Three accused are charged with criminal contempt over Coastal GasLink pipeline blockades
CBC News: The trial is underway for three people charged with criminal contempt for breaking a court order forbidding them from blocking access to the Coastal GasLink pipeline.
Among the accused is Sleydo’, also known as Molly Wickham, who has been the public face of a high-profile Indigenous land rights movement. She is a Wing Chief of Cas Yikh, a house group of the Gidimt’en Clan of the Wet’suwet’en Nation.
Sleydo’ stands trial alongside Shaylynn Sampson, a Gitxsan woman with Wet’suwet’en family ties; and Corey Jocko, a Mohawk member of the Six Nations Haudenosaunee Confederacy from Ontario.
The three appeared in B.C. Supreme Court in Smithers, B.C., on Monday to face one charge each of criminal contempt of court related to arrests made during a police raid to enforce the pipeline injunction in November 2021. They each pleaded not guilty. Justice Michael Tammen is hearing the case.
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Several people were arrested at a barricade put up by Wet’suwet’en members and hereditary chiefs who oppose the Coastal Gas Link Pipeline, despite the project having the support of the First Nation’s elected chiefs.
Click on the following link to view the video:
Coastal GasLink was contracted to build the 670-kilometre pipeline to carry natural gas across northern British Columbia to a terminal in Kitimat, B.C., for export to Asia. The company signed benefit agreements with 20 elected band councils along the project’s route in 2018, but several Wet’suwet’en hereditary leaders refused to allow the pipeline to cross their territory.
Pipeline opponents, who call themselves land defenders, launched a series of protests and blockades on behalf of the hereditary leaders.
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In December 2019, the B.C. Supreme Court granted Coastal GasLink an injunction barring protesters from impeding the construction.
The three accused were arrested on Nov. 19, 2021, when RCMP moved in on a resistance camp that had been occupying a key work site.
Sleydo’ and Sampson were arrested in the same cabin structure along Morice Forest Service Road, which was at the centre of the injunction, and Jocko was arrested at a second cabin structure along the same road.
Accused seen in protest videos
The Crown called two witnesses on the first day of the trial.
The first witness was Julie Jones, a private investigator who was hired by the RCMP to collect and preserve videos posted on social media accounts run by Wet’suwet’en land defender groups, including the Gidimt’en Checkpoint, Wet’suwet’en Strong and Sovereign Likhts’amisyu.
Five of the videos saved by Jones were played at trial. Many of the videos still appear publicly on the Gidimt’en Checkpoint Facebook page and feature Sleydo’.
The second witness called to the stand was James Lank, a former RCMP officer who was a security adviser for Coastal GasLink at the time of the raids. The Crown played two videos recorded by Lank while he was on the stand.
In the first video, recorded on Sept. 25, 2021, Lank and other Coastal GasLink workers confronted land defenders at a blockade along the Morice Forest Service Road. (CBC heard audio of these videos but was unable to view them as there is no video feed for the trial, only a phone-in conference line.)
In response to questioning by the Crown, Lank points out that Sleydo’ and Sampson appear in the video.
The second video, recorded on Nov. 14, 2021, shows a confrontation between Coastal GasLink workers and land defenders at a blockade.
The land defenders state the rights of the First Nation under Wet’suwet’en law to restrict unauthorized access to the land, and ask for the work to stop. Workers from Coastal GasLink then read out the 2019 injunction and ask the land defenders to clear the blockade.
Lank points out that Jocko can be seen in this video.
The construction of the Coastal GasLink pipeline was completed in October, but it is not yet operational.
The Crown is expected to call seven witnesses over the course of the trial, scheduled to take place over two weeks.
This is the second trial to go ahead on criminal contempt charges related to the Novmber 2021 police raids. Sabina Dennis was acquitted on her charges by Justice Tammen in November.
Court will resume at 10 a.m. Tuesday, with the defence set to cross-examine Lank.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jackie McKay, Reporter
Jackie McKay is a Métis journalist working for CBC Indigenous covering B.C. She was a reporter for CBC North for more more than five years spending the majority of her time in Nunavut. McKay has also worked in Whitehorse, Thunder Bay, and Yellowknife. Follow her on Twitter @mckayjacqueline.