The world’s oil, gas, and coal companies would incur what the Financial Times (FT) recently described as “breathtaking” losses if they’re not allowed to extract and burn their enormous reserves.
Under cover of darkness early Thursday, the RCMP began raiding Wet’suwet’en land defender camps in northeastern B.C. and arresting opponents of a planned natural gas pipeline.
Locked arm-to-arm in front of the ceremonial entrance of the B.C. Parliament Buildings in downtown Victoria, dozens of Indigenous people and over 200 allies gathered around noon on Feb. 6 to show solidarity with the Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs against the Coastal Gaslink pipeline.
“We are shaming the Canadian government right now,” said Ta’Kaiya Blaney of Tla’amin First Nation to the crowd of supporters.
"We are in absolute outrage and a state of painful anguish as we witness the Wet'suwet'en people having their Title and Rights brutally trampled on and their right to self-determination denied."
Climate action campaigners and Indigenous leaders on Thursday condemned a violent pre-dawn raid by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police at a camp set up by Wet'suwet'en land defenders in British Columbia.
Colossal fossil Royal Dutch Shell says it now has less than eight years of oil and gas left in its available reserves, after reporting for six years in a row that it is using up those reserves faster than it replaces them.
Surveillance helicopters circling overhead. Police officers, some carrying tactical gear, pouring into the surrounding towns. An elder arrested, then released, for trying to go past a police checkpoint.
Canada seems to have bucked the global trend toward authoritarianism that we have seen from the U.S. and Brazil to Turkey and India. But to what extent is this reality rather than mere appearance?