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“If you don’t have the resumé that says you have three years running Cats and you go for a job as a Cat operator people look and say they don’t want to train you. Here we have an opportunity to train up to 100 people who are going to be able to work anywhere. If you want to be an equipment operator getting time in the seat is the most important thing that can happen.”

Young also sees the advantage First Nations machine operators will have on work sites where they are skilled and not general workers.

“It’s a big equalizer to show that you have skills to operate stuff.”

Young is among Wet’suwet’en members starting to speak out as anti-pipeline protests spread across Canada in support of a group of Wet’suwet’en hereditary house chiefs who are opposed to the routing of the pipeline across Wet’suwet’en traditional territory. They say they, and not the elected band councils, are in charge of the traditional lands, which are not in reserves.

The project is supported by the provincial and federal governments.

On Wednesday, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said he would meet with those hereditary chiefs in opposition, as protesters in Metro Vancouver occupied Attorney General David Eby’s office, forced the eastbound WestCoast Express to a standstill and threatened to shutdown government buildings in Victoria on Friday.

Tiffany Murray, Coastal GasLink’s director of Indigenous relations, said that last December the company’s contractors employed 1,100 workers, of which 400 were Indigenous — mostly from the 20 B.C. bands that have signed agreements.