A subsidiary energy company that would deliver natural gas to LNG Canada’s Kitimat plant has filed an application for an injunction against the Unist’ot’en Camp, south of Houston, B.C.

Coastal GasLink, a subsidiary of TransCanada Pipelines Ltd., filed an application for an injunction on Friday to gain access to the Morice River Bridge, which it claims is being blockaded by the Unist’ot’en Camp and stalling construction on the project.

The Coastal GasLink pipeline would deliver natural gas, starting in an area close to Dawson Creek, all the way to the proposed LNG Canada facility in Kitimat.

The Unist’ot’en Camp was constructed in 2010 to assert and “reoccupy” the land of the Wet’suwet’en people, on which several proposed pipelines would be constructed. The Unist’ot’en are a clan of the Wet’suwet’en people.

In the application, Coastal GasLink’s proposed injunction would prohibit anyone from “physically preventing, impeding or restricting or in any way physically interfering” with access to the Morice River Bridge or the Morice West Forest Service Road, or coming within 10 metres of Coastal GasLink’s employees or vehicles in the area.

The application would also give police authority to arrest people breaching the injunction.

In a statement posted on its website, Coastal GasLink said that “this decision was not taken lightly” and is “a last resort and a necessary action in our efforts to safely gain access to the area.”

Coastal GasLink named Freda Huson and Warner Naziel, and referenced “others” involved in the bridge blockade, alleging that they were “preventing access” to the area. If the blockade stalled the project, the company claimed, there would be a “significant risk” that the project will miss the date of completion under the contract with LNG, which it claims added up to $24 million in contracts.

Karla Tait, an Unist’ot’en house group member, said in a statement that the two people named in the application were not hereditary chiefs and that the injunction ignored the group’s jurisdiction over the land, on which it operates a holistic healing lodge.

“The fact that this company can make a civil suit thinking that Freda Huson and Warner Naziel are the only ones standing in the way of their project is utterly ignorant and out of touch with all that we stand for as Unist’ot’en and as Indigenous people,” she said in the statement.

StarMetro Vancouver

[SOURCE]