Rail blockades could turn into a full-blown secession crisis — and Trudeau’s government is to blame – by Diane Francis (Financial Post – Feburary 13, 2020)

https://business.financialpost.com/

The illegal road and rail blockades perpetrated by Indigenous radicals across the country are not about pipelines or fossil fuels. It’s an existential threat to Canada and its sovereignty — and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government is to blame.

Five years of pandering and subsidizing 632 First Nations leaders has led to this catastrophe, which is being spearheaded by five unelected hereditary chiefs in British Columbia who claim their nation — the Wet’suwet’en — is exempt from Canadian laws and regulations.

They claim sovereignty over a 22,000-square-kilometre swath of land, an area the size of Israel, and have successfully invoked nationwide solidarity protests that have crippled portions of the country’s rail system.

Wet’suwet’en hereditary leaders and their accomplices have defied court orders and ignored agreements signed by 20 band councils, including their own. The issue at hand is the building of a 670-kilometre gas pipeline to a $40-billion LNG plant on the coast, but at stake is the future of Canada itself.

On Dec. 31, the B.C. Supreme Court ordered protesters to allow workers access to a remote logging road in northern B.C. But Wet’suwet’en activists continued to block the road and, days later, 28 were arrested (six of whom were released without charges). Now, dozens of arrests have followed across the country.

For the rest of this column: https://business.financialpost.com/diane-francis/diane-francis-rail-blockades-could-turn-into-a-full-blown-secession-crisis-and-trudeaus-government-is-to-blame?video_autoplay=true