Police chief says plans in place for any blockades
Calgary police have planned a response if Calgary sees blockades similar to those set up across the country protesting a planned pipeline in B.C., Chief Mark Neufeld said Tuesday.
“We’re ready here. We have plans in place. We could deal with everything from soup to nuts,” Neufeld said following a meeting of the city’s police commission.
“There’s all kinds of demonstrations and protests and that sort of thing that go on, so that’s fairly normal business for us. But certainly the blockades that we’ve seen around the Wet’suwet’en solidarity movement has added another element of complexity.”
Protesters across Canada have blocked infrastructure, including railways as well as some government buildings, over the past three weeks in solidarity with Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs who oppose the Coastal Gaslink natural gas pipeline, set to be built through their territory in northern British Columbia.
Few demonstrations have taken place in Alberta, with one CN Rail blockade set up by supporters in Edmonton staying up for about 12 hours before counter-protesters dismantled the barriers.
Though police regularly attend demonstrations, Neufeld said, protests involving Indigenous communities require a more nuanced approach with a goal of continuing reconciliation.
“We know that there’s a long history with Indigenous communities and all levels of government, so what we end up seeing in situations with this is conflicts and issues being worked out that have been in the hopper for some period of time,” he said.
“It isn’t as though a group of people just went and blocked an area, or whatever. There tends to be some history to it and there will be a future to it as well.”
Neufeld didn’t make clear exactly what a police response would be, but said they would strive to resolve a protest situation “using no force whatsoever,” adding that the level of response would depend on the nature of the demonstration.
On Tuesday, the UCP government introduced Bill 1, the Critical Infrastructure Defence Act, which would allow police and prosecutors to hand down fines of up to $25,000 per day to individual protesters who blockade rail lines or highways in Alberta. Organizations would face fines of $200,000 per day.
The bill would also create possible prison terms of up to six months.
Neufeld said the legislation sounds “very interesting” but that police will have to wait to see whether it passes and if any changes are made to it.
“It sounds like it would be one more tool in the tool box for police to work with but, again, we have a number of tools now,” he said.
“That will be a useful thing around critical infrastructure but it could take a different shape as it gets debated through the process.”
It sounds like it would be one more tool in the tool box for police to work with but, again, we have a number of tools now.