Hundreds Protest at U.S.-Canada Border Bridge Over Pipeline Threat to Indigenous Land: ‘This Is an International Issue’ – By Chantal Da Silva (Newsweek) / Feb 17 2020
The fight of an indigenous community in the western Canadian province of British Columbia sparked demonstrations more than 2,700 miles away on Sunday, as protesters halted traffic on the U.S.-Canada border bridge in Niagara Falls, Ontario, to call for an end to plans to build a pipeline through the territory of the Wet’suwet’en.
Around 200 protesters temporarily halted traffic at Rainbow International Bridge on Sunday to protest what they have warned is an “invasion of the Wet’suwet’en Nation.”
For hundreds of years, the Wet’suwet’en have laid claim to the 22,0002km area that constitutes their hereditary land. However, with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau greenlighting plans for Coastal GasLink, a natural gas construction and extraction firm, to build a pipeline through it, the indigenous community says its land and heritage are being put at risk.
Sean Vanderklis, who helped organize Sunday’s protest, said the indigenous community in the Niagara region and supporters wanted to show the Wet’suwet’en they have support from across the country.
“We are all indigenous. We are all First Nations. There’s a similarity there and a commonality we share,” Vanderklis, a member of the indigenous community, said.
The notion that a company would be allowed to uproot land that has been occupied by an indigenous peoples for hundreds of years, he said, is part of the “fundamental racism that occurs on a daily basis” against their communities.
“The Wet’suwet’en never surrendered their land,” he said. “Their land was never surrendered; they never signed any treaty.”
Vanderklis said he and fellow protest organizers wanted to stage their demonstration at the U.S.-Canada border to show that “this is an international issue.”
Continue to article: https://www.newsweek.com/hundreds-protest-u-s-canada-border-bridge-over-pipeline-plan-1487680
