Defund the Coastal GasLink Pipeline!
On a cold grey December 21, sixty people rallied outside the Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) branch on 1st Avenue and Commercial Drive in Vancouver. All of Canada’s major banks invest heavily in the oil and gas sector; RBC leads the pack in pushing climate change. It owns 8 percent of TC Energy’s Coastal GasLink (CGL) pipeline project in Northern BC, planned to go through the unceded lands of Wet’suwet’en. The rally, organized by Socialist Alternative Youth (SAY), highlighted RBC’s role in CGL pipeline, following a call for solidarity actions by Wet’suwet’en people fighting to defend their land from the pipeline’s construction.
From December 20 to 24, solidarity actions are taking place in Metro Vancouver, across BC and Canada and the US. The rally’s passionate speakers immediately made clear that the fight against the CGL pipeline is wider than stopping a pipeline that, if completed, will poison more water and will result in more greenhouses gases spewing into our atmosphere.
Since January 2020, militarized, assault-rifle toting RCMP officers have violently attacked the Wet’suwet’en. Most recently, in November RCMP arrested about 30 Wet’suwet’en members and supporters blockading CGL construction, including two photojournalists. In a video taken moments before the arrests, officers claimed that their action of breaking down a door and holding the land defenders at gunpoint were legitimate under a BC Supreme Court injunction issued in 2019. The reply, “You are trespassing against Wet’suwet’en law.” And so, this issue goes to the heart of ongoing Canadian colonialism, global capitalism and climate change.
Following a ceremony with eagle feathers led by Mark, Leslie Kemp of Socialist Alternative opened the rally. Leslie highlighted the interrelationship between different struggles: the Wet’suwet’en fight for sovereignty over their land and resources, which necessitates free, prior and informed consent; the building of another gas pipeline after BC suffered the direct consequences of climate change – this summer with the deadly heat dome and the catastrophic flooding this autumn; the role of BC’s NDP government in facilitating the RCMP violence against Wet’suwet’en land defenders, and the role of the CGL financiers particularly, RBC’s role as one of the biggest financiers of this project.
Grace Hodges, a high school student from New Westminster, spoke about the importance of building a strong, militant movement that both supports its members mentally, culturally and intellectually, but also shows up and provides solidarity. In this spirit Grace and others have started a Socialist Literature Club at their school. Non-Indigenous people live on stolen land and, thus, have a responsibility to show solidarity with Indigenous people in struggle.
Another student from New Westminster Secondary School, Isabella Graham, talked about Canada’s continuing destruction of Indigenous land going hand in hand with the RCMP’s centuries-long violence against Indigenous people. She called out Canada’s federal party leaders, who “may uphold different political beliefs and values, yet…share one thing in common. They sit there and lie through their teeth about Indigenous reconciliation, they sit there and enable RCMP ‘peacekeepers’ to arrest and displace Wet’suwet’en people with assault rifles.” All this to protect the profits of RBC and TC Energy.
Yvonne Marcus from the Vancouver Unitarians outlined how the BC NDP government, while a signatory to the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP), is blatantly violating UNDRIP’s article 10 which prohibits forcibly removing Indigenous people from their lands or territories. The BC NDP’s non-recognition of Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs’ authority and dismissal of their opposition to the pipeline violates the Supreme Court of Canada decision in both the Delgamuuk-Gisday’way and Tsilhqot’in cases. The BC government is breaking its own laws in directing the RCMP to attack Indigenous land defenders.
