Clarity sought from RCMP over Indigenous blockade strategy

OTTAWA— The federal public safety minister’s office says it has spoken to the RCMP over concerns about language reportedly used by the agency in planning how it would deal with First Nations protesters blockading natural gas pipeline construction in northern B.C.

A spokesperson for Bill Blair said the office is concerned by a report by British media outlet the Guardian allegedly outlining the RCMP’s strategy to remove the blockade.

“We are committed to protecting the constitutional right to peaceful protest and are concerned by the unacceptable words and phrases that the Guardian reported were used,” Blair’s spokesperson, Scott Bardsley, said. “Our office has raised this matter with the RCMP.”

In 2018, Wet’suwet’en members set up checkpoints preventing pipeline project workers from accessing a work site for LNG Canada’s $40-billion liquefied natural gas project.

Though TransCanada had said it has signed agreements with all First Nations along the pipeline route, some members of the Wet’suwet’en argued their hereditary chiefs had not agreed and blocked a forest service road leading to the project.

Still, a court injunction allowing the company’s work to continue was granted and the RCMP were called in to enforce it, dismantling one checkpoint early in January 2019 and arresting 14 people.

Late last week, the Guardian reported it had seen notes from a strategy session suggesting that RCMP commanders instructed officers to use as much violence as they wanted and that they argued for “lethal overwatch,” a term the newspaper said is used to represent the deployment of snipers. The RCMP said on Monday the force has started a review of all documents relating to its enforcement of the injunction and has not found any that reflect the statements in the newspaper article.

“Whatever the source, the assertions made in the article do not in any respect reflect the spirit and intent of the direction of the RCMP commanders charged with planning and carrying out the court’s direction, nor does it reflect what actually occurred,” Assistant Commissioner Dwayne McDonald said. The RCMP said the Guardian denied a request for the police force to see the documents referred to in the newspaper’s report and they can’t verify the validity of the statements.