To date, the RCMP’s Community-Industry Response Group (C-IRG) in British Columbia has been made up of officers who volunteer to take part in the unit with some officers earning $100 per hour working 18.5-hour shifts.

Molly Murphy has written: “[C-IRG Gold Commander John] Brewer said those in the C-IRG are RCMP officers who are temporarily reassigned from their regular duties.” Her article with Research for the Front Lines also quotes a source who reveals how officers are asked to join the C-IRG: “They’ll send out an email, saying, ‘Hey, we need more C-IRG people.’”

In January of this year, CBC reported that it had determined through access-to-information requests, the C-IRG has received at least $49.9 million since 2017-18 for its actions to enable the construction of the TC Energy Coastal GasLink pipeline on Wet’suwet’en territory, the Government of Canada-owned Trans Mountain tar sands pipeline on Secwepemc territory, and Teal Jones logging in the Fairy Creek watershed.

That article further explains: “Formed in 2017, the C-IRG has no defined territorial jurisdiction, an unknown number of members, and no set budget. It goes where industry meets land occupations, blockades and civil disobedience.”

Now, Amanda Follett Hosgood reports: “In November, B.C. announced it would give $230 million to the RCMP for specialized and rural policing. … Documents obtained by The Tyee that $36 million, about 15 per cent, is going to the RCMP’s Community-Industry Response Group. …The funding begins April 1 and will be spread over three years.”

Significantly, Follett Hosgood adds in her article that the Public Safety Ministry says the RCMP requested the funds to enforce injunctions and “standardize C-IRG within the BC RCMP, support deployment operations and response requirements, and put in place permanent funding for dedicated officers.”

It’s not entirely clear what “standardize C-IRG” and “put in place permanent funding for dedicated officers” means, but it suggests a change and perhaps a new formalization/ entrenchment of this controversial unit.

One implication of “permanent funding for dedicated officers” is that the provincial government might be less directly implicated in the deployment of C-IRG officers.

The Tyee has previously reported that “high-ranking Ministry of Public Safety and the Solicitor General officials [were] working to provide provincial police resources” to the C-IRG for its action on Wet’suwet’en territory in November 2021.

That article explains: “[Public Safety minster Mike] Farnworth gave verbal approval to deploy provincial resources” and later wrote “I am authorizing the temporary internal redeployment of resources from within the Provincial Police Service to the extent necessary to maintain law and order, and to ensure the safety of persons, property, and communities in the area.”

“Permanent funding” suggests this step might be avoided.

While the provincial funding announcement by Premier David Eby was made on November 23, 2022, there is no indication yet that this $36 million will be withheld from the C-IRG given the Civilian Review and Complaints Commission (CRCC) announced on March 9, 2023, a systemic investigation of the unit.

The terms of reference for this investigation note:

“Where appropriate, the systemic investigation will also identify the extent to which C-IRG’s operations and actions meet, reflect, consider or are consistent with the standards and expectations set by Bill C‑15, An Act respecting the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, the British Columbia Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act (DRIPA) and the calls for justice from the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls Inquiry (MMIWG).”

Meanwhile, Noah Ross, a lawyer representing Last Stand West Kootenay activists arrested by the C-IRG at a forest road blockade in May 2022, has told the Nelson Star that the C-IRG should be disbanded or least have its operations stopped while it is being investigated.

Even prior to the announcement of the CRCC investigation, there have been calls to defund the C-IRG and even dismantle the RCMP.

Murphy and Research for the Front Lines have commented: “To protect the Earth and climate that we all depend on, we must defund the police. We should start by defunding and dismantling the Community-Industry Response Group (C-IRG).”

Mi’kmaq lawyer Pam Palmater has also written: “Canada through the RCMP continues to violently oppress and dispossess Indigenous peoples. Peaceful land defenders, water protectors, and Indigenous rights advocates are vilified, criminalized, surveilled, suppressed, and incarcerated at ever increasing rates. This stands in stark contrast to Indigenous lands defenders’ goals of protecting the lands and waters for our future generations.”

She has further argued in Canadian Dimension magazine that: “The only way we are ever going to stop RCMP racism and brutality against Indigenous peoples is to declassify, deconstruct and defund the institution itself.”

And on November 23, 2021, after four days in custody following being arrested during the third militarized RCMP raid on Wet’suwet’en territory, land defender Sleydo’ commented: “C-IRG and the RCMP need to be abolished. Anybody who is not into prison abolition should be after this experience that we’ve had.”

