[rad-green] Ignoring the Links Between ‘Man Cam ps' and Violence Against Indigenous Women

*https://thenarwhal.ca/b-c-failed-to-consider-links-between-man-camps-violence-against-indigenous-women-wetsuweten-argue
<https://thenarwhal.ca/b-c-failed-to-consider-links-between-man-camps-violence-against-indigenous-women-wetsuweten-argue>The
Narwhal          Feb 8, 2020B.C. failed to consider links between ‘man
camps,’ violence against Indigenous women, Wet’suwet’en argueA formal
request for judicial review submitted with the B.C. Supreme Court argues
B.C.’s Environmental Assessment Office extended permit for Coastal GasLink
pipeline without considering the findings of the National Inquiry on
Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women.By Carol Linnitt *

Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs are requesting a judicial review of a
decision made by the B.C. Environmental Assessment Office to extend the
environmental certificate for the 670-kilometre Coastal GasLink pipeline.

The request, filed Feb. 3, argues an extension should not have been granted
in light of more than 50 instances of non-compliance with the conditions of
Coastal GasLink permits and in light of the findings
<https://www.mmiwg-ffada.ca/final-report/> of Canada’s National Inquiry on
Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women <https://www.mmiwg-ffada.ca/mandate/>.

The inquiry found there is “substantial evidence” that natural resource
projects increase violence against Indigenous women and children and two-spirit
individuals <https://lgbtqhealth.ca/community/two-spirit.php>.

A final report released from the National Inquiry Committee in June found
“work camps, or ‘man camps,’ associated with the resource extraction
industry are implicated in higher rates of violence against Indigenous
women at the camps and in the neighbouring communities.”

“Increased crime levels, including drug- and alcohol-related offences,
sexual offences, and domestic and ‘gang’ violence, have been linked to
‘boom town’ and other resource development contexts. … There is an urgent
need to consider the safety of Indigenous women consistently in all stages
of project planning,” the report states.

Concerns about Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls are on
visible display at the Unist’ot’en camp, located along the intended route
of the Coastal GasLink pipeline, where for the past months red dresses —
symbols of the epidemic of violence against Indigenous women and girls —
hang on signposts or dangle in the air from lines of suspended wire.

Karla Tait, psychologist and director of clinical services at the
Unist’ot’en Healing Centre, said the idea came about when the Wet’suwet’en
learned of a proposed 400-person worker camp planned for just 13 kilometres
from the healing centre.

“We put a call out for red dresses to be sent here, inviting anyone to send
red dresses in honour of any missing and murdered Indigenous women in their
lives and to help us raise awareness and visibility as Coastal GasLink
workers were traveling into our territory and doing pre-construction work,”
Tait, who is a Unist’ot’en house member, told The Narwhal.

*Red dresses, signifying missing and murdered Indigenous women, hang near
Unist’ot’en camp in Wet’suwet’en territory. Photo: Amber Bracken / The
Narwhal*

The RCMP are currently enforcing a court injunction against members of the
Wet’suwet’en and supporters occupying cultural camps in areas of
Wet’suwet’en traditional territory that prevent work along the Coastal
GasLink pipeline route. Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs, representing all
five clans of the Wet’suwet’en nation, argue the pipeline was permitted
without their consent as legal custodians of the nation’s territory under
Wet’suwet’en law and as recognized by Canada’s Supreme Court in a 1997
ruling known as the Delgamuukw decision.

Chiefs issued an eviction notice
<http://unistoten.camp/wetsuweten-hereditary-chiefs-evict-coastal-gaslink-from-territory/?fbclid=IwAR3uctChU8tuxmbjZErl2zDS3cza7XeqT_9w1RRcDSoCj3x70gnMFyrKnUQ>to
Coastal GasLink workers in early January and after weeks of tense waiting,
RCMP began arresting individuals within a designated exclusion zone
<http://bc.rcmp-grc.gc.ca/ViewPage.action?siteNodeId=2087&languageId=1&contentId=63215>,
which extends from an RCMP checkpoint to beyond the Unist’ot’en camp, on
Feb. 6.

*Freda Huson, left, her sister Brenda Michell, centre, and her niece Karla
Tait, right, head inside after offering songs and prayer outside the
Unist’ot’en Healing Centre on Thursday Feb. 6. Photo: Amber Bracken / The
Narwhal*


*A helicopter takes off after Freda Huson refused to talk to police at the
Unist’ot’en camp on Saturday Feb. 8. Photo: Amber Bracken / The Narwhal*

RCMP officers arrived at the Unist’ot’en camp, located at the 66-kilometre
mark along the Morice River Forest Road, on Saturday morning following two
days of arrests while dismantling Wet’suwet’en camps along the pipeline
route.

Wet’suwet’en at the camp have refused to comply with an RCMP request to
surrender.

Unist’ot’en camp founder and spokesperson, Tsake’ze Howilhkat, who also
goes by Freda Huson, said the camp is located 66 kilometres from the
infamous Highway of Tears
<https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/highway-of-tears>,
notorious for its connection to the disappearance and murder of Indigenous
women in B.C., many of whom she knew personally.

“Some of them are family, extended family, cousins and children. The latest
one was our cousin’s daughter-in-law, left a one-year-old baby behind,”
Huson told The Narwhal.

She recounted the experience of being on a search party for Frances Brown
<https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/frances-brown-search-suspended-1.4401853>,
who went missing while mushroom picking with her partner. The RCMP called
off their search after five days.

“I, with many others, was out there for 35 to 37 days, every day from seven
in the morning until seven at night we searched,” Huson said. “We were
popping Tylenol because our bodies hurt so bad but we kept going out every
day searching and we didn’t find any clues.”

