations for use of the road and to build the pipeline.
It did so jointly with the province of British Columbia and with Indigenous groups listed by the Environmental Assessment Office, including Office of the Wet’suwet’en, representing hereditary chiefs and five bands under the Indian Act: Wet’suwet’en First Nation, Skin Tyee Band, Witset First Nation, Ts’il Kaz Koh First Nation or Burns Lake Band, and the Nee Tahi Buhn Band. That official list does not include the Unist’ot’en.
All 20 elected bands along the pipeline route have given agreement, including the five Wet’suwet’en bands under the Indian Act. Many members have contracted for work on the project, including a Wet’suwet’en-owned company that has signed a contract to equip and facilitate a camp for workers.
But Naziel, Huson and their companions maintained their blockade. When Coastal GasLink served Naziel with thousands of pages of legal documents on November 27, 2018, he was providing palliative home care to his mother. He did not even retain defence counsel until more than a week later. He was also about to separate from Huson.
Madam Justice Marguerite Church granted an extension of several months, but issued an interim injunction, including an enforcement order, that allowed construction of a Coastal GasLink camp on land that had already been cut and required no further logging.
That led to protests on the site and an RCMP raid last January. Coastal GasLink met with some hereditary chiefs in a failed effort to broker a solution. Police breached the blockade but protestors set a fire and took down trees to block the road. More than a dozen people were arrested and released on the condition of obeying the injunction. Contempt charges were later dropped.
An Access Protocol agreement was reached between Coastal GasLink and the Unist’ot’en Camp in April, 2019, and on the last day of 2019, Coastal GasLink got its court order for the blockade to stop. Police raids to enforce it began earlier this month, but the standoff continues.
© 2020 National Post, a division of Postmedia Network Inc. All rights reserved. Unauthorized distribution, transmission or republication strictly prohibited.
 World Fact Book (CIA)]
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