We continue to follow this with concern.

PBI webinar on the C-IRG, April 16

I hope you can join us on Sunday April 2 at 1 pm ET to hear Romina (Argentina) and Valentina (Italy) from PBI-Honduras and Maria (Chile) and Laura (Spain) from PBI-Guatemala talk about being a PBI field volunteer!

The webinar will have Spanish-English translation and people are already registering from the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and Latin America.

This webinar is an effort to support the call-out from PBI-Guatemala for field volunteers (that has a deadline of April 9) as well as the upcoming calls from the PBI field projects in Honduras, Colombia and Mexico.

To join this webinar, register here.

Photo: Then Vice-President Joe Biden meets with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, December 2016. Photo by Patrick Doyle/The Canadian Press.

US President Joe Biden will be in Ottawa on March 23 and 24.

CTV News reports that the border, mining, military spending, Haiti and NORAD will be on the agenda for this visit.

“Border concerns” over migrant rights

CTV notes: “The United States and Canada are under pressure to address the sharp increase in the level of irregular migration on both sides of the U.S.-Canada border.”

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has commented: “The only way to effectively shut down, not just Roxham Road, but the entire border to these irregular crossings is to re-negotiate the Safe Third Country Agreement.”

That appears to mean expanding the agreement.

But we recall that Federal Court Justice Ann Marie McDonald ruled in July 2020 that the Safe Third Country infringes on the section of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms that guarantees “the right to life, liberty and security of the person”.

Significantly, the Transnational Institute also reported in October 2021 that Canada spent an average of $1.9 billion a year (over the years 2013-18) on the militarization of its borders while only contributing $149 million a year over the same period on climate financing to mitigate the impacts of climate change that drive forced migration.

Similarly, it found that the US spent $19.6 billion a year on the militarization of its borders and just $1.1 billion on climate financing.

“Critical minerals” over Indigenous rights

CTV also reports: “Another likely topic is the transition to clean energy and critical minerals. These are essential components in green technologies from solar panels to electric vehicle batteries and a potential growing source of middle-class jobs.”

The Financial Times has also reported: “Fighter jets such as the F-35, a Lockheed Martin aircraft, rely heavily on rare earths for critical components such as electrical power systems and magnets. A Congressional Research Service report said that each F-35 required 417kg [920 pounds] of rare-earth materials.”

The Ring of Fire area in northern Ontario with cobalt, lithium, manganese, nickel, graphite and copper deposits is likely to be a focus for this mining.

But Chief Wayne Moonias of the Neskantaga First Nation says: “There is going to be opposition, if this continues the way it is and the Ford government or any future government doesn’t recognize the rights of our people, it’s going to be a strong stance.”

“Defence priorities” over not profiting from war

CTV adds: “Internationally, the war in Ukraine will likely also take top billing during these meetings.”

It explains: “Canadian troops have trained thousands of Ukrainian solders, and it has also committed more than one billion dollars in military aid including eight Leopard 2 Tanks. …Ottawa is also planning to double its presence in Latvia. Defence Minister Anita Anand recently announced the planned purchase of portable-anti-tank missiles, anti-drone technology, and air defence systems for its NATO mission in the country.”

What won’t likely be on the agenda is the soaring profits of transnational corporations benefitting from these weapons exports.

The Hill recently reported that US weapons sales to other countries increased from $34.8 billion in sales in 2021 to $51.9 billion, “largely due to Russia’s war on Ukraine.”

That’s a 49 per cent increase in sales.

Benjamin Freeman, a research fellow at the Washington, D.C.-based Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, has told CBC Radio’s Day 6: “This industry is a war industry. Their business is war. [The war in Ukraine is] a profit opportunity for them. …[It is] adding an accelerant on top of a raging bonfire [of arms sales] already. It’s really been a windfall for these firms. Their stock prices have soared because of it.”

Meanwhile, US General Mark Milley suggested in November 2022 that around 100,000 Russian soldiers and 100,000 Ukrainian soldiers have been killed or injured and that around 40,000 civilians had died during the war in Ukraine.

“The ongoing crisis in Haiti” over the voices of Haitians

CTV notes: “The ongoing crisis in Haiti is also likely to come up during the talks. There are reports the Biden administration officials are pressuring Ottawa for a decision on leading a multinational force to assist the country with its battle against gang control.”

