So this group appears daft, based on strategy. Does their complaint have any merit, or is that daft as well?
I know I could research this, but I don't care that much. I care enough to ask for a local opinion though.
It's a (natural gas) pipeline on unceded Native territory.
Do you want more (reliance on) fossil fuels? Do you want less (reliance on) fossil fuels?
Do you care about "recognizing" the sovereignty of Aboriginal people? Do you think history's passed them by and they should just get over it?
Answer really depends on your answers to those questions.
For myself, I don't want more oil/gas infrastructure, so I'm anti-pipeline. But I also couldn't care less about sovereignty and unceded territory. Native/Aboriginal/First Nations people are treated abysmally and that's an embarrassment to Canada and its people, but I largely feel no attraction to the idea that they're a People separate from Canada and should be recognized as such... unless we're going to redraw borders and let them have at it on their own. I don't grok the appeal behind a half measure.
Their complaint, as far as I can recognize, is that the pipeline should be cancelled because it'll cross onto "their" land, and they have legal precedent of it being recognized as such. We have a silly system in place regarding Aboriginal land use and "original ownership," and the Nation in question
does have the right to go "Nah."
The issue, then, is that leadership has one foot in one room and the other in another. There are elected Aboriginal leaders and then "hereditary" chiefs. The elected leaders agreed to the pipeline. The chiefs did not. The chiefs only have power internally; it's the elected leaders who decide external matters. While the pipeline does cross their land, it's a deal with several other Nations and the Canadian/BC governments. All elected leaders agreed to it. It's only the hereditary chiefs in this Nation that are opposed and have taken to blocking progress on the pipeline.
However, this is a trap. Our law enforcement has a storied history of abusing Indigenous peoples. As you might expect, the RCMP started taking action against the Nation's protesters and this gained a lot of media attention. Look at how these people, already abused, are being abused yet again. (They might have a case, and they probably do, but it's ripe for manipulation.) The pipeline has to move forward and someone has to remove the protesters, but any physical action is broadcast and cherry-picked to an audience that's ready to feel guilty, even if the guilt is simply trendy. Now there are other protests across the country in "solidarity," where they are blocking highways, intersections, railway yards, etc.
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