Canadian judge finds RCMP C-IRG violated Charter rights of three land defenders in “extraordinarily rare ruling”

Published by Brent Patterson on February 19, 2025February 19, 2025

Photo: RCMP C-IRG officers arrest Sleydo’ on Wet’suwet’en territory, November 19, 2021.

The CBC reports: “A B.C. judge says police breached the charter rights of three people arrested for blocking work on the Coastal GasLink (CGL) pipeline, and they will receive a reduction in their sentences because of that.”

The article continues: “[Justice Michael] Tammen said it would be inappropriate to stay court proceedings, but found that some of the accused’s Section 7 rights— life, liberty, and security of person — were breached during the police raid.”

The CBC further notes: “[Justice Tammen] said there were multiple offensive and discriminatory comments made by multiple officers on Nov. 18, 2021 and Nov. 19, 2021. RCMP’s Community-Industry Response Group [C-IRG] led the enforcement. ‘That is potentially a sign of systemic attitudinal issue within the C-IRG,’ he said…”

Afterwards, in a session live streamed on Instagram moderated by Jen Wickham, the three land defenders — Sleydo’ (Molly Wickham), Shaylynn Sampson, and Corey Jocko — made comments along with their lawyer Frances Mahon, Chief Na’Moks and Chief Woos. Excerpts from that 28-minute session include:

Frances Mahon: “The court found that the conduct of the police officers abused the court’s process. This is an extraordinarily rare finding and it demonstrates how serious the police officers misconduct was. In particular it was a rebuke to the C-IRG members who thought it was appropriate to say the most egregious, racist things about beautiful Indigenous women when they thought nobody could hear them.”

Sleydo’: “My hope is that this decision will signal to the RCMP that they can no longer violate their own laws and they cannot act with impunity. C-IRG members on the ground will not be sentenced for breaking their own laws… I hope this decision will assist other land defenders in the future and the containment of C-IRG. They now call themselves the Critical Response Unit and they act openly as unaccountable mercenaries for private industry.”

Shaylynn Sampson: “[The RCMP] were created to take our children from our territories and put them in residential schools. They were created to keep us off our territory. And we see that is the work they are still doing today. They remove us from our land, they criminalize us, they put us through years and years of court battles in a system that was made to undermine our hereditary governance structures.” 

The full 28-minute video can be seen here.

The CBC article notes: “Tammen said the maximum sentence for criminal contempt is no more than five years imprisonment.” APTN adds: “The case will be back in court on April 3 to fix a date for sentencing.”

We continue to follow this.

Photo: Land defender Shaylynn Sampson arrested by the RCMP C-IRG, November 19, 2021.

Further reading: RCMP Violated Charter Rights During CGL Arrests, Court Finds (Amanda Follett Hosgood, The Tyee, February 19, 2025).