On a bitterly cold morning in early March, Gitxsan Simgiigyat (Hereditary Chiefs) stood outside the provincial Supreme Court building in Smithers, B.C., their regalia fending off the icy air.

“Our way of life has been subverted by the Canadian government,” Simogyat (Chief) Molaxan Norman Moore told a gathering of supporters and observers, his voice reverberating off the drab concrete building.

Inside, proceedings continued for a Hereditary Chief of the neighbouring Wet’suwet’en Nation, who was found guilty of criminal contempt in February. The Simgiigyat organized the demonstration to show their support for Dinï ze’ (Hereditary Chief) Dsta’hyl, who was arrested in October 2021 after decommissioning Coastal GasLink machinery at pipeline construction sites on his Likhts’amisyu Clan territory. 

“They’re treating us as wards of the government. They’re treating us as minions,” Molaxan told The Narwhal in an interview. “We say things and it just goes past and they’re just sitting there, nonchalant. They’re brushing us off. The government is brushing us off.”

The Gitxsan and Wet’suwet’en have alliances that span thousands of years. But the Gitxsan Hereditary Chiefs’ public disapproval of government conduct is noteworthy, since it marks a departure from their previous approach to the fossil fuel industry.

While Wet’suwet’en Hereditary Chiefs have been more outspoken about their opposition to new pipelines, several Gitxsan Chiefs, including some who are now speaking out, signed agreements with the province in support of the Prince Rupert Gas Transmission project in 2014. If built, that pipeline would link fossil fuel sources in the northeast to Pacific shipping routes, carrying liquefied natural gas (LNG) across Gitxsan and numerous other First Nations’ territories. The agreements included funding and were paired with assurances of environmental protection and respect for Indigenous Rights.

The Gitxsan Simgiigyat still support the pipeline project on paper, but their vocal criticisms point to frustration with government and industry officials, who they feel are failing to deliver on the agreements they made nearly a decade ago. Their increasingly ambivalent position toward the project reflects multiple deepening tensions between First Nations, industry and government.

Advocates say LNG can play a role in reconciliation but Gitxsan Chief says progress is slow

Since the Gitxsan pledged their support for the Prince Rupert Gas Transmission project, successive B.C. governments and industry proponents have described the LNG sector as a path to redressing historic wrongs, including addressing ongoing economic inequity. At the annual BC Natural Resources Forum in January, Indigenous-led projects like Cedar LNG and Ksi Lisims (which would receive gas from the Prince Rupert pipeline) were touted as bellwethers of how major projects should get built in B.C. and shining examples of what’s been dubbed “economic reconciliation.”

Some advocates for the LNG industry say these projects are win-win, providing a boost to the economy while sharing a stake with First Nations partners, who can influence how projects are built. A few industry advocates have even accused environmental groups of paternalistic colonialism for standing in the way of such partnerships by opposing First Nations that support fossil fuel development.

Murray Rankin, B.C. Minister of Indigenous Relations and Reconciliation, told The Narwhal the B.C. government is working with the Gitxsan Hereditary Chiefs.

“Recently, I met with Gitxsan Huwilp Government leadership, where we had good discussions on a number of interests,” Rankin wrote in an email, adding the provincial and federal governments are working with the Hereditary Chiefs on implementation of Gitxsan Rights and Title in treaty negotiations.

Simogyat Gwiiyeehl Brian Williams told The Narwhal the meeting with Rankin isn’t enough, noting his nation has yet to achieve genuine progress despite 40 years of ongoing negotiations with government.

‘Reconciliation at the end of a gun’: legal orders, RCMP increase tensions

If built, Prince Rupert Gas Transmission would ship natural gas to Ksi Lisims, a proposed liquefaction and export facility on Nisg̱a’a territory. The B.C. government approved the pipeline in 2014 and construction has to be substantially underway by the end of the year, otherwise the project’s environmental assessment certificate will expire. 

On March 14, Calgary-based TC Energy announced it was selling the pipeline to the Nisg̱a’a Nation and its partner, Western LNG, a Texas-based fossil fuel company. TC Energy is the company responsible for the Coastal GasLink pipeline and is involved in legal disputes with Wet’suwet’en land defenders and their supporters. While the company is technically divesting ownership of the pipeline, the proposed Prince Rupert project would tap into its subsidiary,  NOVA Gas Transmission, which is owned and operated by TC Energy.

The B.C. Environmental Assessment Office told The Narwhal the project’s initial five-year certificate was extended in 2019, and First Nations will be consulted as part of determining whether it qualifies for a “substantially started” designation. 

Simogyat Luutkudziiwus Gordon Sebastian said discussions are underway between the Chiefs. 

“We will definitely talk about it amongst ourselves, and if there’s good reason, we will probably just stop it,” he told Dogwood BC, an advocacy group that promotes environmental protections and Indigenous Rights. “It’s not a matter of getting out of the agreement or not, it’s just a matter of saying no pipeline.”

But the courts make it difficult for First Nations to say no, according to a 2019 report by the Yellowhead Institute, a research organization that focuses on Indigenous Rights. Their analysis reviewed a list of court injunctions related to resource projects and found 76 per cent of those filed by corporations against First Nations were granted, while 81 per cent of injunctions filed against corporations by First Nations were denied. In other words, the law tends to side with corporate interests.

“Government always favours big business over … us good little Indians,” Molaxan added.

Gwiiyeehl said this is why he would like to see a judicial review of decisions by the Supreme Court of B.C. and for cabinet ministers to meet with the Simgiigyat to address the pattern. He is particularly concerned by how the trajectory of legal orders issued in favour of corporations inevitably leads to RCMP enforcement and “reconciliation at the end of a gun.”

“One little trigger, little twitch, and you’re gone,” he said in an interview. “That’s how we feel.” 

Meanwhile, more than $50 million in federal and provincial funding has been allocated to police enforcement of court injunctions related to Indigenous-led resistance to Coastal GasLink, on Wet’suwet’en and Gitxsan lands and across the country. Dsta’hyl’s 2021 arrest and subsequent conviction was directly related to an injunction issued to Coastal GasLink in 2019.

Molaxan told The Narwhal one of the main outcomes of the decision was a directive from the courts to First Nations, imploring them to “negotiate, not litigate.” The phrase was chanted by the Chiefs and their supporters at the Smithers rally in March, pointing out the hypocrisy as Crown prosecutors inside the courts set a sentencing date for the Wet’suwet’en Chief. 

“It’s a two-way street,” he said. “The government … they’re the ones that are litigating. I thought that the law applies to them too.”

Premier David Eby would ‘not want this to flare up’ in an election year: Michael Wernick 

Governments, First Nations and courts have been navigating these types of issues and conflicts for decades as they grapple with the relationship between Indigenous Rights and economic development, according to a former public servant who once served as the federal government’s top bureaucrat.

“I think the consistent thing that First Nations have sought when it comes to resource development is a say in the decision making, about whether development goes forward and how it goes forward,” Michael Wernick, a former clerk of the Privy Council from 2016 to 2019, said.

Wernick, who also served as deputy minister of Indian and Northern Affairs from 2006 to 2014, said Indigenous leaders can leverage unresolved Rights and Title issues as a way to hold the government accountable on any decisions with larger implications for the economy and the health of local communities.

While he declined to comment specifically on the matters unfolding on Gitxsan territory, he said sovereign nations can point to provincial and federal commitments to Indigenous Rights legislation, for example. 

“So it ends up being kind of a negotiation about, you know, ‘We won’t take you to court, we won’t block you, we won’t slow you down — if we get a benefits agreement or resource royalty sharing, or some kind of piece of the piece of it that we find acceptable,’ ” he said. 

“I don’t want that to sound in any way negative,” he emphasized. “That’s a perfectly reasonable thing to do and it happens with non-Indigenous communities, too.”

He added the timing of the Gitxsan Chiefs speaking out is interesting, given the upcoming B.C. election.

“My guess would be that if you’re Premier Eby … you do not want this to flare up,” he said. “You would rather have some calm — at least until after the provincial election is over.”

‘Forbidden from protesting’: Gitxsan Hereditary Chief

Gwiiyeehl and Molaxan are no strangers to working with politicians and civil servants on thorny issues. Molaxan worked closely on the 1997 landmark Delgamuukw-Gisday’wa court case, in which the Supreme Court of Canada affirmed the Gitxsan and Wet’suwet’en nations had never given up Rights and Title to the combined 55,000 square kilometres of land, called laxyip and yintah, respectively. Both have been involved in negotiations with the provincial and federal governments for decades, including discussions around forestry, mining and pipeline development on the laxyip.

Rankin, the B.C. cabinet minister, said he is taking the lead on discussions with the Chiefs “to reconcile our respective laws and jurisdictions, in a way that responds to the unique context and priorities of the Gitxsan Nation, as set out by the Delgamuukw-Gisday’wa Supreme Court case.” 

The 2015 agreement between the Simgiigyat and the provincial government was negotiated by John Rustad, former minister of Indigenous relations and current leader of the BC Conservatives. The document protects the provincial government from legal action, including “any court actions or proceedings that directly or indirectly challenge any government actions in relation to the natural gas pipeline project on the basis that the province has failed to consult or accommodate Gitxsan” or on the basis that the province has infringed any of the Gitxsan Nation’s constitutionally protected rights.

According to a 2020 article by Yellowhead Institute co-founder Shiri Pasternak that analyzed a draft contract between a Wet’suwet’en band council and Coastal GasLink, some benefits agreements between First Nations and industry proponents also include clauses that require First Nations leaders to “take all reasonable actions to persuade … members to not take any action, legal or otherwise, including any media or social media campaign, that may impede, hinder, frustrate, delay, stop or interfere with the project’s contractors, any authorizations or any approval processes.”

“We are forbidden from protesting and going in front and stopping it,” Molaxan said, referring to the restrictions in the agreements. “Not only that, but we cannot talk about it because they’re saying you’re going to incite people into riots.”

Tensions continue to rise as Gitxsan Hereditary Chiefs call for RCMP unit to be disbanded

Opposition to the pipeline could set the stage for future conflict, especially if the courts and RCMP intervene. Tensions between Gitxsan and the federal police force have been building for years.

In 2021, following a now-infamous RCMP raid in which numerous Wet’suwet’en and Gitxsan land defenders and their supporters were arrested, Gitxsan community members set up a brief blockade on the CN Rail line and were met with an “overwhelming use of force,” according to Kolin Sutherland-Wilson, a Gitxsan member of Wilp (house group) Git’luuhl’um’hetxwit and current elected chief of the Kispiox band council.

“We are not here to get hurt, we are not here to get killed,” he told The Narwhal at the time. “We are here simply to hold the people at the top of the Canadian government accountable, because they have a responsibility to uphold Crown relations with sovereign Indigenous Peoples.”

Gwiiyeehl linked RCMP actions to industry, alleging the force’s controversial Community-Industry Response Group (now called the Critical Response Unit, referred to as CRU-BC) is beholden to protect the likes of pipeline projects. 

“The RCMP is a product of Canada so now you’ve got industry employing Canada to get rid of the Indians at the point of a gun,” he said. 

Staff Sergeant Kris Clark, with the RCMP’s media relations team, told The Narwhal the Mounties acknowledge and respect the concerns of the Simgiigyat but pushed back against the idea the unit is linked directly to industry.

“While I cannot speak to their specific allegation, there is a common misconception that CRU-BC only serves industry, but in reality, the community and its safety is at the core of its mandate,” Clark wrote in an email.

Clark added the RCMP is aware the Gitxsan Hereditary Chiefs told the police force to ensure members of the unit stay off Gitxsan lands.

