Yukon NDP calls for respect of UNDRIP, withdrawal of RCMP from Wet’suwet’en territory

November 15, 2021

Whitehorse, YT — Yukon NDP leader Kate White has tabled a motion in the Legislature calling for the RCMP’s withdrawal from Wet’suwet’en Territory in British Columbia.

White’s motion, tabled Thursday, Nov. 25, reads “that it is the opinion of this House that the Government of British Columbia should honour the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples by intervening in the ongoing incursion and occupation of Wet’suwet’en territory by Coastal Gas Link work crews and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.”

“We support the Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs in their assertion of Indigenous rights and title to their unceded territories. The BC Government needs to respect those rights, including Indigenous peoples’ right to give free, prior and informed consent to industrial activity on their lands through UNDRIP. That means withdrawing the RCMP from their lands and releasing those who were unjustly arrested for asserting their rights,” White said Thursday.

The situation in Wet’suwet’in territory is deeply troubling. The arrests of journalists, elders and land defenders on sovereign and unceded Wet’suwet’in territory need to be condemned in the strongest terms.

-30-