Haitian-Canadian activist Jean Saint-Vil has stated: “Get out. Haitians have been telling Canada, the United States, Europe to get out. The imperialists are pretending to be putting to put out fires, we are telling them that we know you are the arsonists.”

“Modernizing NORAD” over ending displacement

And CTV adds: “Closer to home, both leaders are expected to discuss modernizing NORAD.”

The Canadian government’s stated rationale for spending an estimated $76.8 billion on F-35s is: “A modern fighter jet fleet is essential for defending Canada and Canadian sovereignty and contribute to our NORAD and NATO commitments.”

These fighter jets will be deployed at CFB Cold Lake (on Dene territory in northern Alberta), 5 Wing Goose Bay (on Innu territory in Labrador) as well as other bases.

Little consideration has been given to the Dene and Innu displaced from their lands by these military bases and the modernization of NORAD to come.

Not on the agenda – the criminalization of Indigenous water protectors

Line 3 tar sands pipeline

In November 2016, Prime Minister Trudeau approved the 760,000 barrel per day Line 3 tar sands pipeline from Alberta to Wisconsin.

Tara Houska of the Giniw Collective has highlighted: “Rubber-bullet welts spread purple down my arms and back, courtesy of Minnesota police, who have reportedly billed nearly $2 million in security-related costs to a fund set up by Canadian pipeline giant Enbridge.”

She has also noted: “Enbridge is dumping millions of dollars to incentivize and encourage police officers to repress, suppress and surveil, harass Indigenous people and our allies that are helping us try to stop this pipeline from happening in our treaty territory.”

More than 800 water protectors were arrested since construction of the pipeline began in Minnesota in December 2020

Coastal GasLink fracked gas pipeline

Meanwhile, the Coastal GasLink fracked gas pipeline continues to be built on Wet’suwet’en territory in northern British Columbia without consent.

In December 2019, a TC Energy media release stated: “TC Energy Corporation … announced today that it has entered into an agreement to sell a 65 per cent equity interest in the Coastal GasLink Pipeline Project … to KKR and Alberta Investment Management Corporation (AIMCo) on behalf of certain AIMCo clients.”

The following year, The Narwhal reported: “KKR is an American private equity firm and one of the largest in the world with assets of US$207 billion. Its Coastal GasLink purchase was made in partnership with South Korea’s state-run National Pension Service — the third-largest pension in the world with over US$600 billion in assets.”

More than 74 people, including land defenders, allies and journalists, have been arrested resisting this pipeline that could produce 125 million metric tons of CO2 pollution annually over the next 25-50 years.

We will be following news of President Biden’s visit to Canada this coming March 23-24 with these concerns in mind.

Photo of Noah Ross by Jerome Turner.

On March 9, the Ottawa-based Civilian Review and Complaints Commission (CRCC) announced that it would be conducting a systemic investigation of the RCMP E Division’s Community-Industry Response Group (C-IRG).

The Kimberly Bulletin now highlights: “One of the incidents to be investigated is the police enforcement of an injunction obtained by Cooper Creek Cedar against protesters at Salisbury Creek near Argenta in the summer of 2022, which led to 17 arrests.”

That article notes:

“Noah Ross, a lawyer who represents [Last Stand West Kootenay], told the Nelson Star that he thinks the CIRG should be disbanded, or at least its operations should be stopped, while the investigation is underway, because the unit committed a number of human rights violations while making its Argenta arrests.

He said the CIRG created a large exclusion zone that blocked local residents from accessing their homes and travelling on a public road. The officers sealed the whole area off, he said, and aggressively arrested many people who were not actually blocking the road.

“It seems a lot of these human rights violations or charter rights violations were planned into their operations,” Ross said.”

Photojournalist Louis Bockner has previously reported in The Narwhal on the camp established to protect an area known as the Argenta-Johnsons Landing face that was set to be logged by Cooper Creek Cedar Ltd.

He further sets the context that Grouse Camp “named after the frequently heard accelerating wing beats of the ruffed grouse” was established on April 25, 2022, and lasted 23 days until the camp was raided by the RCMP on May 17, 2022.

Photo: Grouse Camp, April 2022.

