Alberta premier lashes out against pipeline blockades

LAUREN KRUGEL

CALGARY— Alberta Premier Jason Kenney says he’s concerned that blockades in support of First Nations opponents to a northern British Columbia natural gas pipeline are a “dress rehearsal” for opposition to future energy projects.

Demonstrations have blocked railways, ports and bridges across the country in solidarity with hereditary chiefs fighting the Coastal GasLink project that crosses the traditional territory of the Wet’suwet’en First Nation.

Kenney described the protests at a Tuesday news conference as “ecocolonialism” from southern Canadians “projecting their own fringe political agenda.”

He said the protests are not about Indigenous rights because all 20 elected First Nations band councils along the pipeline route have signed benefit agreements with Coastal GasLink.

The Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs, however, assert title to a 22,000-square-kilometre traditional territory. They say the band council established by the Indian Act only has authority over reserve lands.

Anyone demonstrating because of the pipeline’s climate impact is hypocritical, because the line would enable countries such as China to burn liquefied natural gas from Canada instead of dirtier coal, Kenney added.

“This is not about Indigenous people. It’s not about carbon emissions. It’s about a hard-left ideology that is, frankly, opposed to the entire modern industrial economy. It’s about time that our police services demonstrated that this is a country that respects the rule of law,” the premier said.