 Good afternoon, everyone. I really want to thank everybody first for for making time to be a part of this important webinar. I happen to be out Richmond so I need to acknowledge them in the traditional territories of the Musqueam peoples, unceded territory, and I'm really grateful that we're able to gather as many concerned citizens of the like mind to make a stand to stand up and demand that the environment be respected in its fullest context and to not be distracted by the modern-day beads and trinkets that the federal government wants to bring out to First Nations people and I think that what they're doing is they're capitalizing on poverty and exploiting a situation that they themselves have created and it is going to take a strong measure of reconciliation amongst First Nations and Canadians to stand united and to continue on with the struggle that we have to put a stop to this madness, this this kinder Morgan twinning and the fact that it is just simply unwelcome in far too many places but I'll keep my comments brief. I want to introduce Mr. Josh Patterson from the BC Civil Liberties Union and he's going to provide us with the legal update. Thank you very much Chief Chamberlain. I just want to make sure my slides are coming up there. So I'm really happy to speak to all of you here online from Vancouver and Unceded Coast Salish Territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh nations. Haichka, thank you for the introduction, for the welcome. I want to thank the Union of BC Indian Chiefs and stand and acknowledge Chief Bob Chamberlain for the extraordinary leadership that he provides not only to his nation and to indigenous nations throughout the lands known as BC and Canada through the Union but also to settlers. The Union and Chief Chamberlain are always there speaking, educating, holding out a hand to others even as they put their feet down to protect people's rights and I really want to thank Chief Chamberlain for having us here today to speak. I'm going to have to go pretty quickly after the Q&A is done for child care reasons so please don't take offense if I'm moving rather quickly. What slide have we got up there? I can't actually see. Oh, we can move to my next slide. Thanks, I guess I'm gonna have to say that. The information that we're going to be providing today is in general in nature. It's not going to answer all your questions. It's not going to apply to every case and it's also not legal advice and shouldn't be relied on in any legal proceeding. I want people to be aware that there may be police who are monitoring the conversations here today. We know for a fact that police have undertaken monitoring and surveillance of these very kinds of conversations before and so anyone who's speaking today should expect that that might be true today too. If we can advance my slide to the next one. The purpose today is to talk about your rights when you're using your freedom of expression, your freedom of assembly to participate in lawful and democratic protest activity. We want you to know what your rights are so that you can make informed decisions. For the BCCLA today our purpose is not to promote any particular view and it's certainly not to promote or encourage any kind of action. No matter what side of an issue you fall on or what actions you take you have rights and we're going to talk about what some of those rights are today. Next slide please. The workshop today is going to deal with the laws of Canada and British Columbia but I want to acknowledge that Indigenous laws continue to operate on the land and just because I'm focusing on on the laws of Canada here it doesn't mean that there aren't other laws that are operating and that need to be paid attention to. So the law of protest in BC. I'm briefly going to cover a few topics today. The first is injunctions and injunction zones. The second is what are your rights upon arrest. The third is what kinds of charges might be related to protest and demonstrations and the fourth is civil lawsuits against demonstrators. I have a longer version of this presentation that talks about a lot more things to do with your rights when you're dealing with police, whether you have to talk to them, what you have to do if you're being searched, all kinds of different things. I can't cover that all today. There are some other resources on the next slide that do talk about those things in detail. One is on the right the BCCLA's arrest handbook which can be found and downloaded online. It's a few years old but basically is still accurate. And then if you google for the guide to the law of protest in BC you will find a publication by Leo Magrady which covers in much more detail everything that I'm going to be talking about today and a whole lot more. So starting straight in on injunctions and injunction zones. An injunction is a court order to stop interference with the legal rights of a person or a company or the government. They're a very powerful tool and in many ways they've become the preferred tool for companies and governments to try and put an end to protests, to demonstrations, to occupations, to tent cities in relation to homelessness, and to labor disputes. They aren't given automatically. They can only be given when a company sues someone first. And so if people remember back in 2014 when a number of activists on Burnaby Mountain were sued there couldn't have been an injunction or an injunction zone unless someone had been sued unless there was a legal action being taken. So first a company has to sue someone. They have to accuse someone of wronging them in an ongoing way. And then a court has to decide whether to grant an injunction and they hold a hearing for this. When they're holding that hearing, which won't be immediate, sometimes it'll be a week later, it'll depend on the