Via trains halted amid protests over B.C. pipeline construction
Ontario rail lines blocked in support of Wet’suwet’en Nation after arrest of demonstrators
The plans of thousands of Via Rail Canada customers travelling between Toronto and Montreal or Ottawa were scuttled again Saturday as demonstrations near Belleville against a British Columbia pipeline project wreaked havoc with the popular train routes.
In Toronto, more than 100 protesters also blocked a Toronto rail line in frigid weather as a form of solidarity with members of the Wet’suwet’en Nation who are opposed to the construction of a pipeline on their territory in northwestern B.C.
The protests, drawing attention to the treatment of the Wet’suwet’en people, were among several demonstrations organized across Canada on Saturday. Similar disruptions occurred in B.C. where road traffic was stopped during protests in Vancouver. Access to the port of Vancouver was also blocked for a third day.
So far, 68 trains in both directions between Toronto and Montreal as well as Toronto and Ottawa have been cancelled, affecting more than 14,000 customers. Saturday evening, Via said 10 of its trains will not be operating on Sunday. A notice on Via Rail’s website stated the trains were halted “due to protesters currently blocking tracks near Belleville.”
“None of the trains on these two routes will operate until the issue is resolved,” said the notice.
That protest, between the towns of Shannonville and Deseronto, was organized by members of the Tyendinaga Mohawk Territory. Canadian National’s main line has been shut down since approximately 5 p.m. on Thursday and the company has obtained a court injunction to end the demonstration.
The Toronto group, a coalition of organizations, marched from Dovercourt Park to the rail line between Dupont Street and Geary Avenue, near Dufferin Street. Holding signs — one read “Water Is Life” — the protesters chanted, “No justice, no peace, no racist police” as curious residents came out of their homes to watch, some applauding.
“We want to call on the public to really think critically about what it means to ignore Indigenous calls to action,” said Maya Menezes, with No One Is Illegal—Toronto, which advocates for migrant justice.
“We understand that Indigenous self-determination is critically important to not only climate action but to challenging the colonial state in Canada and the act of decolonization,” Menezes said. “We’re against any type of violent invasion that tramples over Indigenous rights.”
The protest, watched by uniformed police officers, began shortly after 11 a.m., blocking Canadian Pacific rail freight traffic. Travel was also suspended for several hours on the Barrie GO line between Union Station and Downsview.
In a release, organizers said the action was because “the RCMP has sent militarized police to evict Wet’suwet’en people from their unceded territory, to support a dangerous and disruptive pipeline project.”
That Toronto protest broke up around 5 p.m.
The dispute in B.C. centres on the construction of the Coastal GasLink natural gas pipeline through the First Nation’s traditional territory in the northwestern part of the province.
Fourteen people were arrested last year when RCMP enforced a court injunction that allowed pre-construction across Wet’suwet’en territory of the $6.6-billion pipeline, a key part of the provincially approved $40-billion LNG Canada development.
The pipeline runs from Dawson Creek to Kitimat on the northwest coast.
Talks between the British Columbia government and Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs, who are opposed to the pipeline’s construction as they say it poses a risk to the land and water, failed this week to reach an agreement on a peaceful resolution over the enforcement of the injunction.
On Saturday, RCMP officers arrested 11 people who allegedly barricaded themselves in a warming centre in a forested area near the work site in northwest British Columbia. They’re accused of breaching a court injunction.
Four others were arrested on Friday.
An Indigenous youth spokesperson told about 300 people gathered at the B.C. legislature Saturday that RCMP presence in the Wet’suwet’en territories represents an armed invasion.
“This is the third day of an invasion,” Kolin SutherlandWilson said. “What Canada is willing to do to the Wet’suwet’en people they are willing to do to any of us. We will not stand down because our ancestors never stood down.”
Sutherland-Wilson said the fire burning in a steel fire pit on the front steps of the building is sacred and will continue to burn during the protests.
He said the presence of a large pile of chopped firewood indicates people could be planning an extended stay.
Earlier Saturday, dozens of youths who slept near the legislature’s ceremonial entrance gates huddled around the fire wrapped in blankets and sleeping bags.
“We’re definitely occupying this space while the invasion takes place because it’s highly symbolic,” Sutherland-Wilson said.
“We’re here at the gates, the royal gates that only the royalty and the lieutenant governor general can use. We’re making it clear that the Canadian rule of law has never been just to Indigenous peoples.”
Meanwhile, the RCMP said several of their vehicles have been damaged by metal spikes at a protest site where people are opposing the Coastal GasLink pipeline in Wet’suwet’en nation near Smithers.
Mounties say the vehicles were damaged when they entered a court-ordered exclusion zone for protesters on Friday night.
A post from the Unist’ot’en camp in Wet’suwet’en territory Saturday said RCMP helicopters left the area in the afternoon.
PROTESTS from A1