RCMP national security unit monitored 'threats' linked to Wet'suwet'en anti-pipeline activism, records show

An RCMP national security unit monitored First Nations-led anti-pipeline activism for "potential threats" to the energy, transportation and banking sectors between 2021 and 2022, internal police documents show.

Records obtained by CBC Indigenous reveal Ottawa-based federal policing groups tracked and analyzed protests against TC Energy and Royal Bank of Canada (RBC), citing concerns about "anarchist groups" or "fringe environmentalists" sabotaging infrastructure or targeting executives in solidarity with Wet'suwe'ten hereditary chiefs.

It's a concern one of those chiefs feels is unfairly used to justify surveillance of Indigenous rights-based activism.

"This really isn't news to us," said Na'Moks (John Ridsdale), a leader of the Tsayu, or Beaver, clan.

"It's disturbing, but it's really not unexpected."

The hereditary chiefs have long opposed construction of the now-complete Coastal GasLink pipeline in their unceded northern British Columbia territory, a resistance that included blockades the Mounties raided three times between 2019 and 2021 to enforce a court injunction.

In recent years, Na'Moks and others turned their advocacy toward the corporate bottom line, campaigning against RBC for its funding of the pipeline owned by Calgary-based TC Energy. 

The documents, released under access to information law after a two-year wait, suggest this caused concern among units like the National Critical Infrastructure Team. 

"There is a potential for incidents of mischief and/or sabotage to both the energy and transportation sectors, in addition to RBC, carried out by either anarchist groups in solidarity or by fringe environmentalists if tensions continue to escalate or there is an RCMP action that could be perceived as unjust by the activists," the unit warned in October 2022.

This assessment appears in an unclassified intelligence report titled "Potential Threats to Energy and Transportation Critical Infrastructure."

The report warns that "adversaries of TC Energy's Coastal GasLink" had called for a day of action following a webinar on Oct. 19, 2022.

Na'Moks was one of the "adversaries" who addressed the webinar. He says such labelling won't deter him, but he does feel it's undemocratic.

"We want to go berry picking, get our salmon, be who we are, practise our culture, be able to be who we are, and we're being restrained, which is basically the goal of a police state," said Na'Moks.

"And when you get into the police saying what you can and cannot do, where you can and cannot go, then you're absolutely into a petrol state. So who are really the bosses here? Is this truly democratic?"