Canadian Court Rules against First Nation Blockade

A BC Supreme Court justice issued a temporary injunction December 14 ordering members of the Unist’ot’en clan of the Wet’suwet’en First Nation to allow Coastal GasLink (CGL) workers access to a bridge across the Morice River, near the right-of-way of the planned C$6.2bn (US$4.6bn) pipeline.

The injunction came into effect December 17 and will remain in place until May 1, 2019. CGL had sought a permanent injunction, but Justice Marguerite Church ruled that the defendants had not had time to respond to CGL’s notice of claim and opted for the temporary order.

In a statement, CGL said it appreciated the interim injunction that will allow it to proceed with pre-construction activities, including repairing roads and culverts, clearing the right-of-way of trees and establishing a work camp. Much of the work will be done under contracts already awarded by CGL to indigenous businesses in the region.

“Right now, our focus is on respectfully and safely moving forward with project activities, including gaining safe access across the Morice River bridge,” CGL said. “We understand there are individuals who do not share the same opinions about this project, and we respect that. We simply ask that their activities do not disrupt or jeopardize the safety of our employees and contractors, surrounding communities or even themselves.”

CGL said it had no intention of forcing removal of the Unist’ot’en camp, and stressed it could see no reason why the camp and its inhabitants – including a healing centre where First Nations members come for treatment of addictions – could not remain in place. CGL’s right-of-way is about 1 kilometre south of the blockade, “and does not overlap or directly affect the camp, as some reports have claimed,” CGL said in its statement.

The injunction comes with an enforcement order allowing the RCMP to uphold the terms of the injunction if members of the Unist’ot’en choose to ignore it.

“The area of the blockade is remote, the number of persons present at the blockade varies, the time for the plaintiff to perform their work is very limited and based on social media posts by the defendant, there is an indication that the defendants and their supporters may not obey the interim injunction order,” Church said in her ruling.

In a post on its Facebook page the day after the injunction was issued, the Unist’ot’en expressed concerns about their safety in light of the injunction.

“Many of our people have experienced unapologetic violence from the state,” the post said. “This temporary injunction cannot promise that our people will be protected from the same violence experienced at Standing Rock, Elsipogtog, Iperwash, Wounded Knee, etc.”

Arguing for the injunction last week, lawyers for CGL noted that members of the blockade had already allowed workers for forestry company Canfor access to the bridge. Church found that CGL’s planned work is consistent with that being conducted by Canfor, and noted CGL’s work camp will be established on an area already cleared by forestry activity. No other work is planned for the area until the summer of 2021.

“Given the logistical complexity of the project, any delays to the construction schedule could jeopardize the entire project, posing losses to the plaintiff and the various joint venture participants and contractors in the range [sic] of several hundred million dollars,” Church said. “This would include significant and direct negative financial consequences to the Wet'suwet'en and other indigenous-owned companies who have contracted and subcontracted for some of the project work.”