availability of parties, it'll depend on the availability of lawyers. But when that hearing comes around they will assess the merits of a lawsuit. The first thing that they'll consider in deciding whether to grant an injunction is is there even any merit to this lawsuit to begin with? Is there a serious legal matter involved? So there's a hurdle that the person who's suing or the company who's suing has to meet. Then they have to figure out whether or not the company would suffer some kind of irreparable harm if the court refused to grant the injunction. And usually the fact that they will be losing some money is enough to show that they will suffer irreparable harm. And usually not a trivial quantity of money but it's you know probably a fairly well it'll depend but oftentimes these are fairly decent amounts of money that are alleged to be lost, particularly on larger industrial projects. Then the court has to assess which of the parties that either the company or the people the defendants being sued would suffer more harm from the injunction being granted or not granted. And if they decide in all the circumstances that it's the company who would suffer more harm then they may grant the injunction in favor of the company. When a court is making a decision about whether to grant an injunction they may also be assessing First Nations rights claims that come into play around granting the injunction. And there have been some cases recently or a few years ago I guess part of the Wetzowitun people a clan in the Wetzowitun people actually succeeded in stopping a forestry company from getting an injunction to stop them from taking action on the land because they said that they had Aboriginal rights and title in relation to that land and that in fact they would be harmed more if the injunction were granted than the company would have been harmed if the injunction were not granted. An injunction zone sometimes there will be a zone in an injunction that doesn't just say you can't do a certain thing but you can't be a certain place and that's actually what we saw on Burnaby Mountain for those who remember. There was a zone set up it was defined by geographic coordinates and there was a requirement in the court order that that be clearly marked and that everyone be able to know what that zone was that you were not allowed to cross. We're going to come back to the consequences of breaking an injunction in a moment but quickly are there any questions on an injunction or an injunction zone or wait a second hold on our to my host are we actually entertaining questions or not are just steaming through how's this how's this going to work? I think Josh that we wanted to hold for till the end of your presentation. Forgive me everyone we will hold to the end. So I'm going to come back to what happens if injunctions are broken and I'm going to talk about interactions with police. I'm not going to talk in tons of detail about it because I have a lot more to get to. There are three main reasons that police could approach you on on the street and this applies in the context of demonstration and actions as well. The first reason is they're just making conversation or they need your help with something. The second reason is that they're investigating you and they've decided to detain you in what's called an investigative detention and the third reason is that they're arresting you and the rights that you have as a person are as an individual related to the police vary in each of these circumstances. For today's purposes I'm going to talk about the first reason police are just talking to very briefly and then I'm going to skip to the third reason which is police are arresting you. The investigative detention piece is something I'm going to leave out but you can find out more about it in either of those two guides that I mentioned at the top of the presentation. So generally if police approach you do you have to identify yourself. If you're not under arrest you're just walking around or you're out somewhere you have to identify yourself. Generally under the law the answer is no you have no legal duty to identify yourself unless the police see you committing criminal offence. If the police demand your identity when you have they have not seen you committing an offence just because they feel like it or because they're suspicious or because they want to have a record of who is in a certain place you do have a right not to identify yourself. However it's important for everyone to make a practical choice about whether they want to identify themselves anyway. If you feel threatened if you feel like it might make the situation easier you might choose to identify yourself and really that's a decision that's up to you based on your safety and other considerations. You may want one of the considerations would be privacy and whether or not your name might be included in in certain records that later become searchable by law enforcement. It is illegal however to give a false name address or fake ID to the police okay so don't do that because that could actually amount to abstraction of justice and something you could potentially be charged for. When you do have to give your name an address to the police is if you're being arrested if you're driving a car and mind you passengers don't have to provide this information but drivers do. If you're being given a ticket for breaking a city by law or any other law if you're being given an appearance notice to to show up at court or if you're being accused of trespassing under BC's trespass act so in all of those situations you do have to give your name an address and if you refuse to do so it could result in them deciding to charge you with with abstraction. Under BC law in the next slide there's some real background noise that I'm getting I