“While the BC 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,” he wrote. “We acknowledge that due to the nature of the conflict, with the goal of the protesters to stop continued work, protests, physical conflict, civil litigation or other related tactics are almost inevitable. Ultimately, our response will depend on protest actions as CRU-BC intervention is only required when protests are no longer peaceful, lawful or safe.”

Wernick said all levels of government will be paying attention to how this unfolds.

“That is always something the federal government will keep an eye on,” he said. “There is a very easily activated network of sympathy protests and even some of the blockades … so if something flares up in one community, it’s not really containable.”

In an effort to find ways to work with the RCMP, Gwiiyeehl and Molaxan signed an agreement with the federal police force in December 2022. The agreement detailed a community safety plan to “deal with burgeoning safety crises between the RCMP and members of the Gitxsan people on their lands,” according to the Simgiigyat. Warren Brown, B.C.’s Chief Superintendent at the time, signed on behalf of the RCMP.

Since the signing, however, talks have stalled. Gwiiyeehl said Brown was transferred and they have had no follow up communication with his replacement or other members of the force.

“We had one meeting and we’re supposed to have another meeting, just to do dry runs to figure out ways that we can negotiate appropriately and find a reasonable means to access what we have,” he said. “We’ve never heard from his replacement. We’ve never heard anything from the local detachment.”

Clark contradicted the claim, saying, “The local detachment commander is engaged and has spoken to local Chiefs, Elders and other community members on this and many other matters concerning the Gitxsan and other Indigenous Peoples.” 

He added, “Senior leaders in North District are ready and willing to participate in continued discussions but we must also acknowledge our legal obligations during such injunctions and that our response, as well as the resources needed, will be dependent upon protester actions.” 

For Gwiiyeehl, discussion and dialogue remains the best course of action. 

“We put our best foot forward. We signed an agreement and we’re willing to work together.”

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In late January 2023, Coastal GasLink submitted a routine report to the federal government. The document was a weekly description of progress on the company’s construction of its gas pipeline through a Wet’suwet’en river, filed with Fisheries and Oceans Canada.

The report, obtained by The Narwhal through freedom of information legislation, detailed recent site activities and included a list of issues that came up during construction. That week, events at the river crossing had taken a serious turn. 

“Clore River water levels increased to the extent that the pumps and intakes installed could not cope with the increased flow,” the report stated. “This event [culminated] with the river isolation being overwhelmed and the work site becoming inundated with water to the extent that works … could not continue.”

In plain language: the construction site flooded. A series of grainy photos attached to the document show equipment and infrastructure half-submerged in icy water, frozen in the path of the river, known to the Wet’suwet’en as Lho Kwa.

As the federal government reviewed the fossil fuel company’s reports, it did not disclose the information it received to members of the public. 

The Narwhal reviewed hundreds of pages of records and conducted numerous interviews with involved parties to piece together a pattern of conduct by the federal government that continually failed to provide complete information to the media, concerned organizations and Indigenous leaders. Its lack of transparency around the incidents at the Coastal GasLink crossing of Lho Kwa suggests government secrecy around the impacts on salmon populations, a resource that Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities throughout northwest B.C. rely on for food security, economic benefits and cultural well-being.

Jeffrey Young, senior science and policy analyst with the David Suzuki Foundation, said the federal department, commonly referred to as DFO, has an obligation to the public to be open and transparent.

“I think transparency is a basic responsibility of any government to the people it’s representing,” he told The Narwhal in an interview. “And when you have such a clear responsibility and a clearly defined law, there’s no excuse.”

Public forced to use freedom of information legislation to get answers from DFO

In early 2023, The Narwhal reached out to the federal government for clarity around alleged issues with the Clore River crossing. In a response sent on Feb. 3, just a few days after the flooding of the site, Fisheries and Oceans Canada did not mention the flooding incident.

Referring to an earlier allegation of issues with sediment and erosion control, a problem that plagued pipeline construction since it began in 2019, the agency said government officials had visited the site and were “assessing the data to determine compliance with the Fisheries Act.”

Around the same time, Shannon McPhail, executive director of Skeena Watershed Conservation Coalition, was asking Fisheries and Oceans Canada and its provincial counterparts for information about the river crossing, concerned the company wasn’t doing enough to protect salmon habitat. 

On Jan. 5, 2023, Brenda Rotinsky, a senior official with the federal department, told McPhail they were working to address her concerns.

“I haven’t forgotten to reply!” Rotinsky wrote in an email. “We are trying to get some answers to your questions from [Coastal GasLink] so that you have the most up to date information and they have been difficult to reach over the holidays. You should hear back from us next week on what we know so far.”

McPhail never received another email from the department about the issue.

“Maybe their standard operating procedure is to evade reasonable questions long enough that people just give up,” she said in an interview. “Except that I haven’t given up. I just know that I can’t go to the very department responsible for protecting fish. You have to laugh, otherwise you’re just going to cry because it is so ridiculous.”

Fisheries and Oceans Canada did not explain why no one followed up as promised. The department also did not specify why it said it needed to discuss with the fossil fuel company before answering McPhail’s questions.

Young said while the agency may have valid reasons to hold back some technical information if it is pursuing legal enforcement, the public should not be forced to use freedom of information legislation to answer basic questions about events that affect the health of a watershed.

“There could have and should have been clearer communication than what has been provided,” he said. “They should be open and transparent about what they’re seeing and what they’re doing about it — how they’re going to address the issue.”

After reviewing the recently released report and other documents obtained through freedom of information legislation, The Narwhal asked Fisheries and Oceans Canada why it did not disclose the information at the time, despite the relevance of questions submitted to its media department and similar questions asked by McPhail and others. 

The government agency did not answer. 

McPhail said she’s lost all faith in the federal department and its provincial counterparts.

“That project was under a global microscope,” she said. “That was the opportunity for our regulators to showcase their skills. Instead, what they showcased is that we’re fucked with any project that the DFO and the BC Energy Regulator has any decision-making or regulatory power over.”

Fisheries and Oceans Canada did not comment prior to publication and the BC Energy Regulator referred The Narwhal to its previous responses to other reporting.

Young said the Fisheries Act is very clear and equips the federal government with solid legal powers to protect species like salmon — but it only holds up if it’s being properly used to prevent impacts to fish habitat, or dole out consequences for violations of the law.

“It has a certain level of clarity that is often lacking in law,” he explained. “It’s referred to by the government itself many, many times in terms of how Canada has strong environmental standards when it’s promoting itself around the world. Those claims are only true if it’s enforced.” 

“In my view, we’re getting to a place where legal accountability around DFO and the federal government’s responsibilities to salmon in the implementation of the Fisheries Act is in question,” Young said.

TC Energy and federal officials at DFO only disclosed partial information

A few weeks before TC Energy, the Calgary-based company building Coastal GasLink, informed the federal department of the flooding incident, Wet’suwet’en monitors had visited the site and alleged the pipeline company had failed to protect fish habitat, raising concerns declining salmon and steelhead populations in the watershed were being negatively impacted by construction activity. Receiving little response from provincial and federal authorities, Wet’suwet’en officials revisited the river on Jan. 28.

“We walked along the riverbank downstream of the work site and you can see a band of dark mud deposited as the water level dropped,” Gary Michell, Wet’suwet’en fish and wildlife monitor, said in a statement at the time. “That sediment presents significant risks to salmon and steelhead eggs downstream.”

Days before the construction site flooded, a TC Energy contractor representing the pipeline project sent an email to federal fisheries officer, Ian Bergsma, noting “Coastal GasLink has identified turbidity events at Site 616 (Clore River) and Site 714 (tributary to Hirsch Creek) over the past couple of days.”

The notification foreshadowed the events to come. As temperatures around the region fluctuated, flip-flopping between around five degrees above freezing to 20 below in a matter of days, the ice upriver became unstable and the pipeline that was being built right through the waterway stood directly in harm’s way. 

On Jan. 30, Bergsma sent an email to senior Fisheries and Oceans Canada officials, telling them he spoke with a pipeline representative that morning “about the Clore River crossing.”

“Loss of isolation occurred on Friday night … resulting in the dewatered area being flooded and subsequently frozen over,” he wrote. “Water levels rose again yesterday despite freezing conditions — they suspect that an ice jam on a tributary stream broke loose resulting in further elevated water levels.”

Meanwhile, TC Energy, the Calgary-based company building the 670-kilometre pipeline, described the unfolding situation as an intentional part of construction activity.

“To manage the rise in water levels due to higher temperatures last week, we initiated a temporary overflow of our barrier at the Clore River yesterday,” the company wrote in a public statement on Jan. 30.

It is not clear why TC Energy failed to tell the public last year that its site had flooded but critics say it was trying to downplay environmental damage at the site. The report obtained by The Narwhal described the events in detail.

“Warm weather conditions caused ice sheets to slump into the channel, impounding flow, causing ice sheet movement, sloughing and scour at the sump head walls,” the document said. “An extended period of warm weather accompanied by moderate rain resulted in an eventual release of flow from an upstream obstruction. This caused a rapid rise of flow. Ongoing high flows and rapid decrease in temperature caused pump screen freezing.”

TC Energy told The Narwhal the public statement was a description of emergency mitigation measures, not the flood itself. The barrier mentioned was a dam set up to temporarily redirect the river around the pipeline crossing. After the site was flooded, the pipeline company worked to clean up and remove equipment before letting the river run its natural course until the high waters receded. 

“As we stated in late January last year, we initiated a temporary overflow of our barrier at the Clore River in response to rising water levels due to high temperatures in the region,” a spokesperson wrote in an email. “This flood contingency measure was used to mitigate impacts to the riverbed and bank that would have otherwise occurred in an uncontrolled overflow.”

Fisheries and Oceans Canada did not directly answer a question about whether the department independently confirmed the cause of the flooding nor whether officials had assessed the adequacy of protective measures prior to the incident.

In an email, the spokesperson shared a graph showing hydrometric data, noting “the flooding in late January 2023 was the result of high flows due to an unseasonably warm/wet precipitation event affecting the watersheds.”

The spokesperson added the department worked with TC Energy “for many years prior to construction to assess the stream crossings and methods used to avoid and minimize impacts of the pipeline to fish and fish habitats.”

Feds still investigating incident, despite Coastal GasLink completion

Government agencies subsequently concluded the pipeline company was meeting the conditions of its permits and staying in compliance with environmental laws at the river crossing. An internal government document drafted in March noted the BC Energy Regulator was satisfied Coastal GasLink’s “watercourse crossing activities at the Clore River have been conducted in accordance with regulations and conditions specified in [its] permit.”

That document, a briefing note prepared for B.C. ministers Josie Osborne and George Heyman, noted the existence of a series of agreements between the provincial regulator and other government departments, including the federal fisheries agency.

“There is a memorandum of understanding between the [BC Energy Regulator and Environmental Assessment Office] (as well as other agencies, including the DFO) that addresses aspects of compliance and enforcement between regulatory agencies,” the note stated.

Fisheries and Oceans Canada told The Narwhal the briefing note is not accurate.

“There are no formal agreements between DFO and the BC Energy Regulator,” a spokesperson with the federal department wrote in an email.

Young said regardless of whether there is a formal agreement, the federal government “deferred” its powers to provincial authorities on the Coastal GasLink project.

“Fisheries and Oceans Canada has a key responsibility here,” he said. “It’s the Fisheries Act that ultimately has the key powers to protect rivers and salmon from these impacts.”

“When problems do arise, they may be hesitant to fully apply their authority, because it becomes a federal-provincial jurisdictional type of issue or more of a political issue,” he added. “And that’s a problem.”

