Gitanyow post video with images of RCMP “mercenaries” as land defenders maintain checkpoint against PRGT pipeline
The Gitanyow Hereditary Chiefs have posted on Instagram and Facebook:
“We stand on the shoulders of our ancestors!
This National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, we honour the generations who fought for our lands, waters, and people — and we carry their fight forward. This is our Laxyip. This is our truth.
Special thanks to @brennenleigh for allowing us to use and adapt her powerful song. Her music strengthens our voices as we stand united to defend our traditional territory.
Please sign the petition to halt construction of the PRGT pipeline until a modern environmental assessment is conducted at the link in our profile.
T’ooyaks’y nisim”
The video posted by the Hereditary Chiefs include images of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) Community-Industry Response Group (C-IRG) raids on Wet’suwet’en territory in November 2021 and on Pacheedaht territory in August 2021.
The lyric in the video says: “You can send mercenaries with guns and weapons / bring big bulldozers and use machines / pepper spray us, sic your dogs on us / but you ain’t laying no pipeline through our land”.
The RCMP C-IRG is now under systemic investigation by the Civilian Review and Complaints Commission (CRCC), an independent federal agency, after nearly 500 formal complaints had been filed alleging excessive force, illegal tactics, unprofessional behaviour, racism, discrimination and Charter violations.
Gitanyow blockade of PRGT pipeline
Construction on the Prince Rupert Gas Transmission (PRGT) pipeline began on August 24. The Gitanyow Hereditary Chiefs set up a highway checkpoint two days earlier to impede construction of this megaproject.
Gitanyow Hereditary Chief Gamlakyeltxw, Wil Marsden, of the Lax Ganeda (frog) Clan says the blockade is set to stay up until at least November 25, the date which the environmental certificate for the pipeline expires unless the consortium building it can demonstrate the project has been “substantially started”.
The proposed pipeline is being presented as a “joint venture” between Houston, Texas-based Western LNG and the Nisga’a Nation. The Reston, Virginia-based engineering company Bechtel will “oversee and manage the execution of the PRGT natural gas pipeline” while BC-based Ledcor will “support the 2024 work plan”.
If completed, the 800-kilometre pipeline would carry fracked gas from northeastern British Columbia across about 50 kilometres of Gitanyow territory and 120 kilometres of Gitxsan territory until it reaches the proposed the Ksi Lisims LNG terminal near the Nass River estuary on Nisga’a territory in northwestern BC.
Photo: The Gitxsan are also holding a rally today in Vancouver at the Law Courts building to continue their “fight against the corruption of the BC Supreme Court in issuing injunctions on traditional territories and deploying of militarized RCMP units to terrorize, arrest and harm Gitxsan and our neighbouring First Nations.”
The National Day for Truth and Reconciliation
September 30 marks the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation.
The Government of Canada says: “The day honours the children who never returned home and Survivors of residential schools, as well as their families and communities.”
This year, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau stated: “Between 1867 and 1996, the federal residential school system forcibly removed over 150,000 First Nations, Inuit, and Métis children from their families and communities…”
While a Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) report “identified 3,200 deaths” at residential schools, and TRC chair Murray Sinclair suggested at least 6,000 Indigenous children died at the schools, Cindy Blackstock and Pamela Palmater have commented the number could be closer to 12,000 children.
The RCMP forcibly removed Indigenous children from their families to take them to residential schools that were often hundreds of kilometres away to deliberately prevent parents from visiting their children or the children to escape and return home.
The Scream painting by Kent Monkman.
While the RCMP apologized in 2004 and 2014 for their role, they tweeted in 2020 about the “Indigenous children who were sent away to residential schools” and in 2021 the RCMP Veteran’s Association posted an opinion piece that said: “Today’s generations cannot be responsible for the actions of our forefathers.”
In recent days, the RCMP have killed five Indigenous people: John Charles Piche (on August 29), Hoss Lightning (August 30), Daniel Knife (September 8), Steven Dedam (September 8) and Joseph Desjarlais (September 24), while within the same period Tammy Bateman was killed by Winnipeg Police, Jason West by Windsor Police, Ron Skunk by the Ontario Provincial Police, and Jon Wells by Calgary Police.
PBI-Canada is a member of the Abolish C-IRG coalition.
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