PETRONAS Pipeline Interest 8

According to the CBC, 6 people were arrested by the RCMP on Feb 06, 2020 pursuant to an injunction against those blocking construction of the Coastal GasLink pipeline on Wet’suwet’en territory in northern B.C. Wet’suwet’en Nation hereditary Chief Na’Moks is reported to have said, “They came in with armed forces to remove peaceful people that are doing the right thing at the right time for the right reasons. We’re protecting the land, the air, the water. Our rights and title, our authority as hereditary chiefs. And we’re exercising our jurisdiction … We’ve never ceded nor surrendered our lands. We’ve never signed a treaty. We are the law of the land, we are free people and I will go to my territories.”

The injunction which was issued by the BC Supreme Court, and the consequent arrests, seem to be at odds with Bill 41 of the BC legislature which embraces the UN Declaration  on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, and which, as summarized by West Coast Environmental Law, “requires the government to prepare an implementation and action plan in consultation and cooperation with Indigenous people” Most significantly, this act also seems to recognize the authority of Indigenous governing bodies, like the hereditary chiefs that Chief Na’Moks refers to above, which stand outside the ambit of the Indian Act.

Grand Chief Stewart Phillip, president of the Union of British Columbia Indian Chiefs, is reported to have said “It’s an absolute outrage and deeply frustrating that the RCMP is acting in the capacity of a goon squad on behalf of business and industry”. This is where Malaysia’s premier Crown corporation PETRONAS is implicated as one of the corporations with a significant interest in seeing the pipeline implemented, with investments at both ends of it (upstream and down.)

Image https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/wetsuweten-arrests-coastal-gaslink-pipeline-1.5454007

https://www.wcel.org/blog/bill-41-new-law-uphold-indigenous-rights-in-bc

https://www.un.org/development/desa/indigenouspeoples/declaration-on-the-rights-of-indigenous-peoples.html