When The Narwhal initially pressed Fisheries and Oceans Canada for clarity around its involvement, the department told The Narwhal it was investigating the allegations and could not comment. Nearly a year later, the federal agency said it is still conducting its investigation.

“Conservation and protection investigations are complex and can vary widely in the length of time they take to conduct,” a Fisheries and Oceans Canada spokesperson told The Narwhal. “Any investigation involves a great deal of research, often including voluminous amounts of technical information and authorizations, other documentation, collection of evidence, samples, photographs and gathering of any pertinent witness statements. All are necessary to build a case to submit as a potential violation to the Crown, who then decide whether charges will be laid.”

TC Energy announced in November the Coastal GasLink pipeline was mechanically complete. Gas is set to start flowing to the LNG Canada liquefaction and export facility in Kitimat, which will commence its startup operations this year.

McPhail said the fact that the pipeline was completed before the results of the investigation were finished sends a message to companies like TC Energy. 

“Industry can look at this and laugh and say, ‘Look, we can break all the laws we want and we’re gonna get it done long before they get their investigation done — and 99 per cent of the infractions that we commit aren’t going to result in anything that’s going to cause our project any harm.’ ”

Young said while he’s hopeful an investigation will still lead to charges, the federal agency’s failure to prevent the pipeline project from damaging fish habitat over the past few years “is a problem in and of itself.”

“It does raise an extra question about how much faith we should be putting in the federal government that they’re doing some sort of thorough behind-the-scenes science-based investigation that will lead to good enforcement outcomes,” he said, adding a “political compromise” could be an alternate outcome. 

“The Fisheries Act is extremely clear,” he added. “And when it’s clearly violated, it needs to be clearly enforced.” 

According to the Fisheries Act, violations of the legislation can lead to fines up to $500,000 or “imprisonment for a term not exceeding two years,” or both. 

The spokesperson did not provide an update on whether or when it will submit any evidence.

Updated Jan. 15, 2024, at 8:59 a.m. PT: This story has been updated to include an additional response from Fisheries and Oceans Canada.

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On a dreary gray day in late October, passers by gawked at a scene outside a hotel in Smithers, B.C. The charred remnants of several trucks sat in the parking lot in the wake of what police described as a “targeted attack” in the pre-dawn hours of the morning. 

Among the blackened wreckage were four police cruisers — marked and unmarked vehicles with the RCMP’s Community-Industry Response Group, a special task force assigned to police opposition to industrial projects. The controversial RCMP unit maintains a constant presence on Wet’suwet’en yintah (territory) where Coastal GasLink (CGL) is building a pipeline without the consent of the nation’s Hereditary Chiefs. 

Federal fisheries officers later exchanged emails about the incident. 

“Wanted to make sure you are aware of this as it appears to be related to CGL,” fisheries protection biologist Ian Bergsma wrote to his superiors in an email obtained by The Narwhal through freedom of information legislation. “Given the previous vandalism attack at the CGL crossing site we should have a discussion about safety protocols for … monitoring of CGL crossings that [are] planned for this winter.”

Vincent Harper, section head with Fisheries and Oceans Canada’s habitat protection program, replied the following day.

“Discussed this with Brenda today,” Harper wrote, referring to another manager at the federal department. “We both agree that we should avoid monitoring in this area while these types of activities are still occurring.”

The newly released emails are the first indication that federal enforcement officers were using vandalism as an excuse not to do required monitoring and inspections. Ironically, the emails also indicate federal officials were concerned they were not doing enough monitoring during a period when the company reported an “abnormal amount” of fish deaths during ongoing construction.

Fisheries and Oceans Canada, commonly called DFO, confirmed in a statement to The Narwhal that it could be scaling back some monitoring of the 670 kilometre project due to safety concerns, but it declined to provide details.

“We schedule monitoring site visits taking into account risks to staff safety and attend sites when conditions are deemed safe,” a spokesperson wrote in an email. “Civil protests, reports of violent activities and inclement weather for travel are all factors that DFO considers when assessing field work safety for staff.”

The RCMP has not made any arrests related to the fire, which damaged or destroyed 15 vehicles, nor linked it to the pipeline project — around 100 kilometres from Smithers. The attack Bergsma mentioned seemed to reference an incident one year ago, when unknown assailants chased off pipeline security workers and allegedly damaged equipment at a worksite where the company is crossing Wedzin Kwa (Morice River). 

Corporal Madonna Saunderson, with the RCMP’s communications service, said investigations are ongoing but did not answer questions about the incidents or provide updates.

‘There are no safety concerns whatsoever’

Aaron Hill, executive director of Watershed Watch Salmon Society, said even if the federal department’s fears were founded, that shouldn’t prevent fisheries officers from fieldwork.

“We’re talking about an agency that deals in high-risk environments all the time,” he told The Narwhal, noting Fisheries and Oceans Canada trains its officers to use firearms and deal with confrontational situations. “They board pirate fishing vessels on the high seas — with guns. If it is as high-risk as they think it is, that’s something they’re equipped to deal with so that’s not an excuse to abandon monitoring.”

Since Coastal GasLink construction began in 2019, land defenders trying to stop the pipeline have repeatedly come into conflict with police and the pipeline’s private security force. The RCMP has conducted three major raids of the territory, deploying heavily armed tactical units and authorizing lethal overwatch — police lingo for granting its members permission to shoot to kill. To date, the force has made more than 90 arrests and dozens of detentions, running up a taxpayer tab of more than $25 million. While tensions remain high on the yintah, Hereditary Chief Na’moks said what happened in Smithers was not directed by the chiefs.

“We would never condone, nor would we do such actions,” he told The Narwhal in an interview.

When asked if he thinks there’s any validity to fisheries officers’ concerns about safety, he didn’t hesitate.

“None whatsoever. We want them out there. We’ve never instigated any form of violence. We’re the people that are trying to protect the water and the salmon. We would never stand in the way of proper monitoring.”

Sleydo’ Molly Wickham, a Wet’suwet’en wing chief who was arrested at gunpoint in 2021 during a now-infamous RCMP raid, said land defenders would welcome fisheries officers.

“There are no safety concerns whatsoever for them to do their job. Honestly, if we saw a DFO truck drive out on the yintah, we’d probably all cheer.”

Sleydo’ said the decision to avoid monitoring reflects a systemic issue. 

“The federal government has been absent from most of their responsibilities this whole time, because they say that it’s provincial jurisdiction,” she said in an interview, noting it was news to her that DFO is even involved in the project. “I think that it’s a cop-out from doing their actual jobs — it’s their job to protect fish and fish habitat.”

The federal agency argued its role is less prominent because it did not issue any permits and noted provincial regulators take the lead on field inspections.  

“DFO has compliance monitoring targets depending on risks to fish and fish habitat and whether a regulatory approval was issued for a project,” the spokesperson explained. “For example, where Fisheries Act authorizations are issued, staff monitor sites more frequently during construction and again after construction to ensure that conditions of the approval were followed. For the CGL project, DFO did not issue any regulatory approvals and thus conducts monitoring of the various crossing sites consistent with other lower risk projects.”

Coastal GasLink reported ‘abnormal amount’ of fish deaths days after fisheries officers stopped monitoring pipeline construction

Coastal GasLink has repeatedly failed to adhere to environmental regulations and received more than $450,000 in fines issued by the B.C. Environmental Assessment Office for violations. Many of the violations are related to sediment entering wetlands, lakes, creeks and rivers — too much of which suffocates fish.

The newly released records reveal the federal fisheries agency decided to stop monitoring on Wet’suwet’en territory at a critical time. 

Days after Fisheries and Oceans Canada officials agreed to avoid areas of contention, Bergsma received an email that flagged reports filed by the pipeline company. 

“Not sure if you see these mortality reports from CGL or not?” Jason Davey, a fishery officer with the department, wrote. “I have received seven mortality notifications, such as the one below, in the last 11 days. The total number of mortalities reported is now at 31. This is an abnormal amount of mortality notifications for the CGL project.”  

The dead fish in question were longnose dace, a freshwater minnow that provides a food source for birds and other fish, including salmon.

The fishery officer asked Bergsma for his opinion on “what point should a field inspection be conducted to ensure proper methods are being utilized” to minimize mortalities. The two sites identified in the documents were Owen Creek, a tributary of Wedzin Kwa (Morice River) near a Gidimt’en clan village site, and an unnamed tributary of Lho Kwa (Clore River). 

Forwarding the email to his superiors, Bergsma noted he would bring the issue up with a contact at Coastal GasLink. 

The department told The Narwhal it was unable to provide additional mortality reports and said the company made a “minor fix” that resolved the problem. It is unclear whether any additional field inspections of the sites took place.

DFO relied on Coastal GasLink progress reports while avoiding monitoring

Concerned about potential impacts to salmon and other species and lack of government oversight, Wet’suwet’en chiefs, fish and wildlife monitors and their supporters have tried to keep an eye on construction of the pipeline on numerous occasions. But private security forces employed by Coastal GasLink continue to restrict access to areas like the crossing of Wedzin Kwa. 

In early November, Wet’suwet’en chiefs and their supporters were told they would be arrested if they tried to access a Coastal GasLink worksite.  

“Coastal GasLink has an obligation to control access to its worksites to ensure the safety of both the public and its workers which includes restricting access to existing roads, trails and travel ways at active work areas,” TC Energy, the project’s parent company, told The Narwhal in a previous statement. “Safe access for community members is facilitated through a defined process that has been communicated to the Office of the Wet’suwet’en, Hereditary Chiefs, elected Wet’suwet’en leadership and house members.”

Around the same time, Bergsma told one of his managers, Brenda Rotinsky, the situation “sounds pretty tense up there” in an instant message.

“There is no expectation that we would put ourselves in that situation,” Rotinsky replied, adding: “We are hanging back from the more tense locations, right?”

Bergsma told her they were and suggested he’d ask Coastal GasLink representatives to submit progress updates “so that at least we can keep in the loop somewhat.”

Hill called this an “egregious failure” of the federal department’s responsibility.

“Anybody who works in this field knows that industry self-monitoring doesn’t work without strict government oversight,” he said. 

Shannon McPhail, co-founder of Skeena Watershed Conservation Coalition, agreed and said the government should issue a stop-work order. 

“They need to prove to us that they can get their shit together and actually do this right,” she said. “If you’re gonna force a project down the throats of Wet’suwet’en people violently against their will, then you better be ready to make sure that every single crossing site for salmon is being done right and not rely on an industry that clearly has a habit of destroying or harming fish habitat to be the ones to report on themselves.”

‘Every fish matters’

On Feb. 1, TC Energy announced a revised cost estimate of $14.5 billion — more than double what the company originally thought the pipeline would cost. Already behind schedule, project personnel are likely facing pressure to get the pipe in the ground as quickly as possible. This could be causing an increase in persistent problems with environmental protection. 

In early January, the company allegedly conducted work directly in a salmon river without installing any sediment control measures. Fearing they would be denied access to the remote site if they approached on the backroads, Wet’suwet’en chiefs flew over the Lho Kwa crossing to document from above. After receiving concerns about the potential infraction, the federal agency launched an investigation. 

“DFO performed a site inspection and is currently assessing the data to determine compliance with the Fisheries Act,” the spokesperson wrote. “We continue to receive ongoing updates from both CGL and the environmental monitors on site.”

On Jan. 29, Wet’suwet’en chiefs flew over the site a second time to document what appeared to be breaches of the company’s water isolation measures — dams put in place that dry out the section where a trench is dug to install the pipeline under the river. According to reports and photos, those measures failed and icy water spilled into the worksite, flooding equipment and sending more sediment into the river system.