don't know if someone's not muted there but just putting that out there. So under the police act in BC uniform police do have to identify themselves by law and have to wear a badge with their ID number or their name. The only exception is that senior officers don't have to wear those things. If the officer's identity is not clear you can ask an officer to identify themselves and of course you can photograph officers. If an officer is behaving improperly you may want to note their description, their height, their weight, their hair color, other distinguishing features in case you later need to identify them. Undercover officers do not have to identify themselves and if you suspect that there is an undercover officer in your midst we recommend that you do not try to expose that officer by shouting or by pointing because you could actually be charged with obstruction of justice for outing an undercover officer. If you believe that there's an undercover officer in your midst it's a better strategy generally to you know you can quietly let people know that you suspect someone may be an undercover officer so that people will be careful but you want to be really cautious about trying to to call them out. Now if they have their badge on they don't actually need to tell you their their name and sometimes at Burnaby Mountain I was getting questions from folks about well they'd officer would refuse to tell me their name or something like that but their badge number was clear on their uniform and so they don't actually have to if the identity is clear to you they don't actually have to tell you anything further about it. I move to the next slide now so what happens if you are getting arrested? In general in most protests in BC it's fairly rare for people to get arrested but of course it does happen and at Burnaby Mountain we saw a very large mass arrest for people who were being accused of breaching the injunction and you can only generally be arrested in a few circumstances. If there's a warrant out for your arrest you can be arrested without warrant if the police believe on reasonable grounds that you've committed or are about to commit an indictable offense which means a serious offense or if the police see you committing any kind of criminal offense whether serious or not they can also arrest you if you are breaching a court order using their common law power and not under the criminal code. Police have to tell you why you're being arrested unless it is obvious. You have the right to ask why you're being arrested so you can ask if you're under arrest you can ask on what charge they for what reason you're being arrested and again the police have to answer unless the answer is obvious and it's important if this happens to you to try and remember what it is that they say it can be very stressful of course if you're if you are being arrested or detained it's usually a fairly high stress moment for many people and it can be hard to actually remember and kind of think straight afterwards so if you are a witness to this happening and the police officers are giving information to your friend or a colleague or someone else that you're organizing with you can try and remember what it is that they say or to write it down because that may be helpful later. Everyone has a basic constitutional right to be informed promptly of the reason for their arrest. The next slide how will you know if you're under arrest well you'll know you're under arrest if the police tell you or if they make it clear that you aren't free to go by physically holding you. It's important we recommend to stay calm you do have to identify yourself police are allowed to conduct a full search of you and your personal property for evidence or weapons and it's important to cooperate fully with the arrest with the police if you are arrested because any resistance could result in further potential charges. You can go limp if you like the courts have said that that isn't resisting you don't have to help them in arresting you but you need to remember to do what's safe if you go limp it's going to be the police's responsibility to carry you or to move your body and you know that may not be safe even if police are making their best effort to keep you safe accidents can happen and you could be placed in in some danger and so you have to think very carefully about that. If you are taken to jail you have the right to appear before a judge or justice of the peace as soon as is reasonably possible within 24 hours. Now if you are arrested you should immediately ask to speak to a lawyer this is on my next slide. By the way there's no such thing as only one phone call you have the right to take appropriate steps to get in touch with a lawyer and beyond giving your ID information and your address you do have the right to say nothing complete first and last names complete address and date of birth are the only things that you actually have to provide anything else like they say on tv could possibly be used against you. So I'm going to skip to some of the common reasons for arrest. Civil contempt of court or criminal contempt of court that was the reason that people on Burnaby Mountain were arrested it's not a traditional criminal charge and the requirement is that a court order has to been breached the order had to have stated clearly and unequivocally what should and what shouldn't be done. The party who disobeys the order has to do it deliberately and willfully and the evidence must show that they disobeyed the order beyond a reasonable doubt. It's possible to be have fines levied against you or made against you it's even possible to be imprisoned for a civil and criminal contempt of court although it's rare but because imprisonment is one of the possible options in this kind of a proceeding you get all the kinds