Wet’suwet’en support rally to be held in Ottawa, Gatineau

By Dani-Elle Dubé

Indigenous activists will be marching the streets of Ottawa and Gatineau to protest the RCMP’s arrest of demonstrators and two journalists in northern B.C. last week.

On Friday, November 19, RCMP officers arrested 15 people at a protest blocking an access road used by pipeline workers on Wet’suwet’en territory.

Police say they were enforcing an injunction against protesters who set up blockades along the roads leading to the pipeline project, which is opposed by the Wet'suwet'en hereditary chiefs and other groups.

The upcoming rally in Ottawa and Gatineau is in response to those actions, organizers say. Before the march begins, activists will address rally-goers, followed by a suggested action afterwards. 

The march will take place Sunday, November 28 at 1 p.m. at 90 Wellington St.

“Wet'suwet'en people have been defending their territory from a dozen pipelines and their accompanying colonial state violence for over a decade,” organizers said in their announcement.

“In the past few months Coastal GasLink – with government approval and backed by militarized RCMP raids – has been building a pipeline through Wet’suwet’en Territory, demolishing ancestral sites and threatening the sacred waters of the Wedzin Kwa river—all without the Wet'suwet'en Hereditary Chiefs’ consent.”

All five clans of the Wet’suwet’en say they unanimously oppose all pipeline proposals and have not provided consent to Coastal GasLink/TC Energy to work on Wet’suwet’en lands.

Members of the Wet’suwet’en say they want all Canadians to stand in solidarity with them to help their fight against the police and government’s actions.

— With files from The Canadian Press.

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