March 6

Rally Against Court Injunctions and RCMP Trespassing on Indigenous Traditional Territories

Smithers
8:30-10:00 am
Meet at parking lot beside Sunshine Inn, 3880 Fourth Ave. –
the Barracks of RCMP C-IRG.
Then walk to the BC Supreme Court, 3793 Alfred Ave.
Organized by: Gitxsan Huwilp Government

This is the third rally organized by the Gitxsan First Nation, against BC Supreme Court injunctions that rely on illegal trespass on Indigenous traditional territories by the RCMP Community-Industry Response Group (RCMP C-IRG) to enforce them, which are then used to criminalize land defenders. This rally specifically opposes a February 21 BC Supreme Court ruling that traditional Wet’suwet’en trespass law cannot “coexist” with injunction orders handed down by the same court. That court decision also found Wing Chief Stachys, of the Likhts’amisyu Clan of the Wet’suwet’en First Nation, guilty of criminal contempt.

The rally continues to make the following demands:

1. Stop the weaponization of the historic 1997 Delgamuukw v. British Columbia Supreme Court decisions that found the province has no authority to extinguish the Gitxsan or Wet’suwet’en wilaloo (way of life) and that the land issues must be addressed in negotiations rather than litigation.

2. Stop industry-led injunctions that allow industry looting of Indigenous lands.

3. To dismantle the RCMP C-IRG, the RCMP’s only militarized unit in Canada.