IN SOLIDARITY WITH THE WET’SUWET’EN HEREDITARY CHIEFS

Showing Up for Racial Justice (SURJ) Toronto is a community organization committed to moving white people and communities into action to support racial justice movements as part of a broader multi-racial majority. As settlers on Indigenous land, we commit to working towards decolonization and Indigenous sovereignty, and we stand in solidarity with the Wet’suwet’en Peoples and Hereditary Chiefs in their right to evict the RCMP and the Coastal GasLink pipeline project from their land. 

In a time of both reconciliation and climate crisis, it is disgraceful that the current Canadian government is abetting Coastal GasLink to push through with the force of the RCMP, without the consent of the Wet’suwet’en Peoples whose land is unceded to Canada. We urge British Columbia Premier John Horgan, Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland, and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to put a stop to this violent, colonial takeover, which this country has advanced for over 150 years.  

Historically, the Canadian state has violently and intentionally tried to destroy Indigenous sovereignty, from removing children from their families, to removing the original hereditary systems used for self-governance, replacing them with a council system amenable to the exploitation of Indigenous lands for the profit of a few. We recognize the acts of this government as a slow and continued genocide against Indigenous Peoples whose lands and lives it devalues in pursuit of profit.

We fully support members of the Wet’suwet’en community and their right to assert control of their land as upheld by Wet’suwet’en law and governance. Members of the Wet’suwet’en community, led by the five hereditary Wet’suwet’en chiefs, have not given their free, prior, and informed consent to any aspect of the Coastal GasLink project. 

We urge the Government of Canada to commit to actual truth and reconciliation, and to uphold the obligations laid out by the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP). UNDRIP Article 10 expressly condemns forced removal, including under coercion, and further condemns the use of extra-state actors like corporations. Anything less is an assault to peaceable coexistence and reconciliation between settlers and Indigenous Peoples in Canada. 

We call on all settler governments to follow and practice the principles of UNDRIP as they relate to Wet’suwet’en Peoples and their governments, specifically the right to self determination; the right to free, prior and informed consent in regards to any decisions made about land; and, the right to their traditional lands, territories and resources.  

In solidarity,

SURJ Toronto

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