“Coastal GasLink has lost control of this river crossing, and our fish are paying the price,” Tsebasa, a Likhts’amisyu clan chief, said in a statement.

TC Energy disputed the report.

“To manage the rise in water levels due to higher temperatures last week, we initiated a temporary overflow of our barrier at the Clore River yesterday,” the company wrote in a Jan. 30 statement.

For Tsebasa, the onus is on government regulators to prove no damage to fish habitat is occurring — and make the company stop working until that proof is given.

“Ultimately, I wish they would just pack up and leave,” she said. “But with the current and ongoing damage from Coastal GasLink continuously breaking the law, we are asking for a stop-work order until we, the Hereditary Chiefs, can meet with B.C. and federal regulators to ensure there are people and plans in place to uphold the law. To do anything else would be negligent.”

Sonia Furstenau, leader of the BC Greens, said the volume of infractions is grounds for the provincial government to step in and stop the project.

“This company has repeatedly failed to meet the requirements of its permits, which has caused damage to the river, wetlands and salmon habitat,” she said in a statement. “This government needs to send a clear message. Industry cannot continue to flaunt our laws and regulations and be allowed to operate.”

Given the absence of publicly-available data, it’s unclear how much habitat is impacted at the Lho Kwa crossing and on other sections of the pipeline.

“Our fish can’t take it,” McPhail said. “We’re at the point now where in some runs every fish matters. If we lose the fish, we lose everything.”

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One year ago, helicopters dropped a squad of heavily armed police into the snow as tactical units of the RCMP gathered for a military-style raid on Wet’suwet’en territory. 

The scene played out like a movie — snipers aiming at a cabin and those inside, police dogs barking and RCMP using an axe and a chainsaw to cut down the door of a tiny house. But for the Indigenous land defenders, their supporters and journalists there to document what was going on at Coyote Camp, it was all very real.

The camp was a re-occupation of the territory and an effort to protect Wedzin Kwa (Morice River) from the Coastal GasLink pipeline, being built to connect gas sources in the northeast of B.C. to a liquefaction and export facility on the Pacific coast. 

In 2019, the B.C. Supreme Court issued an injunction against anyone impeding construction of the pipeline, setting the stage for police enforcement. Coastal GasLink and the B.C. government had signed agreements with five of six elected Wet’suwet’en band councils but did not receive consent from the Hereditary Chiefs. The chiefs issued the company an eviction notice in early 2020 and enforced that order again last year, leading to the raids.

RCMP arrested 15 people at gunpoint that day, bringing the two-day total to more than 30. After spending the weekend in jail cells, subjected to what they described as petty and punitive treatment, those arrested were released onto the streets of Prince George, more than 300 kilometres away.

Within days, the cabin — belonging to the daughter of Dinï ze’ (Hereditary Chief) Woos — was allegedly burned and bulldozed according to land defenders and the personal belongings of everyone arrested were scooped up and trucked off to the dump. The site is now guarded around the clock by private security and police as Coastal GasLink drills under the river.

While camouflage-clad RCMP officers pointing assault rifles at unarmed Indigenous women makes for a splashy headline, the story isn’t over. Here’s where things are at one year later.

RCMP: $25 million and 90 arrests on Wet’suwet’en territory

To date, RCMP have spent more than $25 million maintaining a constant presence on Wet’suwet’en territory. Most of that supports the force’s Community-Industry Response Group, commonly called C-IRG, a special unit set up in 2017 to police opposition to industrial projects.

“There have been 90 arrests made involving 80 different people,” Madonna Saunderson, with the RCMP’s media relations team, told The Narwhal. “Some people had been arrested more than once. There are 20 people currently facing charges. Two individuals have had their matters concluded in court.”

As The Narwhal reported earlier this year, the RCMP had already set the wheels in motion to conduct the raids prior to having discussions about meeting with the Hereditary Chiefs to resolve the situation. Internal emails obtained through freedom of information legislation revealed senior RCMP officials told the Office of the Wet’suwet’en — an administrative body which represents the Hereditary Chiefs — a meeting would be “difficult” if the land defenders did not first back down.

Former B.C. RCMP Assistant Commissioner Eric Stubbs denied allegations his messaging was a form of blackmail.

“For a number of years, I and others on my team have been actively involved in both in-person meetings, Zoom meetings and/or phone conversations with a goal to find resolutions that would eliminate the need for enforcement,” he wrote in an email to The Narwhal in April.

Stubbs just became the City of Ottawa’s police chief.

After the raid, audio recordings captured RCMP members joking about the people they’d just arrested, including making racist remarks about Indigenous women, whose faces were marked with red handprints to symbolize Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls, seemingly comparing them to orcs from The Lord of the Rings.

John Brewer, chief superintendent and gold commander of the special unit, told The Narwhal this behaviour was “beyond troubling” and said he put his entire team on notice after listening to the recordings.

Land defenders briefly re-occupied the drill site last December but retreated in early January when word came that police were gathering for another raid.

In February, unknown assailants chased security workers from the site and allegedly used the company’s own heavy machinery to cause millions in damages to equipment and infrastructure.

That launched a months-long campaign of policing, which community members characterized as intimidation and harassment. Members of C-IRG conducted daily patrols through the Gidimt’en camp and village site, sometimes in the middle of the night and with children present. Private security sat in trucks parked outside the camp 24-7, filming everyone walking or driving on the remote road.

“After the violent confrontation against employees of Coastal GasLink on the Marten Forest Service Road on Feb. 17, the RCMP has been concerned for the safety of those in the area and has increased our presence patrolling around the industry camps and other camps along the route, and interacting with people in the area,” Saunderson wrote in an email to The Narwhal in May. 

The RCMP has not made any arrests related to the incident and has not released any further details.

Community members filed a civil lawsuit against the RCMP, Coastal GasLink and the company’s private security force, Forsythe, in June.

“On multiple occasions, I have witnessed the RCMP on the ground take direction from Coastal GasLink workers,” Sleydo’ Molly Wickham, a Gidimt’en clan wing chief who lives on the territory with her family, told The Narwhal in May. “Their relationship is so close and intertwined that it’s hard to distinguish roles.”

Both Coastal GasLink and Forsythe denied any wrongdoing in legal responses filed with the courts and the allegations have not been proven at trial. The RCMP has not responded.

Earlier this month, Forsythe security workers told Dinï ze’ Na’moks he would be arrested if he walked past a gate on the access road to the drill site. Members of C-IRG were present but did not speak with Na’moks or his legal counsel. 

“The human rights abuse here, the Indigenous Rights that are being stomped upon — in one sentence, all of that threat is there,” he told The Narwhal at the time.

Where do Wet’suwet’en Hereditary Chiefs stand? 

Na’moks and his fellow Hereditary Chiefs have not swayed from their opposition. 

This summer, they invited guests to the territory to raft the river from its headwaters and join in a peace and unity summit, a four-day event that brought together Indigenous leaders, politicians, conservation groups and others to uplift Indigenous sovereignty, share space and join in solidarity. 

The group, which included Cedar George-Parker from the Tsleil-Waututh Nation, several other Indigenous leaders, B.C. Green Party MLAs Sonia Furstenau and Adam Olsen and Severn Cullis-Suzuki, executive director of the David Suzuki Foundation, also witnessed land defenders being arrested.

“The narrative is that land defenders are criminals — they’re violent, they’re threatening and police forces are protecting [the public],” Cullis-Suzuki told The Narwhal at the time. “But this is just existence on the land. This is the right of Indigenous people here in Canada and they’re basically being harassed at great cost to them and their families, on the daily, for exercising their right.”

An RCMP statement about the arrests described the group observing the interactions between land defenders and police as “protestors” who “surrounded the police car to block it from leaving with the arrested man.” 

“We have been here for the last few days as invited guests,” Furstenau said later. “We are not protesters. You are not protestors — this is your land.” 

The conflict with police prevented Elders, chiefs and guests including Grand Chief Stewart Phillip and Amalaxa Louisa Smith from joining the rest of the group on the territory.

Later, guests convened for speeches and discussions. 

“It’s really heartwarming to see all the people coming together in peace and unity across Canada to maintain the solidarity of the Wet’suwet’en,” Dinï ze’ Madeek told attendees at the event. 

Madeek, who was known for his warmth, strength and commitment to ensuring his grandchildren and all future generations have clean air, water and food, recently passed away. Last week, Dinï ze’, Tsakë’ze and Skïy ze’, with members of the nation, held feasts and gathered in ceremony to honour his passing.

“Collectively we mourn, and help Madeek walk softly to be with his ancestors and Creator,” the Hereditary Chiefs wrote.

What’s the status of Coastal GasLink’s construction? 

The pipeline is about 75 per cent complete, according to the company. On Wet’suwet’en territory, 100 per cent of the route has been cleared and 14.3 per cent of the pipe is in the ground.

Meanwhile, the 670-kilometre pipeline project continues to rack up environmental violations. Around the same time as last year’s raids, the company received non-compliance orders issued by B.C.’s environmental assessment office. Over the past year, Coastal GasLink has been issued numerous warnings, orders and over $240,000 in fines. 

“We have done multiple inspections this year along the entire length of the pipeline, by both helicopter and ground, and found ongoing concerns — in particular with erosion and sediment control that could impact sensitive fish habitat,” a spokesperson with the assessment office wrote in an emailed statement.

The company also started drilling under the river at the riskiest time for salmon. 

TC Energy, the pipeline operator and minority shareholder, did not directly answer questions about mitigation, monitoring or why it was starting the work while salmon were spawning, but told The Narwhal it follows all provincial regulations. 

“Our work is fully authorized and permitted and has the unprecedented support of local and Indigenous communities across the project route,” the company wrote in October. “It is being completed in accordance with all permits, plans and requirements.”

Mike Ridsdale, environmental assessment coordinator with the Office of the Wet’suwet’en, told The Narwhal one-third of all chinook salmon in the Skeena River system start and end their lives in Wedzin Kwa. If the pipeline impacted that population, the effects would be felt throughout the watershed.

“The problem is that we don’t know where that tipping point is,” he said in an October interview. “If you look at what happened with the East Coast cod and their downfall, it was because they didn’t know the tipping point — and they reached it and surpassed it and, bam, the cod disappeared.”

As part of its clearing activities, the company recently conducted blasting near a tributary of the river, less than one kilometre from a Wet’suwet’en camp and village site.

Earlier this month, TC Energy told The Narwhal “the creek remains flowing and blasting was not done in the creek” and maintained its crossing of the river is safe. 

Na’moks told The Narwhal he’s confident the pipeline will never be completed but the impacts of construction can’t be undone.

“We’ve never agreed to this and we never will,” he said. “We’re doing our part to protect the planet, protect our land, Rights and Title, our humanity. And this is what we get.”

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David de Wit asks everyone to introduce themselves to the river and the ancestors in a gesture of gratitude and respect. It’s a hot summer day but a breeze over the fast-flowing waters of the Wedzin Kwa (Bulkley River) in the village of Witset, on Wet’suwet’en territory, offers respite from the sun. The river funnels into a tight canyon here, making it prime fishing grounds. Local fishers perch on the rocks and scoop out salmon — which have swam 300 kilometers against the current to get here — as they leap up the cascading waters.

The return of the salmon is a joyful event. For the Wet’suwet’en, it’s also a signal to pause and reflect on the abundance of the natural world and the role humans play in protecting that abundance. 

