Singh's selective silence on Wet'suwet'en

Three federal NDP MPs are asking their leader to call out B.C. Premier John Horgan for deploying the RCMP on unceded Indigenous land

A banner in solidarity with Wet’suwet’en protestors hangs from a gas tank train in Vaughan, Ont., in February 2020. The question is now being asked of NDP leader Jagmeet Singh by some of his own MPs. (Creative Commons)

More than 1,000 New Democrats have signed a petition calling on party leader Jagmeet Singh to name names when condemning the RCMP’s mass arrests of land defenders blocking the construction of the Coastal GasLink pipeline on Wet'suwet'en territory. 

Signatories of note include NDP MPs Matthew Green, Leah Gazan and Lori Idlout, Ontario NDP MPP Joel Harden, documentarian and 2021 federal NDP candidate Avi Lewis, and former NDP MP Romeo Saganash.

It’s based on a statement by Young New Democrats of Quebec that calls on Singh and deputy leader Alexandre Boulerice to demand the B.C. Premier John Horgan’s NDP call off the Mounties.

Matthew Green 🍊📈✊🏾 @MatthewGreenNDP

I join @LoriIdlout @LeahGazan and all the undersigned in publicly denouncing the violence enacted against members of Wet'suwet'en First Nation by the RCMP, and call on the BCNDP provincial gov and Liberal federal gov to immediately withdraw the RCMP from Wet'suwet'en territory.

Avi Lewis @avilewis

Across Turtle Island #NewDemocrats are angry with the @BCNDP government: 3 attacks on Wet'suwet'en land defenders in 3 yrs to push a big expansion of fossil fuels. The federal NDP has not pushed back. And now grassroots NDP members are speaking out. https://t.co/V4xVBHHPiH https://t.co/CSkiBXj60z

From CBC News:

The move places Singh in a difficult position — jammed between the wishes of many NDP members and his political need to avoid criticizing the only NDP government in the country.

In November, the RCMP arrested at least 29 people, including a Wet'suwet'en hereditary chief's daughter and two journalists, for breach of a B.C. Supreme Court injunction preventing any obstruction of work on the Coastal GasLink pipeline.

The $6.6 billion pipeline is designed to carry natural gas, obtained by hydraulic fracturing — also known as fracking — in northeastern B.C., to a $40-billion LNG terminal on the province's North Coast for export to Asia.

Singh has said he’s “absolutely concerned” about the RCMP’s actions, and the federal Liberals’ complicity in them, but refuses to utter Horgan’s name.

Jay Woodruff, a federal NDP executive, said Singh must forego political expediency and distance himself from the B.C. party if necessary.

"The situation has caused an identity crisis in the party and … it's creating a situation where members are leaving because the party is just acting so against what people stand for,” Woodruff told the CBC.

As Coastal GasLink boasts, the project has the support of 20 elected bands across the route of the pipeline, but is opposed by Wet’suwet’en’s hereditary leadership.

However, the Supreme Court of Canada recognized that the elected bands are a colonial imposition on Indigenous peoples, which is why it ruled that Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs have jurisdiction over traditional lands in the Delgamuukw v. British Columbia ruling.

Edited by Eric Wickham

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