At the January GMM, members voted to stand in solidarity with Wet’suwet’en land defenders and all those who oppose the violent cycles of settler colonization.
The Wet’suwet’en First Nation has never ceded their traditional territory to the Canadian state, nor its corporations, and their Aboriginal title has never been extinguished across the land that they continue to occupy today. The Wet’suwet’en First Nation remain stewards of their sovereign territory in the interior of so-called British Columbia. Yet they now face increased militarization on their territories as private and crown corporations attempt to build the Coastal GasLink pipeline (CGL) without consent of the Wet’suwet’en people.
The Unist’ot’en house group of the Wet’suwet’en has been reoccupying their traditional territory for the last decade. They have built infrastructure and are developing on traditional governance as a way to heal their people and heal their land. The Wet’suwet’en have refused to allow CGL pipeline construction, and Wet’suwet’en land defenders have blockaded roads to stop construction of the pipeline.
The B.C. Supreme Court has granted an injunction against Wet’suwet’en land defenders who have blockaded roads to stop construction of this pipeline. Hereditary Chiefs of all five of the Wet’suwet’en clans that make up the nation have rejected this injunction. This January 7, 2020 marked the one-year anniversary of the RCMP raid of the Gidimt’en checkpoint, where 14 Wet’suwet’en members were arrested by a tactical unit brandishing automatic weapons, and RCMP officers were instructed to “proceed with lethal overwatch”. The Wet’suwet’en land defenders remain under threat and the Canadian state continues to deny the rights of Indigenous people.
We stand with York’s Graduate Student Association, and others across the world, in opposing the Canadian state’s continued militarization of Indigenous law and governance, and the corporations that continue their extractive expansion without the free, prior, and informed consent of affected communities. As settlers on this land, it is our responsibility to support these movements that work to protect traditional land that we now share with Indigenous peoples.
Follow Unist’ot’en Camp on Facebook for updates, and view the Wet’suwet’en Call to Action.