Indigenous Peoples

The company, Imperial Metals, asked the courts for an injunction to force the group to stop its protest.

On Wednesday, the courts agreed, but ruled the injunction would be only temporary and that it couldn't be enforced until Oct. 14.

Rhoda Quock, spokeswoman for the Klabona Keepers, called it an incredible victory, not only for those blockading, but for all indigenous nations facing similar situations.

The Federal Court of Appeal has granted leave to the Gitxaala Nation to apply for judicial review of the Northern Gateway pipeline project's approval.

The Gitxaala is challenging the federal cabinet's approval of the Enbridge project.

The court application argues that the federal Conservative cabinet did not consider the Gitxaala's aboriginal rights and title in approving the oil pipeline proposed by Calgary-based Enbridge.

Freshly fed with a wild salmon feast and stirred by drumming and anti-oilsands proclamations, a crowd of several hundred stood en masse to loudly sing Tsleil-Waututh Nation's anthem on Sunday.

Roughly 500 people crammed into the First Nation's North Shore community centre on the eve of what the band's culture and language manager Gabriel George dubbed an "historic event" -- the signing of an intertribal treaty against Kinder Morgan's proposed pipeline through southern B.C.

Treaty makes Kinder Morgan Expansion Project illegal in Coast Salish Law

COAST SALISH TERRITORY, NORTH VANCOUVER, BC; SEPTEMBER 21, 2014 – Today, First Nations from the lower mainland, Vancouver Island, and Washington State have come together to sign an historic treaty to protect the Salish Sea from tar sands oil and related threats, making the Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain Expansion Project illegal under Coast Salish Law.

After a man-made lake full of mining waste spilled in the central interior of British Columbia, security guards have been blocking entry to the subsequently contaminated lake and creek. Residents hoping to see first-hand what millions of cubic metres of tailings sludge might have done to Polley Lake or Hazeltine Creek are met with gates, guards, and blocked off roads.

It's good news that in a number of cities people "are meeting together in growing numbers to explore what it means - and doesn't mean - to stand in solidarity with Indigenous peoples within Canada," as journalist Meg Mittelstedt wrote recently.

Twelve hours into a motorcycle ride from Vancouver to the Unist'ot'en camp, and after short dips in a couple of the hundreds of small lakes in 40 degree weather, the glow of the northern British Columbia evening sky turns thick and otherworldly with smoke from nearby forest fires. Seeking a place to sleep, I skip the first small town whose cheap motels were filled with some of the hundreds of firefighters and evacuees from local oil and gas camps. The fires rage as a result of pine-beetle ravaged forests and a hot, dry B.C.

Williams Lake, BC (August 6, 2014):  The Tsilhqot’in Nation is overwhelmed and disappointed by the Mount Polley Mine (owned by Imperial Metals) environmental disaster. The tailings pond that has been breached is the same model that Taseko Mines Limited (TML) has indicated repeatedly that they would use for the New Prosperity project. Of which, TML vice-president, Brian Battison and B.C. Energy and Mines Minister, Bill Bennett, held up as exemplary. This is proof of the faults and extreme risks within this model of tailings storage facility.

The chief of the Lower Nicola Indian Band south of Kamloops, B.C., whose territory is crucial to the $5.4-billion Kinder Morgan expansion project, wrote a strongly worded letter to the Prime Minister today about his "serious reservations" about the project.