“Traditionally, the first salmon that was caught … in this canyon, was cooked into a stew along the side of the river here,” de Wit, who is a member of the Laksilyu Clan, belonging to the House on Top of Flat Rock (Tsekalbaiyex), says. Dinï ze’ and Tsakë ze’ — male and female Hereditary Chiefs — would eat the salmon stew and then return the bones to the river, he explains, crediting his late uncle Henry Alfred who held the chief name Wah Tah K’eght, for sharing this story with him.

On this day, he’s honouring the tradition and the ancestors. In the early afternoon, hundreds of people gather to share a meal and celebrate the return of the salmon to Wet’suwet’en territory. Drummers and dancers perform on a bluff high above the river as community members and guests seek shade from the midday sun. After everyone eats their fill, de Wit and a small group go down to the canyon. Holding a take-out container full of the bones of salmon just eaten by community members and guests, he talks about the importance of ceremony. 

“I’ve been blessed to spend a lot of time with our Elders and Hereditary Chiefs,” he says. “I’m just a messenger. I just like to give honour to our ancestors. I don’t own the story, I don’t own the knowledge, but we’re here to share it, not just amongst ourselves as clan members or house members, but [with] all living beings on the territory and our guests.” 

“Returning the bones is almost like a contract,” he continues. “There’s a reciprocal relationship: they’re bringing a life sustaining source to us and we’re a part of recycling of nutrients and recycling of knowledge. When we return the bones, we say we’re going to take care of the waters where you travel, where you raise your young ones, where you spawn. It’s our responsibility to take care of these waters. And we ask the Salmon People, please continue to come and feed us — our lives, our culture, our language, our wellness comes from water and the salmon.”

The responsibility to care for the water is part of ‘anuc niwh’it’ën, Wet’suwet’en laws. Those laws go back thousands of years, long before colonizers arrived, and are a foundation for how to live sustainably and maintain respect — for the river, the animals and future generations.

Salmon are a keystone species. They play a vital role in ecosystem health, feeding the likes of bears and wolves and even the forest as scraps left by predators at the base of trees decompose and enrich the soil. The Wedzin Kwa (the Wet’suwet’en name for both the Bulkley and Morice Rivers) is part of the Skeena River watershed in northwest B.C., a vast network of rivers and tributaries bounded by mountains and forests. 

The number of fish returning to Wedzin Kwa has been in decline for decades, leading to fishing restrictions both regulated and voluntary. Climate change isn’t the only culprit — overfishing at the mouth of the Skeena and habitat degradation from the likes of forestry practices have also contributed to the decline.

The 2022 sockeye runs are shaping up to be the healthiest in decades, with an estimated four million fish returning to the Skeena system, but whether or not the Wedzin Kwa will see a corresponding increase in numbers is yet to be seen. And sockeye — talok in Wet’suwet’en — is just one of four salmon species that return to the river. 

Brian Huntington, a co-founder of the Skeena Watershed Conservation Coalition and settler who was adopted into the neighbouring Gitxsan Nation in 2007, says the upper river and Wedzin Bin (Morice Lake) is “the largest spawning complex in the whole Skeena system” for chinook salmon, or ggïs. But the numbers aren’t there.

“I think of it, the way it looks now, like bunches of condominiums with lots of empty rooms,” he says, explaining how the fish create depressions called redds in which they lay eggs. “The redds have been carved — the riverbed is carved and shaped by thousands and thousands of years. The channels are there, the habitat is there but to a large degree the fish are not. Of course, all of us are working to ensure that those rooms can get booked in the future.”

Adding to the concern, is the multibillion dollar Coastal Gaslink pipeline project, which is being built to connect fracked gas fields in B.C.’s northeast with a liquefaction and export facility currently under construction on the Pacific coast. Spanning some 670 kilometres, the route traverses mountain passes, crosses salmon rivers (and a bevy of tributaries) and transects numerous First Nations territories. Coastal Gaslink has a large worksite in the heart of Wet’suwet’en territory, south of the town of Houston, B.C., and is currently preparing to drill under the Wedzin Kwa.

The pipeline’s parent company, TC Energy, regularly notes it has agreements with 20 First Nations along the route, but Wet’suwet’en Hereditary Chiefs have opposed the project since it was first proposed in 2012. A decade later, the government continues to deploy police forces to arrest and remove Indigenous land defenders and their allies from the territory.

Salmon are not only an important source of food and an integral part of Indigenous cultures — they also repair habitat. As Haíɫzaqv land-based educator and writer Jess H̓áust̓i writes, “salmon are healers, restoring the balance in the face of downstream nutrient flux from the rivers and streams as they come home to spawn and enrich the places that first nurtured them.” 

That connection between fish and forests is part of why salmon are so celebrated when they return.

Conversely, the connection between a species integral to the lives of Indigenous Peoples and an industry fuelling the climate crisis that is devastating fish populations and posing a threat to human existence, disproportionately impacting Indigenous communities, is jarring. 

The United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has issued numerous warnings that without immediate action to curb emissions, the intensity and frequency of extreme climate events and loss of biodiversity will increase exponentially. Without dramatic change, the panel warned, we will “miss a brief and rapidly closing window to secure a liveable future.” 

That necessary change includes a rapid reduction of methane emissions.

If completed, the Coastal GasLink pipeline would transport 2.1 billion cubic feet of natural gas (which is mostly composed of methane) daily, with the ability to increase to 5 billion cubic feet per day. Once liquefied at the LNG Canada facility currently under construction in Kitimat, the fossil fuel would be shipped overseas and burned to produce energy.

It’s not only the emissions connected with the project that imperil fish populations. Coastal GasLink has repeatedly breached the terms of its environmental assessment certificate, including numerous counts of failing to prevent sediment-laden water from entering creeks and rivers, including the Clore River, a tributary of the Skeena and important habitat for salmon and steelhead. Too much sediment means fish can’t breathe.    

Salmon are resilient, not invincible.

Amalaxa Louisa Smith, a Xenaksiala Elder and matriarch, says the way to protect the fish, animals, water and land is to respect Indigenous Knowledge. Frail in body but strong in spirit, she speaks with gentle conviction. Her brother, the late Wa’xaid Cecil Paul, was a prominent leader and Xenaksiala chief who played an instrumental role in the protection of the Kitlope valley near Kitimat.

“With your regalia and your attitude, you’re going to teach these big industries what the earth means to us, what the land means to us,” she says. “We follow the law of the land, not the law of government.”

She says seeing a vast sea of green pipeline segments sitting in a staging area just outside the town of Houston is distressing.

“My heart sank when I’ve seen all those things, and yet, it was lifted up to watch the Wet’suwet’ens, the big chiefs, in doing that thing that was instructed by my brother: put your best foot forward, walk softly, wear your regalia and make a statement.”

For one of those big chiefs, Dinï ze Na’Moks, the statement is simple.

“The land that we stand on is who we are as Wet’suwet’en,” he says. “That river right now is full of life. That life that you live will only continue if you look after this planet. That very life that you have you must give to your children and your grandchildren.” 

Placing the container of salmon bones on the riverbank, de Wit takes off his hat. 

“I’m going to hold up the salmon and I’m going to thank the Creator, I’m going to thank our ancestors, I’m going to thank the salmon,” he says. He explains he’ll start facing east and speak gratitude in each direction. 

“In ourselves, there’s four elements that we need to keep in balance: our hearts, our minds, our spirit and our body,” he says. “There’s a natural system where balance and sustainable energy, communities, culture is grounded. A lot of people need to hear this — there’s a lot of static that comes from the modern day of living and life and distractions.”

He picks up the container and speaks reverently, the sound of the river carrying his words away. He gives gratitude first to Udiggï, the Wet’suwet’en Creator, and Niwhts’ide’nï, the ancestors.

“And I thank the Salmon People and the salmon for coming again this year, to bring us together, to feed us, to heal us, to bring energy, to feed love and laughter and knowledge.” 

“We’re going to return the salmon back to Wedzin Kwa,” he says, finishing the ceremony. “Please tell your people and your relations that we are taking care of our waters and our lands for you to return. Please continue to come to bring health and life to our lands and our people.”

He crouches at the water’s edge, the river lapping at his feet. The bones are carried away in the current.

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TC Energy signed equity agreements with 16 B.C. First Nations that will provide the communities with a shared 10 per cent ownership stake in the Coastal GasLink pipeline — if the project is completed. 

The agreements were signed between the pipeline company and two First Nations coalitions — CGL First Nations Limited Partnership and FN CGL Pipeline Limited Partnership. Both groups represent communities along the pipeline route that had already signed benefit agreements with the company and corresponding agreements with the province.

The March 9 announcement noted all 20 nations with existing agreements were invited to partner on the project. It is unclear why four of the 20 First Nations did not opt in.

It was also not immediately clear whether any of the 16 First Nations would help assume some of the cost overruns of a project that TC Energy says is “significantly” over budget, and behind schedule.

The 670-kilometre pipeline, if completed, would connect the province’s Montney shale gas formation in the northeast to the LNG Canada facility currently under construction on Haisla territory, in Kitimat.

“For years we have watched industry and governments generate revenues from the operations of their projects, while we live with the impacts,” Chief Justin Napoleon of Saulteau First Nations, said in a press release. 

Saulteau First Nations territory is in B.C.’s northeast region, a part of the province heavily impacted by decades of industrial activity, including forestry, hydroelectric dams and oil and gas extraction.

“This investment in Coastal GasLink will finally start to shift the landscape, aligning industry and Indigenous peoples’ interests over the entire life cycle of a project,” Chief Napoleon said.

Chief Corrina Leween, of the Cheslatta Carrier Nation in B.C.’s central interior, echoed the sentiment.

“For many of us, this marks the first time that our nations have been included as owners in a major natural resource project that is crossing our territories,” she said in a statement. “This deal is important because it demonstrates the value First Nations can bring as true partners in major projects.”

Agreements reduce TC Energy ownership of Coastal GasLink to 25 per cent

The equity options in the company would only come into effect after construction is completed and the pipeline begins to transport 2.1 billion cubic feet of natural gas across the province daily. First Nations with signed agreements could then exercise ownership options, pending regulatory approvals and consents, including consent from LNG Canada.

The announcement further distances TC Energy from the pipeline project, which has been contentious since it was first proposed in 2012 and the centre of controversy and conflict since construction began in 2019.

In late 2019, the company sold 65 per cent of its shares in the Coastal GasLink project to U.S.-based private equity company KKR and Alberta Investment Management Corporation (AIMCo) on behalf of AIMCo clients. With the new agreement, TC Energy is allocating 10 per cent of its remaining shares to First Nations.

TC Energy did not respond to The Narwhal’s questions by time of publication, but Bevin Wirzba, president of Coastal GasLink, celebrated the announcement in a statement.

“We recognize that enduring relationships need to include long-term economic opportunities that support the resiliency of Indigenous communities,” Wirzba said. “We continue to learn a great deal from these relationships and value the opportunity to become true partners with Indigenous communities throughout the lifecycle of this project.”

Wet’suwet’en Hereditary Chiefs still opposed to Coastal GasLink, demand divestment

While the agreements line up 16 First Nations to receive economic benefits after the pipeline is completed, the project’s future remains uncertain.

The pipeline route crosses around 190 kilometres of Wet’suwet’en territory, which the Supreme Court of Canada famously ruled has never been ceded to the Crown, meaning the Wet’suwet’en retain jurisdiction over the land and resources. The company has agreements with five of six elected Wet’suwet’en band councils: Wet’suwet’en First Nation, Skin Tyee, Nee Tahi Buhn, Witset and Ts’il Kaz Koh. Hagwilget elected council did not sign an agreement with Coastal GasLink. 

