Amnesty International released a report Monday alleging that the Canadian government consistently violated the human rights of indigenous Wet’suwet’en protestors demonstrating against the Coastal GasLink pipeline project.
According to the report, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) and private security group Forsythe Security intimidated, harassed and surveilled the Wet’suwet’en, who primarily reside in British Columbia (BC) along the pipeline’s planned route. The report alleges that from 2019 to 2023, the RCMP arbitrarily arrested and detained 75 Wet’suwet’en protestors and their supporters on four separate occasions in an attempt to enforce a December 2019 BC Supreme Court ruling preventing protestors from blocking the road that pipeline construction materials were supposed to travel along. In 2022, the BC Prosecution Service charged 20 protestors with violating the 2019 injunction despite the protest locations being on Wet’suwet’en territory. Amnesty International concluded the report, calling on the Canadian government to:
Immediately halt the construction and use, and suspend all permits and approvals, for the Coastal GasLink pipeline in the unceded territories of the Wet’suwet’en Nation … Prevent and duly investigate all allegations of human rights violations and abuses committed against Wet’suwet’en land defenders and their supporters by the RCMP and Forsythe Security, and ensure that robust administrative measures are taken in cases where investigations show that agents have committed violations or abuses.
The RCMP responded to the allegations, telling CBC News, “To be clear, these protests have been neither peaceful, as evidenced by videos that can be seen here, nor lawful.” Amnesty published the responses from Coastal GasLink along with its report, with Coastal GasLink claiming:
Respecting the rights and interests of indigenous people has been a fundamental principle in developing and building this project … This project followed the provincial regulatory process in which indigenous groups, including the Office of the Wet’suwet’en, has the opportunity to participate and identify the potential impacts to indigenous rights.
Canada has a long history of clashes between indigenous people and the federal government over gas and oil extraction as well as pipeline construction on indigenous lands. In 2022, the UN Committee to End All Forms of Racial Discrimination (CERD) sent a letter alleging that the Secwepemc and Wet’suwet’en were intimidated and harassed during protests of both the Coastal GasLink Pipeline and the Trans Mountain Pipeline. In 2019, The Guardian published an exclusive report revealing evidence that the RCMP was prepared to use lethal force to quell protests by the Wet’suwet’en and their supporters of the Coastal GasLink Pipeline.
Canada is the fourth largest producer of oil globally according to the US Energy Information Administration (EIA) and the number one source of crude oil imports to the US, one of the largest oil markets in the world. Currently, Canada produces 4.8 million barrels of crude oil per day, with the number expected to rise.
