An unsigned agreement between a Wet’suwet’en First Nation and Coastal GasLink along with financial documents, obtained by Yellowhead Institute, provide reinforcement to Yellowhead’s assessment of the ways these private contracts can dramatically undermine First Nation rights and jurisdiction
After reviewing over 100 cases of injunctions filed by and against First Nations, we believe that this legal tool reinforces the impossible position of First Nation parties when they appear before Canadian courts. This brief provides a summary of just a slim subset of data collected in the largest national research project that exists to date on the use of injunctive relief by and against First Nations in Canada.
This is the preface to Yellowhead Institute’s Red Paper, Land Back. The project of land back is about reclaiming Indigenous jurisdiction: breathing life into rights and responsibilities. Our Red Paper is about how Canada dispossesses Indigenous peoples from the land, and in turn, what communities are doing to get it back.
In so-called Northern British Columbia, the Unist’ot’en House Group of the Wet’suwet’en Nation is facing an injunction application to allow construction of the Coastal Gaslink pipeline through their traditional territory. If approved and enforced, the injunction would force the pipeline through the territory without the consent of the Dinï ze’ and Ts’akë ze’ (Hereditary chiefs), who have unanimously rejected Coastal Gaslink’s proposal.
Now that Canada owns the pipeline, what difference does it make to Indigenous people who are fighting to stop it?
Based in the Faculty of Arts at Toronto Metropolitan University.