More than 40 pipeline protesters were arrested in Metro Vancouver as of Monday morning, after an injunction against them was granted Sunday afternoon.
The protesters were blocking access to four ports in the Vancouver area.
The court injunction, sought by the Vancouver Fraser Port Authority, orders protesters to leave the authority’s lands and stop blockading access points to ports in Vancouver and Delta, B.C. — or face arrest.
A spokeswoman for the authority said the action had to be taken so that port operations can resume. Vancouver police said 33 have been arrested, Delta police arrested 14.
The protesters are acting in solidarity with Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs, who are trying to halt construction of a massive pipeline project that crosses their traditional territory in northwestern British Columbia.
Their fight has sparked a protest movement that spans from the steps of the B.C. legislature in Victoria to the ports in Vancouver to rail lines in Ontario and Quebec.
Meantime, several people arrested at various remote locations in northwest B.C. near construction zones for the 670-kilometre Coastal GasLink natural gas pipeline were due in court Monday. They are charged with breach of trust, a Wet’suwet’en spokeswoman said.
READ MORE: Coastal GasLink protesters served with injunction for blocking Vancouver ports
The RCMP said Saturday that officers enforcing a court injunction arrested 11 people who allegedly barricaded themselves in a warming centre in a forested area near a pipeline work site. The other arrests occurred Friday at another Indigenous camp near the pipeline route.
Premier John Horgan said the pipeline, which is part of the massive $40 billion LNG Canada liquefied natural gas export terminal project, is of vital economic and social importance to the province’s north and already has the approval of 20 elected First Nations councils along the route from Dawson Creek to Kitimat.
He said the courts have decided the pipeline can proceed and the rule of law must prevail.
READ MORE: 11 arrested in day 3 of injunction enforcement against Wet’suwet’en
– with files from Katya Slepian, Black Press Media
The Canadian Press
