UN chides Canada on pipeline opposition

A United Nations human rights committee has reiterated its call for Canada to stop construction of two pipelines until it obtains consent from affected Indigenous communities in British Columbia.

The UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination says it has received information about the policing of Wet’suwet’en and Secwepemc people opposed to the Coastal GasLink pipeline being built in northern B.C. and the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion from Alberta to B.C.’s coast.

A letter from committee chairman Verene Shepherd says the information alleges that surveillance and use of force have escalated against those opposed to the pipelines in order to intimidate and push them off their traditional lands.

The April 29 letter addressed to Leslie Norton, Canada’s representative to the UN in Geneva, points to a 2019 decision by the committee calling on Canada to “immediately cease forced evictions” of Wet’suwet’en and Secwepemc protesters by police and halt construction on the pipelines.

Indigenous leaders responded to the committee’s letter at an online news conference on Wednesday, saying their nations have never signed treaties and their territories have never been ceded to Canada.

Councils are responsible for reserve lands, but they don’t have authority to make decisions over broader Wet’suwet’en territory, says Sleydo’, a spokesperson for a Wet’suwet’en group behind blockades along a road used by Coastal GasLink workers.

Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs have opposed the natural gas pipeline for years, while 20 other First Nation band councils have signed off on it.

Police have made numerous arrests while enforcing a court injunction prohibiting blockades that was granted to the pipeline’s owner, TC Energy.

Sleydo’ told the news conference that she is “harassed and surveilled daily” by company-hired private security and the RCMP, particularly members of the Mounties’ Community-Industry Response Group.

Trans Mountain, a federal Crown corporation, says its 1,150-kilometre pipeline expansion project only crosses “numerous traditional territories” and 15 First Nation reserves in B.C., with consent.