VANCOUVER—With eyes across the country focused on a remote, frozen road in northern British Columbia, Premier John Horgan stepped into the press theatre in the provincial legislature Wednesday to face the media.

It had been an eventful few days.

Across Canada, supporters of the Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs — who are embroiled in a fight against a pipeline — have stopped trains, cars and pedestrians from reaching their destinations.

On Tuesday in Victoria, a human wall of protesters blocked the entrance to the provincial legislature, aiming to stop the throne speech, with one reporter scaling a wall to bring bagels to his colleagues.

“If that’s winning, I don’t want any part of it,” Horgan said of the action Wednesday with a note of frustration.

“What I do see is a large part of people in B.C. wondering what this is all about.”

What it’s about is a 670-kilometre natural gas pipeline proposed to cross northern B.C. and going through the traditional lands of the Wet’suwet’en. Elected band councils have approved the project but hereditary chiefs, armed with a 1997 Supreme Court decision they say gives them the needed authority, have not.

The hereditary chiefs insist they are responsible for the thousands of acres of Wet’suwet’en territory and that elected councillors’ authority ends where reserve land does.

Though Horgan’s frustration may stem from the epicentre of a now-national dispute being in his backyard, the issues underlying it pose a challenge for all of Canada, says one lawyer.

RCMP enforcing a court injunction have been facing off with Wet’suwet’en members and their supporters, about an hour’s drive from Smithers, B.C., for weeks, as they try to prevent Coastal GasLink from building the pipeline.

The reverberations have already been felt across Canada and in the halls of provincial governments. Small but effective protests have popped up nationwide, blocking rail lines and streets.

In Ontario and Quebec, members of the Mohawk Nation and supporters have blocked the rail corridor from Toronto to Montreal at Belleville, Ont., and south of Montreal. The move is affecting freight and commuter trains and preventing nearly 30,000 Via Rail passengers from travelling.

Meanwhile Quebec’s premier, François Legault, has called on the federal government to work toward a solution. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau urged a “speedy resolution” to the impasse during his visit to Senegal. Trudeau said the federal government respects the right to peaceful protest but that the rule of law must also be respected.

Just whose law is to be respected is exactly what’s at issue, some say.

Kate Gunn is a lawyer at First Peoples Law in Vancouver and represents one of the Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs. Gunn said she could not speak specifically about her client’s case but that, generally, the issues at play aren’t isolated.

“It’s always possible, in particular where there’s a traditional governance system that’s been suppressed but continued to exist,” Gunn said.

The federal Indian Act, imposed upon Indigenous groups and the reason band councils exist, doesn’t provide effective tools to deal with such disputes, she said, adding they should be resolved by referencing laws of the Indigenous communities in question. Such laws, which predate colonization, are specific to each band.

When Indigenous groups have two systems running parallel to each other, there is the chance for confusion and disputes, she said.

One positive step Gunn said she’s seen is First Nations finding a way to integrate their traditional governing systems with contemporary ones, providing a clear authority over their territories.

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The B.C. government passed Bill 41 last fall, making a commitment to uphold the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. That legislation recognizes both band councils as well as other forms of Indigenous governance.

But how it will apply in B.C. has yet to be determined by the government.

And while Horgan may be feeling the heat as Canadians look to his province for answers as to why they cannot get the train to Toronto, such disputes are often the responsibility of federal governments, too, because of jurisdictional issues falling to each government.

“Often, in these kinds of conflicts, they keep passing it back and forth between Canada and the province, which is a way to avoid some of the trickier issues,” she said.

Issues around natural resource development often bring attention to the problem, she said.

Last month, hereditary Chief Na’Moks told the Star he was concerned federal and provincial governments are simply doing the bidding of resource companies.

“I always have a fear when industry is steering democratically elected officials,” Na’Moks said. Na’Moks did not return a request for comment Wednesday.

On Wednesday, Horgan said that, without wanting to diminish the scale of the protests occurring, he believes the next step is to move forward with the construction of the pipeline, while the Wet’suwet’en deal with issues relating to their government structure internally.

But he also wasn’t interested in taking flak from those outside of B.C.

“So, if the Indigenous groups in Ontario feel that they want to stop the GO train and declare that they understand the issues of Indigenous governance, they’re welcome to do that,” the premier said.

“But they haven’t got a clue, quite frankly, for how complex these issues are.”

With files from the Canadian Press and Alex McKeen

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