Protesters: Intersection Will Remain Blocked Until Canada Negotiates with Wet’suwet’en First Nation

NOTE TO READER: This article was sourced at about 10am on Tuesday, February 25th, 2020. Within hours, RCMP officers swept in and arrested six protesters and ended the blockade.

Protesters had vowed to maintain the blockade until RCMP negotiated with Wet'suwet'en hereditary chiefs.

Tuesday, February 25th, 2020

About 100 protesters blocked the busy intersection at Clark and Hastings in Vancouver through the night and have continued to do so this morning.

The group, comprised of mostly young people, are gathered to protest both construction of the Coastal Gaslink pipeline and the RCMP's arrest of similar activists blocking rail lines on the Tyendinaga Mohawk reserve 200 kilometres east of Toronto.

After blocking the Clark intersection several times this month, protesters returned to the location on Monday at about 2pm in response to news of dramatic arrests in Tyendinaga Monday morning.

Both protests, and many more across Canada, are being held now in solidarity with Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs opposing Coastal Gaslink, a fracked gas pipeline being constructed now by TC Energy Corp. The planned 670 kilometre line is being directed through the heart of Wet’suwet’en traditional territory in Northwest British Columbia, from Dawson Creek to an LNG facility in the coastal town of Kitimat.

The Wet’suwet’en’s elected band council has approved the project, but the pipeline is opposed by hereditary chiefs. The chiefs characterize the council as a relic of colonial design.

Herb Varley, a spokesperson for the Vancouver blockade from the Nisqa’a nation, said protesters would remain in place until Canada and RCMP at the Wet’suwet’en blockade in Northern BC sit down in nation-to-nation talks with Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs.

“We’ll leave as soon the RCMP get out of Wet'suwet'en and/or permits are revoked and true nation-to-nation discussions…happen between what we now call Canada and the Wet'suwet'en."

In response to the blockade, the Vancouver Police Department has re-routed east-west traffic from Hastings and Commercial to Hastings and Heatley and north-south traffic from about Frances to Cordova.

The protest blocks one of the main access points to the Port of Vancouver. Two other port access points blocked in previous protests remain open at this time.

Varley said the protestors have resorted to the blockades because “appeal(s) to humanity” have failed. Furthermore, "This is an economic choke point…every hour that we’re here we divert tens of thousands of dollars of merchandise, and that’s what gets the powers that be…that is language they can understand loud and clear.”

Several protesters, including Varley, expressed frustration about how the media has been covering the protests.

“Yesterday I was talking to CKNW and they asked me how I feel about taking the Canadian economy hostage. I had to remind them that the economy is not a person…and the only people under threat of violence has (sic) been the Wet’suwet’en and the Tyendinaga."

Referring to the police presence around the blockade, Varley noted, “There’s men and women with guns on their hips,” he pointed, " just down that way (and) just down that way.”

Employees at Fresh Headies Internet Sales, a firm on the corner of Clark and Hastings, said their primarily Internet-based sales have been minimally affected by the blockade.

But the owner of another business near the intersection, who asked not to be identified, said protests have disrupted customer access for a total of seven days over the past month. Still, employees are making do, he said. “We just do paperwork on those days.”

Varley said Western Canada’s emphasis of the fossil fuel sector must be questioned.

“At the end of the day what we are doing with actions like this is we’re letting the Canadian state know that business cannot go on as usual. Despite what you hear about how (fossil fuels are) important for the economy and jobs, Australia was on fire…The summer before last (the North) was on fire…(Fossil fuel extraction in the North) artificially inflates housing (and) the cost of living for very, very temporary jobs…and (labourers) are the first ones laid off if it’s a very large company."

“You can see with the wildfires every year that it’s insane to double down on fossil fuels right now.”

But Varley added that the issue goes much deeper than the prefrencing of a certain industry:

“And at the end of the day, it’s about controlling land. This is why our murdered and missing women keep happening…this is (also) why so many of our indigenous men and women are in prison: It’s a way of controlling space.”