Mohawk 'Land Back' leader among those to plead guilty to criminal contempt in B.C. pipeline conflict

Five people charged with criminal contempt after a Coastal GasLink pipeline blockade on Wets'uwet'en traditional territory in northern B.C. in 2021 will enter guilty pleas, said defence lawyer Stephanie Dickson in a virtual appearance Monday in B.C. Supreme Court.

They include Skyler Williams, a Mohawk from the Six Nations near Hamilton, Ont., and a prominent Haudenosaunee spokesperson for the 1492 Land Back movement in Ontario.

Williams was one of more than two dozen people arrested in an RCMP crackdown to dismantle blockades near a pipeline camp on Wet'suwet'en traditional territory in a wilderness area about a thousand kilometres north of Vancouver in November 2021.

Defence lawyer Dickson told the court a sixth person will also plead guilty to criminal contempt once he's received "medical documents." 

Crown prosecutor Tyler Bauman told the court the man had made allegations "about something that occurred during his arrest."

More than a dozen others arrested at the blockades, including Wet'suwet'en leader Sleydo,' also known as Molly Wickham, have elected to stand trial on criminal contempt charges.

Dickson told the court she is planning to file an application asserting an "abusive process" and cumulative breaches of the Canadian Charter in advance of the trial. 

She said the application would be presented to the court once hereditary chiefs sign off on it. 

Although Coastal GasLink signed benefit agreements with 20 elected band councils along the pipeline route in 2018, several Wet'suwet'en hereditary leaders say band councils do not have authority over traditional territories beyond reserve boundaries.

Some hereditary chiefs and their allies, who call themselves land defenders and water protectors, want to stop Coastal GasLink's pipeline through their traditional territories.

The 670-kilometre pipeline will bring natural gas sourced mostly from hydraulic fracturing in northeastern B.C. to an LNG export facility in Kitimat, on the province's North Coast.  

Coastal GasLink said Wet'suwet'en blockades in November 2021 left 500 workers stranded in a pipeline camp, where food, water, and other supplies were running low. 

In B.C. Supreme Court in April, Coastal GasLink's lawyer, Kevin O'Callaghan, said the protesters had wilfully breached a court order to stay away from the pipeline construction, knowing their public defiance would receive widespread public attention.  

"There has been extensive use of mainstream media and social media to attract attention to the actions of the protesters," Justice Marguerite Church noted in April, saying a series of blockades and protest actions had damaged roads and bridges near the pipeline and appeared to be "escalating."