Photo: Wet’suwet’en Hereditary Chief Na’Moks, Wet’suwet’en land defender Gaylene Morris of the Likhsamasyu Clan, Gitxsan hereditary leader Gwii Lok’im Gibuu, Jesse Stoeppler, and Dogwood Northern B.C. coordinator Kai Nagata; Gatineau, Quebec, July 17, 2025. Photo by Brent Patterson, PBI-Canada.
A media release from Oil Change International dated July 17, 2025, states: “Complaints were submitted this morning by Wet’suwet’en Hereditary Chief Na’Moks and Deputy Chief of the Hagwilget Village Council Gwii Lok’im Gibuu (Jesse Stoeppler).”
On July 25, Canada’s National Observer further reported: “Wet’suwet’en hereditary Chief Na’Moks filed a complaint last week with the Japan Bank for International Cooperation’s (JBIC) independently appointed environmental examiners — tasked with investigating alleged environmental wrongdoing — detailing environmental harms and human rights abuses from the construction of the Coastal Gaslink project that transports fracked gas from the Montney region in [northeast British Columbia] to LNG Canada’s export terminal [in Kitimat, British Columbia]. The bank loaned US $850 million to the project in 2021.”
The filing reads: “Despite the Wet’suwet’en having repeatedly rejected the project, JBIC proceeded to approve financing for the LNG Canada terminal and the associated Coastal GasLink pipeline without securing proper [free, prior and informed consent] … a fundamental breach of both Canadian law and international human rights standards. [We call on JBIC to] immediately suspend any further financing.”
Compressor stations to be built on Wet’suwet’en territory
The National Observer article further highlights: “If LNG Canada Phase 2 is built, expanding export capacity at the site will involve increasing storage tanks, new processing facilities and more tanker traffic through vulnerable coastal waters. But it will also mean increasing the amount of gas fracked in northeastern BC, and sending more gas through the Coastal GasLink pipeline. To do that, additional compressor stations will need to be built to squeeze more gas into the pipeline.”
In June 2024, the Canadian Press reported: “Hereditary chiefs say two of the proposed compressor stations that would be a part of Coastal GasLink’s Phase 2 would be located on their traditional territory. They said they have concerns about the proximity to important cultural sites, additional years of construction traffic and the long-term climate impact of expanding Canada’s LNG footprint.”
And this past April 2025, CBC News reported the “proposed Phase 2 of the project would increase the export [of fracked gas] amount to 28 million tonnes annually [from 14 million tonnes annually].”
“We’re living in a petrostate being enforced by a police state.” – Chief Na’Moks
Photo: Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) C-IRG officers during the November 2021 raid on Wet’suwet’en territory. Photo by Michael Toledano.
Amnesty International has previously noted that it has “determined that the tactics used by the RCMP during the four militarized raids on Wet’suwet’en land defenders were disproportionate to the situation they were responding to, as there are no reports of defenders using violence or representing a threat.”
Amnesty International has documented: “More than 75 Wet’suwet’en and other land defenders were arrested, solely for exercising their Indigenous rights and their rights to freedom of peaceful assembly.”
In 2025, a British Columbia court ruled the RCMP’s actions were “grossly offensive, racist, and dehumanizing.”
Peace Brigades International-Canada continues to call for the abolition of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) Community-Industry Response Group (C-IRG), now rebranded as the Community-Response Unit (CRU-BC).
We also continue to follow the Civilian Review and Complaints Commission (CRCC) systemic investigation of the actions of the RCMP C-IRG on Wet’suwet’en and other territories that was initiated more than two years ago.
Oil Change International notes that the Wet’suwet’en complaint against the JBIC “highlights systemic failures, including … Militarized raids by Canadian police, arbitrary arrests, and documented human rights violations against Indigenous land defenders opposing the pipeline as highlighted in the Canadian Screen Award winning documentary YINTAH.”
PBI-Canada and PBI-Colombia visited Wet’suwet’en territory in June 2025 with Colombian human rights defenders. PBI-Canada has also visited the yintah in May 2022 and November 2021. It is our intention to return in October 2025 to observe the sentencing hearing of three Indigenous land defenders.
We join with our friends at Amnesty International who have demanded “the Crown withdraw charges against land defenders and end the militarized enforcement of private industry interests on Indigenous land.”
Further reading: Indigenous Leaders in Canada Demand Accountability from JBIC and Mitsubishi for Complicity in LNG Canada Violations (Oil Change International, July 17, 2025).
Photo: PBI-Canada, PBI-Colombia and the Forest Peoples Programme visit Wet’suwet’en territory, June 2025. Photo by Nick Gottlieb.