Bockner writes on the morning of the arrests: “[The RCMP’s Community-Industry Response Group] blasted a pre-recorded message [on a loudspeaker] stating anyone blocking the road was liable to be arrested under an injunction written almost three years before. …Shortly after the message on the loudspeaker stopped, the camp’s appointed police liaison became the first arrested, followed closely by the legal observer. Later on, officers did allow one man who was there with his four children to leave but no one else was given the opportunity.”

Photo by Louis Bockner.

Bockner writes: “In the evening of May 18, a community meeting attended by 33 people was held at the Argenta community hall. Each person, most of whom were present when the Community-Industry Response Group moved in, shared their experience. Shock, rage and sadness were all present but above all there was a strong sense of resilience.”

His article also quotes Miguel Pastor, a member Last Stand West Kootenay, who says: “It’s highly disturbing that [the RCMP C-IRG] can act with complete impunity … for the right of industrial extractivism, but I would like to say that this is just a continued legacy. What’s changing now is that the settler population is waking up to the reality that this current mode of society is unsustainable and now that they’re starting to take action for these things that Indigenous people have defended … since time immemorial, they’re realizing the role of the police increasingly to be the enforcers of the destruction of land and water.”

The full article by Bockner can be read at: I watched my mom get arrested at a logging blockade (The Narwhal, June 9, 2022). For more, please also see: The Forest Fight in West Kootenay (Zoe Yunker, The Narwhal, June 22, 2022).

#AbolishCIRG

On February 21 of this year, PBI-Canada organized a webinar titled “Dismantle the C-IRG, end violence against land defenders” featuring Wet’suwet’en Hereditary Chief Na’moks, international human rights lawyer Shivangi Misra, activist-academic Keith Cherry and PBI-Canada Board member Seb Bonet.

To watch the video of that webinar, please click here.

We are now planning a second webinar about the C-IRG scheduled for April 16.

Watch for more details on that coming soon.

Photo: Heavily-armed RCMP on Gitxsan territory, November 2021.

On March 9, the Terrace Standard reported: “Gitxsan hereditary chiefs issued a notice this week prohibiting the RCMP’s ‘militarized squadron’ called the Community-Industry Response Group (C-IRG) from Gitxsan lands centered on the Hazelton area.”

Their notice reads: “While we embrace safety measures for our community, the militarized squadron of the RCMP [the C-IRG] funded to the tune of $50M, have been sent to terrorize our people at the barrel of a gun during peaceful protests and blockades.”

Gitxsan Hereditary Chief Brian Williams says: “We don’t want the C-IRG army back on our territory again.”

Sim’ooget Gwiiyeehl (Brian Williams)

Now, the CBC reports: “The RCMP says it will not commit to respecting a Gitxsan hereditary chiefs’ decision banning the Mounties’ Community-Industry Response Group (C-IRG) from unceded lands in northwest B.C.”

RCMP Staff Sgt. Kris Clark says: “While the B.C. RCMP will do everything possible to respect the ban, we have lawful obligations and responsibilities to enforce the Supreme Court Injunction and maintain public safety, which must take priority.”

Clark is the Senior Media Relations Officer with the RCMP’s “E” Division headquarters in Surrey. It was “E” Division that created the C-IRG in 2017.

Chief Superintendent John Brewer is the Gold Commander of the C-IRG. Deputy Commissioner Dwayne McDonald is the Commanding Officer for E Division.

On March 9, Michelaine Lahaie, the Chairperson of the Civilian Review and Complaints Commission for the RCMP (CRCC), initiated a systemic investigation into the activities and operations of the C-IRG.

In January, the CBC had reported: “The RCMP’s federal watchdog agency is weighing its options after receiving nearly 500 formal complaints about a unit tasked with policing resistance to major resource extraction projects in British Columbia.”

Lahaie, a 30-year veteran of the Canadian Armed Forces, was appointed for a five-year term as Chairperson of the CRCC on January 2, 2019.

APTN National News has reported: “Allegations against the [C-IRG] unit [include] ‘intimidation, torture, brutality, harassment, racism, theft, destruction of property, arbitrary detention, inhumanity, lying and deceit.’”

The CRCC investigation, as noted in their terms of reference, will review C-IRG actions at “Salisbury Creek Forestry Road, …on Wet’suwet’en traditional territory, [and] in the Fairy Creek watershed.” While the CRCC says “additional sites may be added”, C-IRG actions on Gitxsan territory are not currently included.

