If the chiefs are motivated more by environmental activism than Indigenous justice, there is likely to be little room for compromise
It’s been a good week for the Conservatives in terms of generating funds and support – possibly their best since Jody Wilson-Raybould appeared before the justice committee a year ago at the height of the SNC-Lavalin affair.
Andrew Scheer was criticized in some quarters when he called for the government to direct the RCMP to clear away the rail blockades. That is playing with weeping gelignite – we are still in the realm of a political protest but it could flare into armed conflict if handled badly.
Yet Scheer and his parliamentary colleagues have been more in tune with the public mood than a government that has resembled the wallflower at the prom, paralyzed while waiting for a call to dance from Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs that is never likely to come.
Few Canadians would take issue with the opposition day motion the Conservatives put forward on Thursday (having decided against the option of tabling a motion of no confidence).
It called for “the House to stand in solidarity with every elected band council on the Coastal GasLink route, the majority of hereditary chiefs, the vast majority of Wet’suwet’en people who support the project, and to condemn radical activists who are exploiting divisions within the Wet’suwet’en community and holding the Canadian economy hostage.”
For the rest of this column: https://nationalpost.com/opinion/john-ivison-the-biggest-barrier-to-resolving-this-conflict-a-handful-of-hereditary-chiefs