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RCMP have offered to withdraw from Wet’suwet’en territory

Public Safety Minister Bill Blair says he’s hopeful the RCMP’s offer to leave their outpost on Wet’suwet’en territory in northern B.C. will lead to the barricades coming down, as talks continue to try and defuse the rail blockades crippling the country’s rail network.

“I’m very hopeful that that will satisfy the concerns that were raised,” said Blair ahead of a Thursday morning cabinet meeting.

“I think the RCMP have made a very sound operational decision based on the current circumstances.”

CBC News has obtained a copy of a letter from RCMP Deputy Commissioner Jennifer Strachan to the hereditary chiefs, first reported on by Global News, offering to move the RCMP’s temporary detachment from near the protest site to the nearby town of Houston — as long as Morice West Forest Service Road remains clear. The RCMP confirmed that letter was sent.

“As always, we encourage dialogue over enforcement with a goal of a long-term solution,” Strachan wrote, while asking for a meeting “in the near future.”

The RCMP, which acts as the provincial police in B.C., moved in to enforce a court injunction earlier this month after the Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs and their supporters blocked construction of the $6-billion Coastal GasLink pipeline project. The B.C. Supreme Court issued an injunction in December authorizing the police to clear away the protesters that had blocked access to the public road.

Those arrests triggered national protests and the rail blockades, which hit the two-week mark Thursday. Via Rail announced nearly 1,000 layoffs Wednesday as it grapples with a nationwide shutdown, while CN Rail has issued temporary pink slips to 450 workers as the blockade has shuttered much of its eastern Canadian operations.

Crown-Indigenous Relations Minister Carolyn Bennett has offered to meet with the Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs as soon as possible to help resolve the dispute.

Trudeau calls blockades an ‘unacceptable situation’

So far, the hereditary chiefs have said they won’t meet with the federal and provincial ministers until the RCMP leave their territory.

Blair said he hopes the RCMP’s offer will meet the chiefs’ conditions.

“We have met the condition that those who were on the barricades had said was important to them before they would change their posture,” he said.

“I believe the time has come now for the barricades to come down.”

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his cabinet met in Ottawa Thursday morning to chart a path forward.

“We’re working very hard to end the blockades. It’s an unacceptable situation,” said the prime minister.

Meanwhile, a handful of hereditary chiefs travelled to Tyendinaga Mohawk Territory near Belleville, Ont., to meet with protesters there who have been blockading CN Rail in solidarity.

CN gets injunction for Montreal blockade

CN Rail says it has obtained an injunction to dismantle a rail blockade on Montreal’s South Shore.

“We’ve obtained the injunction and are hoping for a swift resolution of this incident so that passenger commuter rail service can resume,” it said in a statement.

Quebec Premier François Legault told reporters earlier Thursday that “once the injunction is granted, we will dismantle the blockade.”

CBC

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CBC

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