The C-IRG on Gitxsan territory

The CBC article adds: “Following a November 2021 tactical operation on Wet’suwet’en territory, C-IRG officers were shuttled an hour northwest to New Hazelton, B.C., where they broke up a Gitxsan-led solidarity rail blockade.”

On Saturday November 20, Gitxsan land defender Kolin Sutherland-Wilson said: “As a result of their incursions onto Wet’suwet’en territory, their invasion of a sovereign nation using the militarized RCMP, we have set up a railroad blockade here in New Hazelton.”

(In the context of national strike in Colombia, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) commented in June 2021 that blockades fit within the right to protest and that an “absolute prohibition of any blockade” can “distort the exceptional participation” of militarized force and “constitute a disproportionate restriction to freedom of expression, demonstration and assembly.”)

CBC has also reported: “Video shared on Facebook of an arrest at the encampment on [Sunday] Nov. 21 shows four officers on top of a man [Kolin’s 24-year-old brother Denzel] near the rail line. The man is heard shouting, “I can’t breathe!” while the person taking the video screams at the officers to let him go. A second person who tries to intervene is seen being put in a headlock by another officer.”

Video: Denzel Sutherland-Wilson shouts “I can’t breathe!” as RCMP officers tackle him at the Gitxsan railroad blockade in New Hazelton.

In a May 2022 mandate letter to RCMP Commissioner Brenda Lucki, the Minister of Public Safety, Marco Mendicino, wrote: “The Prime Minister has asked me to deliver on the following specific mandate commitments [including] prohibiting the use of neck restraints in any circumstance…” In January 2023, the CBC reported: “A spokesperson for the RCMP [Robin Percival] told CBC News that the national police force has ‘not banned or placed a moratorium on the use of the carotid control technique.’”

Pipelines to be built on Gitxsan territory

Both Calgary-based Enbridge and TC Energy also have permits from British Columbia to build pipelines across Gitxsan land, adjacent to Wet’suwet’en territory.

Wilps Gwininitxw member Ankhla Jennifer Zyp says: “We’re worried, for sure, that we’re going to be met with the same violence [as seen against the Wet’suwet’en], with the same push from the government. We’re concerned about how these pipelines crossing all these rivers are going to affect the salmon returning back to our territory.”

Province allocates $36 million to C-IRG

On March 10, The Tyee reported: “A portion of the $230 million promised last fall by the BC NDP to bolster rural police detachments and make communities safer is earmarked for a controversial RCMP unit tasked with policing resource industry protests.”

It is believed that $36 million will go to the C-IRG.

The article adds: “Funds begin flowing to the RCMP on April 1, according to the province.” There is no word yet from the provincial government if those funds will be withheld given the CRCC systemic investigation now underway.

Mike Farnsworth is the deputy premier of British Columbia since 2021 and has been the minister of public safety and solicitor general since 2017.

#AbolishCIRG

On February 21 of this year, PBI-Canada organized a webinar titled “Dismantle the C-IRG, end violence against land defenders” featuring Wet’suwet’en Hereditary Chief Na’moks, international human rights lawyer Shivangi Misra, activist-academic Keith Cherry and PBI-Canada Board member Seb Bonet.

To watch the video of that webinar, please click here.

We are now planning a second webinar about the C-IRG scheduled for April 16.

Watch for more details on that coming soon.

Photo (left to right): Heather Lamoureux, Billie Pierre, April Thomas, Miranda Dick, Saw-ses, Susan Bibbings, Romilly Cavanaugh, Laura Zadorozny.

On February 22, six land defenders were sentenced for their peaceful resistance to the Government of Canada-owned Trans Mountain tar sands pipeline (TMX) by Judge Shelley Fitzpatrick at the Kamloops Court House.

Two more land defenders will be sentenced in early-May.

The eight land defenders were arrested during two ceremonies, the first on October 15, 2020, the other on October 17, 2020.

Secwepemc Hereditary Matriarch Miranda Dick and her father Hereditary Chief Saw-ses (Henry Sauls) were sentenced to 28 days in jail.

Kamloops This Week reports: “Dick was led away in handcuffs Wednesday (Feb. 22) after receiving a 28-day jail sentence from B.C. Supreme Court justice Shelley Fitzpatrick.”

Dick was sent to prison in Maple Ridge.

Water and Women’s Hair Cutting ceremonies

Saw-ses, Romilly Cavanaugh, April Thomas and Billie Pierre were arrested by the RCMP on October 15, 2020, during a Water Ceremony after a sacred fire was lit on Sqeq’petsin (Missions Flat) to stop TMX from drilling underneath the Secwépemcetkwe (Thompson River).