Despite the agreements with elected councils, the Wet’suwet’en Hereditary Chiefs and their supporters staunchly oppose the project. 

This opposition led to several clashes with RCMP, including in Nov. 2021, when police arrested more than 30 land defenders and journalists under the authority of a B.C. Supreme Court injunction against anyone who attempts to impede the project. The conflicts garnered international attention and condemnation from the likes of the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, which in 2020 urged Canada to immediately cease the forced eviction of Wet’suwet’en Peoples who oppose the Coastal GasLink pipeline. 

In February, Coastal GasLink reported an attack on a key worksite near the Wedzin Kwa (Morice) River on Wet’suwet’en territory, where the company suffered millions in damages to equipment and project infrastructure. RCMP have not made any arrests to date, but say they are investigating.

The Coastal GasLink project has also been facing financial difficulties and TC Energy noted in its most recent quarterly report it remains in dispute with LNG Canada over cost overruns and construction delays. 

The company set up a loan agreement for the project which would provide up to $3.3 billion in temporary financing. As of the end of 2021, $238 million in loans was outstanding. It is not clear how this debt will be repaid to TC Energy, nor whether the sale of equity shares will impact the project’s financial standing.

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Heavy machinery smashed beyond repair and bulldozers lying on their sides in the frozen mud. Security trucks pockmarked with holes made by axes. Remote work buildings gutted, debris spilling out onto the ground. These are the images of damage that came out of Coastal GasLink’s Northern B.C. worksite on Feb. 17. 

The company says that attackers caused millions of dollars of damage and halted operations on a key worksite for the multibillion dollar natural gas pipeline project, owned by energy giant TC Energy in partnership with Canadian pension funds and some international financial institutions. 

But more than a week after the dramatic events, many questions remain about how many people were involved, who they were and how they managed to foil security and law enforcement.

The project has been contentious since it was first proposed in 2012. And, after construction of the pipeline began in 2019, it became the centre of several conflicts that caused construction delays and cast a spotlight on how settler governments and industry interests can clash with Indigenous Rights. 

The site where the events took place is the location the pipeline would cross under the Wedzin Kwa (Morice) River, a focal point for the conflict between Wet’suwet’en land defenders, RCMP and the pipeline company.

The drill site was occupied by land defenders for 59 days last fall, an attempt to prevent the company from drilling under the river, which, according to Wet’suwet’en Hereditary Chiefs, is considered sacred. The occupation ended in late November after a series of armed raids by the RCMP — more than 30 people were violently arrested.

The recent events have been described as “violent” and “terrifying” by a private security worker who was present when masked people, many clad in all-white camouflage and some carrying axes and flare guns, approached the remote site roughly 60 kilometres from the nearest town.

Here’s what we know — and what we don’t — about what happened. 

The night of the attack on Coastal GasLink 

According to Coastal GasLink, a security agent named Trevor said he was alone in his truck shortly after midnight at the gate to the Marten forest service road, which provides the sole access to the drill site near the river. He was updating a routine daily report when he says he heard some yelling.

“It’s very dark. We had a light tower there, so the area is lit up, but the area around it, the bush, is quite dark,” Trevor said in a blog post published by Coastal GasLink.

“I keep both windows rolled down, just a little bit, just so I can hear things … I could hear yelling all of a sudden.” 

Unknown assailants approached his truck and demanded he open the gate, according to his statement. One individual then started cutting the gate open with a cordless power tool, while others started swinging axes at his vehicle, he said. 

Images and videos released by the RCMP and Coastal GasLink show two assailants approach the vehicle with axes and swing them at the side of the truck. Another video shows an individual approach a truck with a strobe light and start spray painting the passenger window while another appears to fire a flare gun at the ground.

The pipeline company said there were approximately 20 people involved in the attack on Coastal GasLink, which occurred simultaneously on the drill site itself and at the gate.

After security forces fled both locations, the assailants allegedly commandeered heavy equipment and used it to damage work facilities, other machinery, generators, lights and security camera equipment, according to Coastal GasLink. 

Local RCMP was called to the site shortly after midnight, when Coastal GasLink reported the events. Officers drove in on the only road access — the Morice West forest service road — to the 41 kilometre mark, where they found trees blocking the road, along with “tar covered stumps, wire, boards with spikes in them” and other obstacles, including tarps and lit fires, according to an RCMP news release.

At this point, “several people threw smoke bombs and fire lit sticks at the police, injuring one officer,” the release says. Warren Brown, chief superintendent and RCMP commander for the north, later told the CBC the officer was injured by stepping on a board with spikes on it. A spokesperson for the RCMP told The Narwhal in an email the officer “received non-life threatening injuries and is recovering.”

Two kilometres down the road, officers say they encountered an old school bus blocking access. With help from Coastal GasLink workers and machinery, RCMP cleared the obstacle and continued, according to the RCMP release.

At the drill site, which is roughly 63 kilometres on the Morice road, officers say they found only the remnants of the destructive activity and no further blockades or people.

No arrests were made at the time of the incident and no arrests have been made since.

The Narwhal requested interviews with security workers who were present during the events, but Coastal GasLink declined and instead shared the account made by Trevor on its website.

“We have already put this to Trevor, the individual who shared his story with us, and he was not comfortable and respectfully declined,” a spokesperson for TC Energy, Coastal GasLink’s parent company, told The Narwhal in an email. “As such, respecting what he and others have been through, we will not be able to accommodate a worker interview.”

The aftermath of the attack on Coastal GasLink’s worksite

An RCMP investigation has been ongoing since the events took place and officers established a checkpoint at the 27-kilometre mark on the Morice road. 

“This is a very troubling escalation in violent criminal activity that could have resulted in serious injury or death,” Brown said in a statement. “This was a calculated and organized violent attack that left its victims shaken and a multimillion dollar path of destruction.”

Coastal GasLink noted it is still assessing the extent of the damage and attempting to address environmental impacts. 

“Coastal GasLink remains focused on environmental mitigation to address fuel leaks caused by vandalism to heavy equipment, as well as clean-up and damage assessment,” the company said on its website. “Construction is expected to resume when that work is complete, though no specific date is available at this time.”

Unlike previous actions, no one has taken responsibility for the actions but Brown told the Prince George Post that RCMP investigators are pursuing leads.

“We have no idea who the 20-plus are, but we have a good idea who one or two are,” Brown said.

Coastal GasLink noted in a statement its security workers had observed unknown people conducting surveillance or reconnaissance of the drill site for a few weeks prior to the events.

“For the past several weeks, Coastal GasLink has experienced several incidents where unknown people who have used forest trails to access this construction site disrupt activities by confronting and intimidating workers. These incidents were reported to police. It is unknown if these events are related to the Feb. 17 attack.”

The elected council of the Wet’suwet’en First Nation, one of six elected councils on Wet’suwet’en territory, issued a statement distributed by the First Nations LNG Alliance to media outlets including CBC and the Vancouver Sun condemning the actions.

“We want everyone to know that the people of our First Nation do not support anyone who protests in this way. These protesters do not represent us, or our values and they are grossly misrepresenting our traditional laws and customs,” the statement says.

“This is not our way. We call on those who are inviting violent non-Wet’suwet’en people into our territories to withdraw the invitations. We call on their supporters wherever they are, to stop funding criminal protests and to stop trespassing on our traditional lands.”

The Wet’suwet’en Hereditary Chiefs noted in a statement they did not have enough information to comment directly on the situation, but said they are concerned about everyone’s safety.

“Our Elders, Dinï ze’ and Tsakë’ze continue to state that we do not support violence, and see conflicts escalating across the yintah (territory) and throughout turtle island,” they wrote. “We have a trapping program on the yintah and members living on the yintah in this area, we continue to express our concern for their safety and wellbeing too. Dinï ze’ were on the territory in that same area just a few days ago and had not witnessed anything unusual or irregular.”

The First Nations Leadership Council noted its concerns with the reports of violence and vandalism in a statement sent to The Narwhal Feb. 24.

“​​Our first and foremost concern is for the safety and well-being of the Wet’suwet’en people who, like all First Nations in B.C., actively exercise their rights and traditional practices, such as trapping, year-round within their traditional territory,” the statement says.“The Wet’suwet’en should not have to fear for their safety or well being while undertaking their traditional practices and should not have any on-going investigations negatively impact their ability to carry out their traditional practices or limit access to their territories.”

“We stand with the Wet’suwet’en people in complete opposition to any acts of violence or any acts of vandalism within their territory.”

How the attack on Coastal GasLink compares to previous actions 

The absence of anyone claiming responsibility for the events is a notable departure from previous actions connected to Wet’suwet’en land defenders.

In November, for example, land defenders occupying the drill site at Wedzin Kwa River — which they called Coyote Camp — enforced an eviction order first issued to Coastal GasLink by the Hereditary Chiefs in early 2020, closing the Morice River road. At the time, the land defenders, including Sleydo’ Molly Wickham, a wing chief in Cas Yikh House, Gidimt’en Clan, spoke to The Narwhal openly about the situation.

“We were sending a clear message to the province, to Canada, and they weren’t acting on it — they weren’t hearing what we were saying — so we had to get a little bit louder,” she said at the time. “They’re destroying absolutely everything that is important to us in our territory.”

Wickham was among those arrested in November and due to her status as de facto leader of the land defenders (she lives with her family on the territory and was on location for the entirety of the occupation of the drill site) her conditions of release bar her from being within 75 metres of pipeline worksites.

The recent events also differ from previous conflicts between land defenders and the pipeline company in that no journalists were present. 

Also in November, Amber Bracken, on assignment for The Narwhal, and Michael Toledano, filming a documentary for the CBC, were both on site to document the events as they unfolded. Bracken and Toledano were arrested when RCMP raided Coyote Camp. Their charges were later dropped by Coastal GasLink.

Brown, with the RCMP, told the CBC these actions deviate from previous actions carried out in opposition to the pipeline project.

“This has nothing to do with protest activity, whether it be legal or illegal,” he said. “This strictly has to do with a very, very serious and significant criminal investigation.”

Premier John Horgan and other government officials were quick to condemn the actions, with Horgan describing it as “reprehensible.”

“My thoughts are with the workers who were traumatized by this attack and with the RCMP officer who was injured,” Horgan said in a statement published on Feb. 18. “Intimidation and violence should be condemned by all British Columbians.”

Horgan did not make a public comment when Indigenous land defenders and journalists were arrested at gunpoint on unceded Wet’suwet’en territory. During the arrests, RCMP officers used an axe and a chainsaw to break down the door of a tiny house to extract the unarmed land defenders. 

What we don’t know 

Coastal GasLink told The Narwhal security cameras at the location were disabled at some point during the night but workers captured some footage with cell phones, which was turned over to the RCMP to assist in the investigation. 

The RCMP published brief clips of this footage on Feb. 22 which show several unidentifiable individuals masked and wearing white camouflage swinging axes at trucks, spray painting truck windows and setting off flare guns.

The RCMP declined to answer whether the officers spoke to anyone during the conflict or warned anyone of potential arrest. The first press release issued by the RCMP noted conflict and barricades at the 41 and 43 kilometre marks on the Morice River road, but did not say whether they encountered or interviewed any potential suspects at Gidimt’en checkpoint, a series of structures beside the road at the 44 kilometre mark, known to house land defenders.

Also unknown — and unanswered by the RCMP — is whether suspects were travelling by foot or in vehicles and if suspects travelled between the blockades on the Morice River road and the drill site or if there were multiple groups at different locations. 