Blake Robertson, a SAY member and Simon Fraser University student, explained the BC NDP’s economic commitment to the oil and gas sector. “Throughout their tenure, the BC NDP has pledged billions in subsidies to the LNG fracked gas pipeline and processing plant. From 2020 to 2021 alone, over $1.3 billion was spent by [Premier] Horgan, and since the BC NDP has taken power, spending on fossil fuel subsidies has doubled.” Horgan and the NDP could order the RCMP to respect UNDRIP today, and not arrest land defenders. Meanwhile, Canada’s big five banks are giving unmitigated support to Canada’s oil and gas sector, despite claims to support net-zero emissions and the fight against climate change. “RBC, TD, Scotiabank, BMO, and CIBC have invested over $700 billion in fossil fuel companies since 2015. 2015 is the same year that Canada signed the Paris agreement, the largest international declaration in the fight against the climate crisis. And despite this supposed pledge from our government, Canada’s big 5 banks have invested over thirteen times more money into the fossil fuel industry than the Canadian government has spent on meeting their Paris climate commitments. Our futures have been disregarded by capitalism and our government alike.” A future free of climate destruction, with guaranteed safety and land rights for Indigenous peoples and to equality for all, requires the public ownership of the banks, recognition of Indigenous land rights by the BC NDP and RCMP, and a firm commitment to climate action.
Yet, the BC NDP’s sense of justice will only appear when they are placed under tremendous public pressure and Indigenous land defense continues. Vancouver City Councillor Jean Swanson evoked CBC coverage of TC Energy’s failure to fix nearly two dozen environmental violations along the pipeline route that could harm waterways. “But who gets arrested?” asked Councillor Swanson, “the Indigenous people who are heroically trying to protect their land and our climate. And who funds this company violating Indigenous rights and environmental laws?” RBC and other major banks!
Corvin Mack, a young Wet’suwet’en activist gave a fiery speech about the need to stop CGL and about RBC caring more for its investment in CGL than the safety of Indigenous people, who want to have rights and sovereignty “to live their lives unhindered by colonialism and the violence it creates in their communities.” During the fallout from the massive November floods in BC, the RCMP was deployed to arrest activists, elders and journalists so the CGL can cross sacred Wedzin Kwa headwaters. Corvin passionately concluded, “Wet’suwet’en are strong. We will fight for the Wedzin Kwa. We will fight for land back. We will fight for sovereignty, and we will not stop until colonialism is dead.”
In an interview after his speech, Corvin spoke about how Highway 17, dubbed the Highway of Tears, has brought energy and mining sector workers into northern BC for decades, contributing to the racist violence against Indigenous women, girls and two spirit people. He also explained that all five hereditary chiefs oppose CGL, as TC Energy refused to follow an alternative route through less sensitive land. The hereditary chiefs are responsible for looking after all of Wet’suwet’en traditional territory, unlike the chiefs and band councils who were created by the colonial government and who do not have any legal or traditional jurisdiction over traditional land use.
Another SAY member and Douglas college student, Maurice Lee, pointed out that the fight against CGL is an international problem. China is the world’s biggest CO₂ emitter. But in the same way that Canada’s pipelines are rooted in colonialism, China’s production is based on the hyper-exploitation of workers, the brutal repression of political and labour rights, and lax environmental regulations. Despite China’s massive carbon footprint, the average Chinese person doesn’t get the benefits of a comfortable lifestyle, but mostly the pollution of the world’s workshop. China’s capitalist system works in tandem with western nations in exploiting people and the planet. This is why an internationalist approach is needed to fight climate change and to manage the global economy. The feeble goals and lack of enforcement of the 2015 Paris climate agreement show that international climate accords are a blind alleyway when negotiated among nations and corporations that are all pursuing the profit motive. The recent COP-26 conference in Glasgow further showed the incompetence of the ruling elite in being unable to agree even the most modest goals. Socialism, with a global, democratically planned economy is needed to take highly polluting companies, big corporations, and banks under the control of workers from the billionaires and dictatorial regimes. We can’t plan a sustainable future if we do not democratically control the economy.
Socialist Alternative member, Ray Goerke, closed out the rally. “We need to do more than vote for the least bad option on election day. The wider working class and youth need to join in their fight for a better future with Indigenous people, like the Wet’suwet’en land defenders, who are putting their lives on the line to resist the forces of capitalism and colonialism. They are providing the example and we need to follow them. SA stands with Wet’suwet’en in their fight. If all oppressed people stand together, we can fight and win a better future.”
The rally finished with a commitment to further solidarity actions throughout and with drumming and singing of the Women’s Warrior Song. The struggle for Indigenous rights and the climate will continue.
