Barrie-Innisfil MP John Brassard says Wet’suwet’en people want pipeline to go through
Brassard suggests some people who have latched on to the pipeline protests are anti-natural resource activists
A local MP says the Wet’su’weten people have already spoken with respect to the natural gas pipeline, a portion of which is to run through the First Nations territory in northern B.C.
John Brassard says they want the Coastal GasLink pipeline to go through and there are a couple of Hereditary Chiefs that do not.
He believes some of the protestors are supporting something they don’t understand.
Referring to the pipeline, Brassard says it does create economic prosperity for the Wet’suwet’en people, not just for now but future generations.
“What we have seen is sympathy protests among other First Nations communities, but more so a group of people who have latched on this as their cause”
Brassard calls them anti-natural resource activists, anti-government activists and anti-everything activists.
He says they have shut down critical infrastructure without really understanding or perhaps wanting to understand what the Wet’suwet’en people want out of this.
In fact, the MP says they have asked a lot of the protestors to stand down, and he claims they recognize many of these people that are protesting are non-Indigenous.
“If anything, what people should be protesting is the Coastal GasLink project gets built quickly. The intent of the project is to export Canadian natural gas, cleaner energy to areas of the world that are using dirty thermal coal burning energy.” said Brassard.
He says the pipeline project has gone through a rigorous 10-year process and there has been consultation throughout the process by Coastal GasLink and the Wet’suwet’en people.
“All 20 elected band councils support this. Eighty-five per cent of the Wet’suwet’en people support this. The majority of Hereditary Chiefs support this. They know this provides economic prosperity for the First Nation communities and allows Canada to export clean and natural gas burning energy to countries that are currently burning thermal coal.”
Brassard believes the pipeline will play an international role in reducing greenhouse gas emissions by exporting clean natural gas.
