RCMP gathers in B.C. towns as First Nation braces for conflict

Wet’suwet’en maintain checkpoints to territories in defiance of court

RCMP officers have reportedly flooded towns in northern B.C., putting members of the Wet’suwet’en First Nation on high alert as they brace for what they fear may be conflict and forcible removal Sunday — in accordance with a court injunction — from a pair of checkpoints set up to block entry to their traditional terri- tories by an oil and gas company.

Officers reportedly arrived in several towns by charter bus Saturday night, and took up rooms in hotels in Smithers, Burns Lake and Houston, according to sources including Jen Wickham, a member of the Casyex House of the Gidimt’en clan — one of the five clans of the Wet’suwet’en Nation. An RCMP Emergency Response Team (ERT) unit — a tactical team of “highly trained RCMP members capable of employing specialized weapons, equipment and tactics to resolve extremely high-risk situations,” according to the RCMP website — was also believed to have arrived in the area, Wickham said.

StarMetro reached out to B.C. RCMP by phone and email to verify that officers had been deployed to the area, but did not receive a response.

“It’s definitely concerning for me, as someone who has family out there,” Wickham said in an interview, adding the officers had been spotted receiving bagged lunches Saturday night, suggesting they would be deployed into the field Sunday.

“The government is saying that industry, this pipeline, is more important than us. More important than the people. … But I think it’s concerning for us as a society. Where’s our humanity?”

Currently, members of the Wet’suwet’en Nation maintain a pair of checkpoints in Northern B.C. where they have been able to prohibit passage by LNG company Coastal GasLink, which is developing a pipeline through the area to deliver natural gas to the proposed LNG Canada facility in Kitimat. Coastal GasLink is a subsidiary of TransCanada PipeLines Ltd.

On Dec. 14, 2018, the British Columbia Supreme Court ruled in favour of Coastal GasLink, granting a temporary injunction against the first checkpoint — known as the Unist’ot’en Camp — to clear the way for further construction of the pipeline.

The Unist’ot’en are another House group within the five clans of the Wet’suwet’en Nation.

Coastal GasLink had argued the original checkpoint effectively stalled construction on the pipeline project.