Canadian Politics Today

Three independently-minded female Wet’suwet’en leaders have had enough of the attacks from a small group of activist-backed men, who claimed this spring to have “stripped” the hereditary chief titles given to the women by their families decades ago.

Now, the women are fighting back in court.

After years of mistreatment in their home communities, Theresa Tait-Day, Gloria George, and Darlene Glaim are speaking up, with powerful statements and stories about how they have been “unpersoned” 1984-style for merely trying to follow the will of their people. The experience has been traumatic for them, they say, describing how they have been shunned, insulted, demeaned, marginalized, and met with hostility for years ever since they decided to support a natural gas pipeline connecting Peace River country gas fields with Kitimat’s port, passing through their territory in the middle of northern BC.

The women provided sworn affidavits to support TC Energy Corp’s Coastal GasLink pipeline project, which was in court this week to ask the judge to extend an injunction preventing activists from harassing and impeding pipeline construction workers this summer.

They say a few male hereditary chiefs, propped up by activists intent on stopping the pipeline, had no authority to take away any of their hereditary titles. The female chiefs provided the court with details showing how the Wet’suwet’en political and cultural system functions, and why they cannot be “stripped” of their titles.