OTTAWA — An internal RCMP report’s portrayal of northern B.C. as one of two Canadian regions most vulnerable to violent, anti-pipeline extremists working with aboriginal radicals to sabotage “critical infrastructure” is “absolutely bizarre,” one of B.C.’s most outspoken First Nations leaders said Wednesday.

Stewart Phillip, head of the Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs, has long espoused civil disobedience to defend First Nations rights and was recently arrested during an anti-pipeline protest on Burnaby Mountain.

He expressed shock after being read sections of the report that was obtained earlier this month by the Montreal newspaper La Presse.

The report said New Brunswick, where a half-dozen RCMP vehicles were torched in an anti-fracking First Nations protest in 2013, was the number 1 hot spot in terms of potential violent attacks on the oil and gas industry.

“Aside from New Brunswick, the most urgent anti-petroleum threat of violent criminal activity is in northern British Columbia, where there is a coalition of like-minded violent extremists who are planning criminal actions to prevent the construction of the pipeline.”

“It’s absolutely bizarre, bordering on misguided hysteria,” Phillip said after being read several passages from the 44-page document, titled Criminal Threats to the Canadian Petroleum Industry and stamped “Protected … Canadian Eyes Only.”

The report’s author appeared to be trying to link mainstream environmental groups like Tides Canada, which receives considerable funding from U.S. trusts, to individuals and groups who have threatened criminal “direct action” to stop Enbridge’s Northern Gateway pipeline to Kitimat and Kinder Morgan’s pipeline expansion to Burnaby.

“There is a growing, highly organized and well-financed, anti-Canadian petroleum movement, that consists of peaceful activists, militants and violent extremists, who are opposed to society’s reliance on fossil fuels,” states the January 2014 report that was prepared by the RCMP’s Critical Infrastructure Intelligence Team.

The report said the extremists advocate the use of “arson, firearms and improvised explosive devices,” and “some factions” have “aligned themselves with violent aboriginal extremists.”

The report even raises the spectre of two of the most ghastly acts of domestic terrorism in modern history — the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing that killed 168 people, including young children at a daycare, and a lone gunman’s 2011 rampage in Norway that left dead 77 people, most of them teens picked off one by one at an island youth camp.

“As seen in Oklahoma City in 1995 and in Norway in 2011, continued vigilance is essential since it remains possible that certain groups — or even a lone individual — could choose to adopt a more violent, terrorist strategy to achieve their desired results.”

Phillip said he’s never met anyone prepared to engage in criminal activity since his association with the B.C. environmental movement began in the 1970s.

“Every day when you turn on the television, you witness insane acts on the part of disturbed people,” he said. “But to suggest there’s a very well-organized jihadist-style network out there that’s a threat to the Canadian public — in my experience this is absolutely not the case. I hate to say this, but this is Canada. Excuse me?”

He said First Nations fighting to protect the environment have strong allies across Canada, as well as the force of several Supreme Court of Canada judgments supporting their claims.

“If I were to move in that direction (towards recommending criminal acts), I think we’d quickly alienate the vast majority,” of their supporters across Canada.

The report presents little evidence of extremist anti-energy industry violence in B.C., just the series of mysterious natural gas pipeline bombings in northern B.C. in 2008 to 2009, and a 2014 Georgia Straight article quoting activists hinting at their support for unlawful actions to stop Northern Gateway.

Environmental groups have also expressed shock over the report’s assertions about violence, as well as the author’s tone of skepticism about climate change science.

“The false inference in the leaked RCMP document that Tides Canada’s charitable work across the country is somehow situated in the murky world of terrorists and imagined criminal activity would be laughable were it not so concerning,” Tides Canada president Ross McMillan said in an email.

He said Tides will write to RCMP Commissioner Bob Paulson to “to express our grave concern that the RCMP could pen a report so steeped in misconceptions — from questioning the scientific consensus on climate change to besmirching legitimate and important non-profit organizations in Canada.”

The RCMP document has caused the federal government some communications challenges in connection with its current bid to get Bill C-51 through Parliament.

The controversial and sweeping bill, aimed at giving security forces and especially the Canadian Security Intelligence Service more powers, targets activity that “undermines the security of Canada,” including “interference with critical infrastructure.”

The bill also says the legislation does not target “lawful advocacy, protest, dissent and artistic expression.”

That has rung alarms among environmentalists and civil libertarians fearing that CSIS could use the legislation to go after people arrested for civil disobedience that is illegal but not criminal.

Spokesmen for Public Safety Minister Steven Blaney and the RCMP both issued statements Thursday rejecting the notion the government is targeting the mainstream environmental movement.

“The RCMP is only interested in those who are or could be violent extremists,” said Blaney spokesman Jean-Christophe de Le Rue.

RCMP Sgt. David Falls said the force has a mandate to investigate criminal threats, “including those to critical infrastructure,” but doesn’t monitor or “focus on” environmental groups.

“The RCMP respects and protects the right of Canadians to participate in lawful protest activities in accordance with the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.”

poneil@postmedia.com

Twitter.com/poneilinottawa

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