Coastal GasLink noted in addition to the damages to heavy machinery and camp facilities “equipment hydraulic and fuel lines were also cut, causing dangerous leaks.” The extent of the environmental impact is still unknown, as are the company’s plans to address the impacts. Coastal GasLink told The Narwhal it will be arranging a site visit with provincial regulators in the coming days.

How did we get here? 

While it remains unclear who was behind the damages and to what end, conflicts over the pipeline have been building for over a decade and previous attempts to stop construction on Wet’suwet’en territory resulted in the issuing of a court injunction against anyone who attempts to impede the project. 

This B.C. Supreme Court ruling led to numerous arrests, which garnered international attention in 2020 as solidarity movements across the country and beyond shut down rail lines and port facilities.

Coastal GasLink repeatedly asserts its work is “lawful, authorized [and] fully permitted” and notes the company has signed agreements with 20 First Nations along the pipeline route — but Wet’suwet’en Hereditary Chiefs have staunchly opposed the project from the get-go. 

The First Nations that signed agreements with the company and the province are elected band councils, which govern reserve lands, much like a municipality has an elected mayor and councillors that oversee decisions within town boundaries. The hereditary chiefs on Wet’suwet’en territory are responsible for the entire territory, which spans 22,000 square kilometres.

The hereditary governance system predates the reserve system, which was implemented by settlers during early colonization. 

In 1997, a landmark Supreme Court of Canada ruling confirmed that B.C. and Canada had never extinguished the inherent Rights and Title of the Wet’suwet’en and Gitxsan people. While the Delgamuukw-Gisdaway case irrefutably affirmed Rights and Title and jurisdiction over the lands and waters on the nations’ respective territories, it left some legal uncertainties which made room for the province to continue approving projects without first acquiring the Free, Prior and Informed Consent of the Indigenous people impacted.

When the Wet’suwet’en Hereditary Chiefs first issued an eviction notice to Coastal GasLink on Jan. 4, 2020, they noted their laws predate and supercede Crown laws.

“Anuc ‘nu’at’en (Wet’suwet’en law) is not a ‘belief’ or a ‘point of view,’ ” the chiefs wrote at the time. “It is a way of sustainably managing our territories and relations with one another and the world around us, and it has worked for millennia to keep our territories intact. Our law is central to our identity. The ongoing criminalization of our laws by Canada’s courts and industrial police is an attempt at genocide, an attempt to extinguish Wet’suwet’en identity itself.”

Shiri Pasternak, co-founder and former research director at the Yellowhead Institute, told The Narwhal the roots of the conflict can be traced back to the onset of colonization.

“You have an entire economic and political system intertwined from the beginning that is about the dispossession of Indigenous lands, in order to privatize the profit and socialize the risk of that development and extraction,” she said in an interview. “There’s no spaces within the system for Indigenous people to have jurisdiction, because the whole system is this form of governance that organizes violence through that very distinction.”

Last year, tensions started building again after the pipeline company bulldozed an archaeological site near the confluence of Ts’elkay Kwe (Lamprey Creek) and Wedzin Kwa, under permits issued by the B.C. Oil and Gas Commission. As the company prepared to drill and lay pipe under the river, land and water defenders felt the urgent need to act.

In documents obtained by The Narwhal through freedom of information legislation, Dan Wyman, regulatory lead at Coastal GasLink wrote an email to the commission on Dec. 9, 2021, noting “grading has restarted at the Morice drill pad, we expect civil and preparatory work to continue all the way through until drilling starts in January.”

In early January, the Hereditary Chiefs held a peace and unity gathering to publicly reaffirm Wet’suwet’en Rights and call on governments to “cease supporting industries and developments that are detrimental to the lands and authorities of the Wet’suwet’en.”

“This is about peace and unity. Not once have the Wet’suwet’en been violent,” Dinï ze’ Na’moks said at the event. “Not once did we ever say we were going to give up either. This is home.” 

Pasternak said she doesn’t know what happened at the site but noted the actions would be “especially egregious if this was done without the consent of [Wet’suwet’en] leadership, because it’s ultimately their land and their territory.” 

But she added the escalation is not surprising.

“What do you want people to do if you’re stealing their land, over and over and over again? It’s the logical conclusion of this conflict.”

What do the damages to Coastal GasLink infrastructure mean for the project? 

The as yet unknown impact of millions in damages and further construction delays comes as Coastal GasLink is embroiled in an ongoing dispute with LNG Canada over cost overruns and project delays. 

In its most recent quarterly report, TC Energy acknowledged the dispute and noted it established a loan agreement to provide “additional temporary financing to the project, if necessary, of up to $3.3 billion as a bridge to a required increase in the $6.8 billion project-level financing to fund incremental costs.” 

It further stated that as of the end of 2021, $238 million was outstanding on the loan. It remains unclear who is responsible for this debt and how the money will be repaid.

The company is also facing potential fines for repeated environmental infractions, as The Narwhal recently reported. Those fines, according to the province’s Ministry of Environment and Climate Change Strategy, could include up to $1,000,000 for a first conviction and up to $2,000,000 for subsequent convictions, plus $750,000 every day the company remains out of compliance with provincial environmental guidelines.

It is not known how long construction will be delayed or when the drilling under the river is scheduled to start.

The Narwhal will continue to follow developments and post updates as new information emerges. If you have any tips for us, please reach out to our team at editor@thenarwhal.ca.

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Charges have been dropped against journalists Amber Bracken and Michael Toledano, who were arrested and detained for three nights on civil contempt charges while reporting on militarized police raids on Wet’suwet’en territory in northwest B.C. on Nov. 19. 

Their arrests drew international media attention and marked an escalation in an ongoing battle between journalists and the RCMP over the right to report from within injunction zones without risking arrest.

The plaintiff, Coastal GasLink pipeline, owned by TC Energy, filed earlier this week to discontinue proceedings against the two journalists on charges of civil contempt of court. Bracken and Toledano have also been relieved of the terms of their release, which included agreement to appear in court on Feb. 14, 2022, and to obey a Coastal GasLink injunction. 

Bracken, who was on assignment for The Narwhal at the time of her arrest, said she’s relieved the charges have been dropped, but the fundamental issue hasn’t been resolved. 

“I should never have been arrested or charged, let alone detained, in the first place,” Bracken said. “I can’t get those days of my life and work back. Nothing in these proceedings provides any feedback to RCMP for their gross interference with journalists, so what’s stopping police from just doing it again?”

As The Narwhal reported at the time of Bracken’s arrest, the RCMP were tracking her and Toledano in a database of police investigations, a practice which raises questions about the RCMP’s characterization of journalists who report on social conflict or within injunction zones. At the time of their arrests, the RCMP seized recording devices and professional equipment from both journalists, actions that prevented the public from witnessing police conduct during the raid where more than a dozen land defenders were also arrested.

Although the charges against Bracken and Toledano have been dropped, The Narwhal, the Canadian Association of Journalists and other news organizations are exploring other legal avenues to hold the RCMP accountable and ensure arrests of journalists don’t continue happening. 

“It’s a huge relief that sanity has prevailed, and that the erroneous charges against journalists Amber Bracken and Michael Toledano have been dropped,” said Brent Jolly, president of the Canadian Association of Journalists. “We hope this moment serves as a reminder that the right to report freely, and without interference, is a legal right that will never be subject to negotiation.” 

In August, The Narwhal, the Canadian Association of Journalists and a coalition of media filed a successful legal challenge against the RCMP, which asked the courts to remind law enforcement of the rights of media to report on the Fairy Creek logging blockades. 

In two scathing written rulings, B.C. Supreme Court’s Justice Douglas Thompson determined that the vast exclusion zones, affiliated checkpoints and media restrictions set up by RCMP officers at the injunction area are unlawful and “seriously and substantially” impacted important liberties. 

Justice Thompson refused to extend the injunction when he issued his second decision in September, stating the way the RCMP continued to violate charter rights when enforcing the injunction was causing a “depreciation” of the court’s reputation. 

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Jocelyn Alec, who goes by Jocey, was one of the Indigenous land defenders arrested in a militarized RCMP raid of Wet’suwet’en territory in November, as part of a police enforcement of a Coastal GasLink pipeline company injunction against project opponents.

Daughter of Wet’suwet’en Hereditary Chief Woos, Alec said she was “shocked” when, after spending three nights in police custody, she heard Coastal GasLink ask for confirmation she was Wet’suwet’en during a bail hearing in a B.C. court. 

“I wanted to say, ‘My dad is sitting right there. Ask him yourself,’ ” Alec told The Narwhal in an interview. “I was quite surprised. … I was sitting there shaking my head.”

Questions of Indigenous identity, Indigenous governance and belonging have swirled around the controversial 670-kilometre Coastal GasLink pipeline, owned by TC Energy, which would connect natural gas producers in the province’s northeast with the LNG Canada facility currently under construction in Kitimat. The site of the conflict in northwest B.C. — where the RCMP recently conducted more than 30 arrests, including of journalists — takes place where the approved project cuts through the heart of unceded Wet’suwet’en territory. 

Although many point to the fact that the five elected Wet’suwet’en band councils signed benefits agreements with Coastal GasLink and support the project, Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs, who are responsible for off-reserve decision-making on the nation’s 22,000 square kilometres of territory, have remained staunchly opposed to the pipeline and say they were not consulted prior to the province’s approval of the project in 2019. 

Project proponents have consistently called into question the legitimacy of the hereditary chiefs and their supporters who have constructed and run the Unist’ot’en healing centre along the pipeline’s right-of-way since 2009 in an act of territorial authority and assertion of land rights.

Now, Indigenous land defenders arrested in the third RCMP raid in as many years are required to attend court hearings for violating Coastal GasLink’s court-ordered injunction, and fresh legal pressures are being applied to the question of who makes for a legitimate Indigenous pipeline opponent in the eyes of industry and government. 

Merle Alexander, a member and hereditary chief of Kitasoo Xai’xais First Nation who practices Indigenous resource law at Miller Titerle and Company, said Coastal GasLink’s questions about Indigenous identity are an example of how industry and government begin litigation with a “rights-denial perspective.”

“It starts at the core, ‘you have nothing,’ ” he told The Narwhal. “Then they build outwards.”

He worries this shows that “industry’s approach is regressing, not progressing” on Indigenous Rights. 

As Indigenous Peoples assert their right to undertake civil occupations of their own territories, industry is “clearly thinking about a wider variety of defences,” Alexander said.

“They’re always thinking about how they can make the burden higher for the other side,” he said.

Sleydo’ (Molly Wickham), a wing chief in Cas Yikh house of the Gidimt’en clan and governance director for the office of the Wet’suwet’en, said she first learned her Wet’suwet’en identity was being questioned in court while she was sitting in a jail cell. 

Frances Mahon, lawyer for Wickham, Alec and a number of other individuals arrested in November, told Wickham that Coastal GasLink’s lawyer brought up the question of her identity the day before arrestees were due to appear at a bail hearing in Prince George.

“Basically they said Coastal GasLink’s understanding was that [Wickham] was Gitxsan and [were] asking for confirmation she is Wet’suwet’en and which First Nation band she’s a member of,” Mahon told The Narwhal.

When Mahon inquired as to how Coastal GasLink would like Wickham to prove her identity — she asked whether she would be required to file an affidavit proving membership — she was told by the company’s legal council that self-identification would suffice. 

Mahon took the request to Wickham in her cell.  

“I really wasn’t surprised,” Wickham said. “I was like, ‘go ahead, do whatever you have to do.’ But it was still infuriating they felt they had the right or the position to do that.”

Wickham said she fears the practice of questioning Indigenous identity in a colonial court setting sets a “dangerous precedent.”