Huson said she is angry the RCMP will deploy enormous resources to enforce
an injunction against Indigenous people defending their territory but not
to investigate the murder of Indigenous women or locate missing women or
their remains.

“Maybe some of them are out here, somewhere,” Huson said of the area
surrounding the Unist’ot’en camp. “Because of lot of them went missing and
they could have easily went on these back roads. A lot of this territory
was hardly used, so they could have been brought out here somewhere.”

There are 14 work camps planned to support the construction of the Coastal
GasLink pipeline. Nine are already in operation, with additional camps
expected to be built in 2020, according
<https://www.surreynowleader.com/news/two-more-coastal-gaslink-work-camps-coming-to-northern-b-c/>
to
a spokesperson with TC Energy, formerly TransCanada, which owns the
pipeline.
*Chief Howilhkat, Freda Huson, and her sister Brenda Michell stand in
ceremony while she waits for police to enforce Coastal GasLink’s injunction
at Unist’ot’en Healing Centre near Houston, B.C. on Saturday Feb. 8. Photo:
Amber Bracken / The Narwhal*

Coastal GasLink permit extended without due process: lawyer

Dinï ze’ Smogelgem, Hereditary Chief of the Laksamshu (Fireweed and Owl)
clan said the Wet’suwet’en’s application for judicial review of Coastal
GasLink certificate extension also points out the connection between the
project and threats to women.


“My cousins are listed among the murdered and missing women and girls,” he
said in a statement announcing the case. “B.C. must not be allowed to bend
the rules to facilitate operations that are a threat to the safety of
Wet’suwet’en women.”

Caily DiPuma, legal counsel for the Wet’suwet’en with Woodward and Co.,
said the request for judicial review is about questioning the integrity of
the environmental assessment process.

Coastal GasLink has not substantially started construction within the five
years of its environmental certificate, granted in 2014, as is mandated in
the permit. The company requested the Environmental Assessment Office grant
a permit extension.

When considering a permit extension, the office is required to consider new
significant and adverse impacts of the project and consider a proponent’s
compliance in the five years in which they’ve been operating, DiPuma told
The Narwhal.

“The EAO didn’t do either of those things properly,” she said.

“We know there is a correlation between camps of workers, what are called
‘man camps,’ and violence against Indigenous girls and women and queer
people,” DiPuma said, adding that the Calls to Action from the National
Inquiry direct decision-makers “like the EAO to undertake an assessment of
gender-based harms for these kinds of projects.” Similar calls to action
are directed at industry.

*A canvas tent near the Coastal GasLink work camp 9A on Jan. 5. Photo:
Amber Bracken / The Narwhal*

Despite this, the Environmental Assessment Office did not properly conduct
an assessment of risks to Indigenous women from the Coastal GasLink project
when extending its permits, DiPuma said.

“The EAO said Coastal GasLink would be prepared to consider doing so in the
future. So, instead of creating a legally binding requirement for them to
consider these harms, they took industry at its word that it would
voluntarily do so at some point in the future.”

Coastal GasLink has also been found out of compliance with the conditions
of its environmental certificate in more than 50 instances, according to
the Environmental Assessment Office’s compliance program, including by
restricting access to traplines and failing to adequately dispose of camp
garbage.

Despite these many instances of non-compliance, the Environmental
Assessment Office decided the company’s permit should be extended, DiPuma
said.

“They haven’t explained to the public or my client why that should be.”

*Red dresses sentinel as RCMP raid looms*

The Unist’ot’en healing centre currently houses the remaining Wet’suwet’en
members and supporters facing arrest by the RCMP.

The $2 million Unist’ot’en healing centre, which has received $400,000 from
B.C.’s First Nations Health Authority <https://www.fnha.ca/> to run
land-based trauma and addictions treatment programs, is designed to provide
services to vulnerable individuals, including youth in trauma treatment
programs.

Tait said the red dresses hanging around the centre — some of which bear
the initials of women people in the camp have lost — will act as a
confrontation to the RCMP officers performing arrests.

“It’s a chance for the RCMP to confront those women, in a way, and be held
to account on their failure to protect their safety,” Tait said.

But, she added, it’s also an opportunity for these lost and voiceless women
to stand in solidarity with their community and family.

*A red dress, signifying missing and murdered Indigenous women, hangs on
the bridge to Unist’ot’en camp. Photo: Amber Bracken / The Narwhal*

“We have a line of red dresses across the bridge because we think it’s a
very powerful statement and it’s an invitation to the spirits of those
women to come and stand and face the RCMP who are failing to seek justice
on their behalf, who failed to protect their safety by being complicit in
this epidemic that our communities are facing.”

Tait, who faces imminent arrest herself, said she believes women have a
particular responsibility to protect Wet’suwet’en territory.

“We are a matrilineal culture, so our women are our strength. The women
make the decisions about the land, because we know our children depend on
the land, they inherit our territory after we’re gone and that’s all
through the mother’s line. So it really feels like it’s a deep
responsibility for us as women to make sure there’s territory intact,
there’s a safer future for our children that are coming and that these
lands will remain here and remain a sanctuary for our people.”

*Freda Huson, right, looks at pictures of the early morning arrests at the
39-kilometre camp, with her sister Brenda Michell, left, and niece, Karla
Tait, centre, at the Unist’ot’en Healing Centre on Thursday Feb. 6. Photo:
Amber Bracken / The Narwhal*

The Wet’suwet’en application for a judicial review was served to Kevin
Jardine, associate deputy minister of the environment and the executive
director of the Environmental Assessment Office, as well as Coastal
GasLink.

DiPuma said her office has yet to hear back from the substantive parties.

“They’ve got some time to consider their position on this. It’s up to them
to determine if they reconsider the permit or if they want to go to court.”

*With files from Amber Bracken.*

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