Wet’suwet’en Houses, through their Hereditary Chiefs, have launched two legal challenges over Canada’s approval of multiple fossil fuel projects in their territory. These challenges are strategically designed to address both the immediate issue of the Coastal Gas Link LNG pipeline being built without Wet’suwet’en consent, as well as Canada’s ongoing failure to address the climate emergency.

Legal challenge No. 1, supported by all the Hereditary Chiefs acting in unity, seeks a Judicial Review of a project extension for Coastal Gas Link’s pipeline, granted by the BC Environmental Assessment Office in October 2019 for another 5 years. The action argues that the B.C. Environmental Assessment Office had a duty to assess new evidence of the project’s harms, which in this case means the recent findings of the Inquiry on Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls, which found direct links between extractive industries, “man camps” and increased violence against Indigenous women. The BCEAO was also required to take into account Coastal Gas Link’s record of non-compliance (over 50 instances!).

Legal challenge No. 2, a Constitutional and Charter of Rights challenge brought by two Houses of the Likhts’amisyu (Fireweed Clan) through their House Chiefs, is an ambitious, long-term legal challenge seeking a comprehensive overhaul of Canada’s environmental legislation to enable urgent action on climate change.

This visionary, sweeping action puts forward the argument that Canada has a constitutional duty to protect its citizens from climate catastrophe, and draws a line against reckless fossil fuel developments that will push us past the tipping point. The action invokes Constitutional provisions about “peace, order and good government” as well as the equality rights of Wet’suwet’en young people and future generations under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

The case specifically names Coastal Gas Link and Pacific Trails fracked gas pipelines along with LNG export facilities in Kitimat as particularly high-emitting fossil fuel projects that are likely to breach Canada’s (already inadequate) emissions targets. In the name of future generations, the legal challenge argues that Canada’s failure to do its fair share to avert a climate catastrophe would breach the equal protection of the law guaranteed by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.