More than 50 people gathered outside the Kelowna courthouse Saturday afternoon to lend support to the plight of Indigenous people impacted by the Coastal GasLink pipeline in northern B.C.
“We should be respecting Indigenous laws and their sovereignty,” said protest organizer Caitlyn Donadt.
Donadt told Global News that the Wet’suwet’en Nation’s way of life near Houston is being threatened by the project.
“We had solidarity rally today and that was in support of Wet’suwet’en people who are currently being threatened by removal from their lands and are just trying to maintain their sovereignty and maintain their way of life,” Donadt said.
The project involves a 670-kilometre pipeline that, once complete, will run from Dawson Creek to an LNG terminal in Kitimat.
Coastal GasLink has received provincial and federal approval but it does not have the approval of the Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs.
“There is a B.C. Supreme Court injunction that supports the Coastal GasLink pipeline to do work on their land, bulldozing and destroying their archaeological sites and preventing them, in many cases, from trapping and hunting and ceremony,” Donadt said. “That is wrong.”
The protest involved Indigenous and non-Indigenous people.
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