Both Wickham and Alec said they felt it was inappropriate for a private company to openly interrogate their identity and for the company to question how a determination of identity should or should not entitle them to access Wet’suwet’en territory. 

A Coastal GasLink spokesperson told The Narwhal in an emailed statement that “under no circumstances would Coastal GasLink ask that an individual prove they are Indigenous.”

“In an effort to understand who is part of the local Indigenous community, Coastal GasLink counsel asked the relevant contemnors confirm for the court they are members of the Wet’suwet’en. This was to enable access so the relevant contemnors can practice their Indigenous rights while under the court’s conditions,” the statement reads. 

Alec said she felt like the question in court “was a joke.”

“It was a really big slap in the face,” she said. 

“Questioning a Wet’suwet’en woman’s identity right in court in front of everybody is extremely insulting. To me, that’s pretty racist.”

In Wickham’s bail hearing on Nov. 23, Mahon told Justice Marguerite Church the court can’t determine who is Wet’suwet’en.

“That’s up to the community,” she said. 

The Narwhal asked Coastal GasLink if the company can explain how they understand the difference between asking an individual to confirm versus prove they are Wet’suwet’en. The Narwhal also asked Coastal GasLink why it was important to ask individuals to confirm their Indigenous identity. Additionally, The Narwhal asked for a response to Alexander’s concern that industry’s approach to recognizing Indigenous Rights is regressing. Coastal GasLink did not answer these questions, instead instructing The Narwhal to consult court transcripts.

The Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers as well as the Indian Resource Council did not respond to The Narwhal’s request for comment. 

The question of which Indigenous people are protesting the Coastal GasLink pipeline is also at issue outside of the courts. In November, as hereditary chiefs enforced an eviction notice demanding the immediate evacuation of Coastal GasLink workers from worksites in Wet’suwet’en territory, they did so with the support of non-Wet’suwet’en land defenders, including individuals from the Haudenosaunee Confederacy.

In a Dec. 7 opinion piece published in the National Post, members of the Gidimt’en Clan said they were “deeply hurt and angered by the conduct and statements of some of our community members and others who claim to be defending our lands and laws against the pipeline.”

“Our concerns are not about the pipeline itself,” the group wrote. “Some of us support it, some of us do not and some are neutral.”

“Our issue is that our traditions and way of life are being misrepresented and dishonoured by a small group of protesters, many of whom are neither Gidimt’en nor Wet’suwet’en, but nonetheless claim to be acting in our name to protest natural gas development.”

‘Challenging our traditional system of governance’

In the November court proceedings, Coastal GasLink recommended Wickham be banned from Wet’suwet’en territory in the injunction area around Morice River Forest Road except to access her home. Justice Church said this would be a disproportionate response and instead said Wickham can access the territory to hunt, fish and trap and for cultural purposes (all of which are constitutionally protected Aboriginal Rights), so long as she keeps 75 metres away from any Coastal GasLink active sites. Alec has to keep 10 metres away.

Combined with the question about Wet’suwet’en identity, Wickham called the company’s requests “horrendous.”

“Challenging me — and my identity and my belonging — is challenging our traditional system of governance,” she said.

“For them to think they can do that, and then restrict me and my family from being on our territory, is so blatantly racist and horrendous that everyone should be concerned.”

Mahon said it could be a dangerous precedent, adding the way the identity question was raised was “problematic.” 

“I don’t want to get into the habit of doing that, or playing into it,” she said. “It’s distracting and it’s offensive to Indigenous people whose cultures have been sliced up by the Indian Act.” 

The Indian Act, first introduced in 1876, was designed to eliminate Indigenous language, governance and culture. The act, under which elected bands like those of the Wet’suwet’en Nation were created, has been used to delegitimize and undermine hereditary forms of Indigenous governance. But Canada’s own Supreme Court acknowledged the limits of the Indian Act when considering holders of Aboriginal title. The court dealt specifically with the Wet’suwet’en and Gitxsan hereditary chiefs’ authority in the 1997 Delgamuukw decision.

In Delgamuukw, the Supreme Court recognized Wet’suwet’en and Gitxsan Peoples had never surrendered their land or had their title extinguished through treaties, or otherwise. The decision recognized Aboriginal title, the right to actively manage the land and benefit economically from its use, but that such title must be proven in the courts (the Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs were invited by the courts to bring a title case, which has not happened in the intervening years). The decision also acknowledged that Aboriginal title is a communally held right that the province does not have the power to extinguish. 

(The Delgamuukw decision left some room for infringements on Indigenous title for industry — agriculture, forestry, mining, hydroelectric power and infrastructure — and general economic development if these infringements can meet the legal test of being justified. The question of whether or not the province’s approval of the Coastal GasLink pipeline constitutes an infringement of Indigenous Title and Rights is one that would have to be addressed in the courts.)

Wickham’s husband, Cody Merriman, was also arrested during the raid. He wasn’t at the two sites where most arrests took place — a tiny house constructed by a pipeline dill site and Alec’s cabin in the territory — and told The Tyee he intentionally avoided blocking the forest service road, which is the primary point of access for the Coastal GasLink project. Merriman wanted to avoid arrest in order to be home with their kids. Merriman is from the Haida Nation, not Wet’suwet’en, so his release conditions prevent him from accessing Wet’suwet’en territory for hunting or cultural purposes. Under the conditions of his bail, Merriman is only allowed to go to and from his home, meaning Wickham is responsible for all hunting and other tasks on the land like collecting firewood. Merriman told the Tyee he didn’t fight the conditions of his release so he could return home quickly to their kids. 

Merriman’s conditions of release infringe on Indigenous Rights, according to Alexander, who points out that through a consensual process between nations, spouses have a right to live on and access their partner’s territory.

“The Canadian way of thinking [about it] is you’re sort of ‘licensed’ by the Wet’suwet’en because you’re a family member,” he said.

International law among Indigenous nations prioritizes this kind of reciprocity, he said.

Mahon, whose firm is also representing Merriman and will be taking on Alec’s representation, said they will be challenging his bail conditions to allow him access to the territory.

“I don’t see that being an uphill battle,” she said. 

“Sovereign title holders to the land should be the ones ultimately deciding who’s welcome and who’s not welcome there,” she said. “Coastal GasLink, in my view, shouldn’t have that authority.”

Indian Act takes an ‘impoverished view of citizenship’

Wickham said if Coastal GasLink pursued the request more rigorously, she expects they would have asked for Indian status because she and Alec are registered under non-Wet’suwet’en bands. 

Wickham is registered under the Stellat’en band. She said that’s because her Wet’suwet’en grandmother was married to a Stellat’en man in her first marriage. After he passed away, her grandmother remarried and had children including Wickham’s mother. But all of her children were still registered under Stellat’en, Wickham said.

“It wasn’t our community. We weren’t related to many people there,” she said.

Wickham’s mother lost her status when she got married. From 1879 to 1985, Indigenous women lost their Indian status if they married someone without status. Indigenous men didn’t lose their status if they married a non-status woman; in fact, their wife would gain status. The bill was repealed for gender discrimination and Indigenous women who lost status through marriage were able to regain it after 1985. Wickham’s mother was able to regain hers as well.

“Indigenous women’s positions in their community are continuously challenged,” Wickham said. “In this case it’s very beneficial to [Coastal GasLink] to challenge and undermine my position within the community.”

An Indigenous person can only register with one band under the Indian Act, even though people belonged to multiple nations before the Indian Act.

While the idea of dual citizenship isn’t a new concept, Canada has not allowed it for Indian Act status, Alexander said. The Indian Act takes “an impoverished view of citizenship,” he said. (Being a citizen of a nation and a band member are not synonymous.)

Wickham said questions about Indigenous identity, membership and belonging are huge issues in communities that require careful conversations, but nations have to be able to decide for themselves. 

“We can’t let the government and industry use [membership] to divide us and tear our people apart,” she said. 

B.C.’s Indigenous Rights legislation protects Indigenous Peoples’ right to determine their own identity and membership

The questions of Indigenous identity being raised by Coastal GasLink’s lawyer come at a sensitive time for British Columbia, as the province makes slow progress in its efforts to legislate Indigenous Rights into its legal frameworks.

In December of 2019, B.C. introduced new legislation to ensure B.C.’s laws are aligned with the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, also known as UNDRIP, through the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act.

Since then, the province has failed to make substantial gains, but on Nov. 17 Attorney General David Eby tabled two bills: one to add Indigenous identity as a protected ground against discrimination and the other to amend the Interpretation Act to “make it clear that all provincial laws uphold, and do not diminish, the rights of Indigenous people protected under section 35 of the Canadian Constitution.”

“These two legislative amendments represent important steps to implement the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act and ensure B.C. laws are interpreted using the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples as a guide,” Eby said in a press release.

In the declaration, Article 33 states Indigenous Peoples “have the right to determine their own identity or membership in accordance with their customs and traditions” while retaining citizenship in their country.

“Indigenous Peoples have the right to determine the structures and to select the membership of their institutions in accordance with their own procedures,” it reads.

The Narwhal asked the Ministry of Indigenous Relations and Reconciliation for comment on Coastal GasLink’s questions about Indigenous identity in court. The ministry passed on The Narwhal’s request to the Ministry of Attorney General, which told The Narwhal it was unable to comment on specific matters before the court.

Alexander said it is problematic that lower courts tend not to dive into or make determinations on Indigenous Rights, which can give rise to rulings that violate Indigenous law.

“I think they’re breaching the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples because at its very core, it is about self-determination,” he said.

Alexander said case law can breach the declaration by not balancing Wet’suwet’en law and common law equally. 

Indigenous law is protected under the constitution, but Indigenous legal orders also stand on their own, he explained. 

‘It’s our ancestral lands’

Alec said her release conditions keep coming back to her mind. She keeps a printed copy of them in her pocket. The conditions outline how she must keep 10 metres away from any Coastal GasLink facilities or active work sites. She cannot access the RCMP’s established exclusion zone, created to enforce the injunction, except to hunt, fish or trap or for cultural purposes. She said when she received them she broke down crying because of how they restrict her free movement on her own territory.

The cabin Alec was living in at the time of her arrest with her partner, Corey Jocko, was destroyed by fire after they were taken to jail. She found out after she was released.

“That was our home,” she said. “I miss it out there. It’s our ancestral lands.”

At the bail hearing Coastal GasLink’s lawyer argued there was no need for individuals to access the pipeline right-of-way, since there was no infrastructure in the area. Wickham said the argument emulated terra nullius, a colonial concept that empty land is free for a state to occupy. The principle of terra nullius and the idea that Indigenous-occupied landscapes are essentially “empty” in the colonial mindset has been used to justify settlement in Canada, even though the land was never unoccupied. The Supreme Court of Canada has acknowledged terra nullius never applied in Canada. 

“There’s huge infrastructure at the [Unist’ot’en] healing centre,” Wickham said. “We have a village site by the river. We have the checkpoint. We have cabins that are occupied. And they just said, ‘nope, there’s no reason for anybody to be there,’ ” she said.

Wickham said the recognition of one’s identity as Wet’suwet’en is closely tied to the recognition of rights to the land. She pointed to the Delgamuukw decision, in which leaders from the Wet’suwet’en and Gitxsan Nations fought in court to prove they have unextinguished title to their territories. The Supreme Court of Canada also recognized the importance of oral history and accepted it as evidence at trial for the first time.

“Our Elders and our ancestors spent a decade going to court providing evidence about our system,” she said. “They did that at great cost and great sacrifice, away from their families, being disrespected and humiliated by the courts.” 

“They did that so we wouldn’t have to prove this over and over again, who we are as Wet’suwet’en people.”

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