Photo: Sacred fire a Sqeq’petsin TMX camp. Photo by Karissa Chandrakate/ Spring magazine.

Dick, Laura Zadorozny, Heather Lamoreaux and Susan Bibbings were arrested by the RCMP on October 17, 2020, while conducting a Women’s Hair Cutting Ceremony.

Photo: Secwepemc Matriarch Miranda Dick handcuffed by RCMP officers at Women’s Haircutting Ceremony, October 17, 2020. Photo by We, the Secwepemc Facebook.

APTN adds: “RCMP officers watched Dick cut off her hair. Whether or not they understood the significance of her actions didn’t matter, she says. RCMP arrested Dick and three others moments after her hair was cut.”

Kamloops.net reported last December: “B.C. Supreme Court Justice Shelley Fitzpatrick ruled Friday [December 16] that the four [Dick, Zadorozny, Lamoreaux and Bibbings] were guilty of criminal contempt for violating the terms of a 2018 injunction — a court order that laid out a five-metre buffer zone around all Trans Mountain work sites in B.C.”

Sentencing

For the Water Ceremony, Saw-ses was sentenced to 28 days in jail, while Cavanaugh was sentenced to 32 days. The sentencing for Thomas and Pierre is set for May 1-3.

For the Women’s Hair Cutting Ceremony, Dick, Zadorozny, and Bibbings were sentenced to 28 days, while Lamoreaux was sentenced to 29 days.

Photo: Secwepemc Matriarch Miranda Dick outside the Kamloops courthouse during her sentencing hearing, February 21, 2023. Photo by Aaron Hemens/ IndigiNews.

IndigiNews has reported: “Saw-ses and his defence lawyer, Benjamin Isitt, had submitted to the court that his decade at KIRS [Kamloops Indian Residential School] be considered during his sentencing.”

Isitt said: “The overall sentence of 28 days jail for a survivor of the KIRS — and all of the time, the years of time, that Saw-ses already served for no crime at all — we do think that should’ve been applied as a credit against any sentence imposed for the contempt of court.”

Isitt also noted that Bibbings had planted 215 trees in commemoration of the children found in a mass grave at the school through ground-penetrating radar.

Fitzpatrick’s reply of “potential” (suggesting she meant children had only potentially been found) prompted outrage from those in the courtroom.

Photo: Madam Justice Shelley Colleen Fitzpatrick, British Columbia Supreme Court.

19 days in jail

On March 12, Lamoureux, Bibbings and Zadorozny were released after serving 19 days in jail (two-thirds of their sentence).

Appeals

Dick, Saw-ses and Cavanaugh are all out on appeal.

Kamloops This Week also reports: “Two days into her sentence, Dick’s lawyer Benjamin Isitt told KTW she has appealed on the grounds that her right to a fair trial was breached by ‘procedural irregularities’ and that the judge failed to apply Gladue factors. Gladue factors involve pre-sentencing reports that speak to aboriginal factors in sentencing.”

A Secwepemc media release further notes: “Fitzpatrick has presided over TMX pipeline cases since 2019 and has incarcerated a long list of Indigenous Nation members and supporters on unceded territory since. The appeal will seek to not only challenge today’s sentencing decision but the unfair and unjust sentences that have been the bread and butter of Fitzpatrick’s long and storied career protecting corporate interests against the health and well being of Indigenous and Black communities (see Northern Pulp Pictou Mill decision).”

United Nations

At this time we also recall that the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination has sent three letters to the Government of Canada calling on it to stop construction of the Trans Mountain pipeline on Secwepemc territory.

The most recent letter, dated April 29, 2022, states: “According to the information before the Committee, the Governments of Canada and of the Province of British Columbia have escalated their use of force, surveillance, and criminalization of land defenders and peaceful protesters to intimidate, remove and forcibly evict Secwepemc and Wet’suwet’en Nations from their traditional lands, in particular by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), the Community-Industry Response Group (CIRG), and private security firms.”

For additional updates, please see the Facebook page: We, the Secwepemc: Virtual Unity Camp to stop Transmountain Pipeline.

Photo: Outside the courthouse, February 24, 2023. Photo by We, the Secwepemc: Virtual Unity Camp to stop Transmountain Pipeline.