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Canadians should be prepared to give up a “cozy lifestyle” that “upholds white supremacy” and is built on the exploitation of the Indigenous population, she said, though she was less clear what she would forgo. “I don’t have a home, a car or a family,” she said.

Montilla and her comrades are effectively saying they know what’s best for the people who live in the communities along the route.

The juxtaposition of the views of the eco-activists with those who actually live there couldn’t be more stark.

Troy Young, a member of one Wet’suwet’en community, is the director of an Indigenous-owned company that stands to benefit from contracts to clear trees and build roads along Coastal GasLink’s proposed pipeline’s route.

He said the history of the Wet’suwet’en is of outsiders telling them how to do things. “Why would we accept it? If the environmentalists are successful, it will be one of the biggest cultural appropriations in British Columbia’s history,” he said.

Photo by Chris Young / THE CANADIAN PRESS

Crystal Smith, the chief counsellor of the Haisla Nation, which has also signed an agreement to allow the pipeline to pass through its traditional land, recently offered an impassioned defence of what she called “an historic achievement.”

“First Nations have been left out of resource development for too long,” she said. It would have been easy to say no (as the Haisla did over the Northern Gateway oil pipeline). “But we are involved, we have been consulted and we will ensure there are benefits for all First Nations.”