Solidarity Statement: Wet’Suwet’en
Canada Must Respect Indigenous Land Sovereignty
Both federal and provincial support for the Coastal Gaslink Pipeline violates Indigenous rights and fuels the climate emergency and actively violates Canada’s Rule of Law and the Canadian Human Rights Act.
Progressive World Federalists (“PWF”) stand in solidarity with land defenders, water protectors and human rights defenders in asserting their right to protect their community against the unwanted impacts of the Coastal Gas Link pipeline, the Site C Dam, and the Trans Mountain Pipeline.
PWF is especially alarmed by the escalating violence by the RCMP against Indigenous Peoples. We believe the RCMP’s actions violate the Canadian Charter, Press Freedoms, and the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP), adopted by the UN General Assembly by majority vote on 13 September 2007.
The territory of the Wet’suwet’en Nation had never been ceded through a treaty. In the absence of a treaty, neither the Government of Canada, nor any private corporations have any legal rights to these lands. This was affirmed by a Supreme Court of Canada decision in 1997 that reinforced Wet’suwet’en sovereignty over its traditional lands. The Supreme Court decision specifically included an endnote, citing the words of Justice Lambert of the Court of Appeal which stated:
“So, in the end, the legal rights of the Indian people will have to be accommodated within our total society by political compromises and accommodations based in the first instance on negotiation and agreement and ultimately in accordance with the sovereign will of the community as a whole”.
Justice Lambert, Court of Appeal
The United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination recently called for Canada to halt the Coastal Gas Link pipeline, the Site C Dam, and the Trans Mountain Pipeline because they have not received informed consent of the Indigenous peoples whose lands they would occupy and contaminate.
The Rule of Law remains a fundamental principle of Canadian democracy, which is the basis for a fair and just society. When the government itself does not comply with these principles, it not only puts into question, the Rule of Law, but it also sends a message to Canadian society that human rights violations, discrimination, and violence are not just acceptable, but normative behaviour towards Indigenous peoples. In this way, the Government of Canada and the RCMP continues to undermine our collective values of a fair and just society for everyone.
Collectively, we must not only reflect, but take action on the ongoing effects of settler-colonialism on Indigenous peoples in Canada.
We demand the British Columbia and the Canadian Federal Government withdraw their police presence and immediately release all land defenders that were violently arrested during the peaceful protests that were carried out on their own sovereign traditional lands.
