Injunction protecting work on northern B.C. gas pipeline heads back to court

Coastal GasLink and opponents of the company’s natural gas pipeline are set to make arguments in British Columbia’s Supreme Court over whether an interim injunction should continue.

The natural gas company is building a pipeline from northeastern B.C. to LNG Canada’s export terminal in Kitimat on the coast.

Coastal GasLink says it has signed agreements with all 20 elected First Nations councils along the 670-kilometres route but hereditary chiefs in the Wet’suwet’en First Nation say the project has no authority without their  consent.

The court granted the company an interim injunction in December against pipeline opponents and protests erupted around the world when RCMP enforced it in January, arresting 14 people along a logging road leading to the construction site near Houston, B.C.

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An injunction hearing is scheduled for three days beginning Wednesday in a Prince George court and Coastal GasLink says the application would allow the directive to remain in place without a time limit, ensuring “continued safe and unimpeded access” to the site.

Court documents filed on behalf of the opponents say the Wet’suwet’en have self-governed since before colonization and while the defendants admit to preventing access to certain vehicles and people in the traditional territory, they did so in accordance with Wet’suwet’en law.