of procedural safeguards that you would normally get in the criminal trial. Criminal contempt as I said is pretty rare and it adds a fourth element in addition to the first three that there was an order that was clear that you disobeyed it willfully and that the contempt is shown beyond a reasonable doubt to have a charge of criminal contempt against you your conduct has to be so much in defiance of the rule of law and designed to interfere with the court's order that it would bring the administration of justice into scorn or disrepute and while this is rare it does happen Betty Krajcik was found guilty of criminal contempt of court because of her repeated disobeying of an injunction in relation to a forestry action back in like 2003 or so she just kept going back despite being ordered not to do so and the court said at the time that her conduct was open public continuous and flagrant disobedience it was staged and orchestrated with communication to the media for the purpose of dissemination to the public and without regard for the effect that her conduct might have on the respect accorded to orders of the court and so when you had in her case repeated disobeying of the law of the court's order accompanied by accompanied by a lot of publicity around it the court in that case found that she had committed criminal contempt and she was sentenced to imprisonment there are other things like breach of the peace if you're causing a disturbance that involves some potential for violence you can be apprehended for breach of the peace public intoxication pretty obvious if you are under the influence of alcohol or drugs if you commit mischief i'm going to run through these pretty quickly mischief is very wide-ranging and is often used it can include destroying damaging or rendering an operative any property or preventing or interfering with its lawful use so for example folks who bash things into trees to try and prevent them from using saws these types of things could be subject to mischief charges assault using force against another person directly which can include the threat of an assault and even just applying your hand to someone's arm without trying to hurt them can be an assault sometimes people can be charged with assault when they're resisting arrest so if they lash out or if they they kick or if they flail their arms out and it comes into contact with an officer you could actually be charged with assaulting an officer that's very serious indeed obstructing a police officer is another one anyone who willfully obstructs the police in the execution of their duty this can include things like getting too much in the way of the police sometimes photographers or videographers can risk this if they are getting too close to a situation in such a way that it interferes with the ability police to do their duty there are lots of different ways that people could be found or at least it could be accused of obstructing a police officer in these types of situations and so it's it's very important to be to be aware of that I'm going to skip ahead because I'm near the end of my time here to the next slide which is about civil liability so typically in a situation of where you're getting sued the company will ask the court for an injunction to get people to stop whatever it is they're doing that's what happened on Burnaby Mountain there are different things that they can accuse you of what people on Burnaby Mountain were accused of was interference with contractual relations so stopping the test drillers from from fulfilling their contract with Trans Mountain to drill and there were damages claimed to five point six million dollars for the time that would be lost and the money that would be lost trespass is another one nuisance those protesters were also accused in that lawsuit of the civil tort or the civil wrong of intimidation people will remember k.m face kinder Morgan face people were making faces and otherwise appearing menacing or so it was alleged that was thrown into the lawsuit too and these are pretty serious matters in addition of course being charged potentially charged with civil contempt if you breach the injunction that accompanies these lawsuits which a lot of people were charged with civil contempt of court and remember those court charges were all thrown out or if you don't remember I'll tell you now they were all thrown out because the company had screwed up where the line was in terms of the injunction zone Sven will remember about that I'm sure and can talk about that after I'm off the call but these torts can be fairly serious and they can tie people up with with lawsuits that cost them a lot of money to defend and so some of one of the persons from the kinder Morgan lawsuit had to take out a mortgage on their home in order to in order to pay for the pay for the costs people were spending tens of thousands of dollars in some cases people can wind up being on the hook for you know into the hundred thousands of dollars just for the for the legal fees never mind if there's ever a judgment against them and right now in BC and I don't have time to talk about it we don't have anti slap suit legislation or legislation that would allow for lawsuits to be easily thrown out when they're being brought for improper reasons just to shut people up or to stop them using their freedom of expression and so this issue of civil liability is a very serious one and you know the the kinder Morgan protesters who are being sued tried to have that suit thrown out and they were unable to get it thrown out it was eventually dropped but the court said look even if this is infringing on your your freedom of expression rights the company did actually lose some money here arguably because of the stuff that you were doing we haven't determined that yet but at least there's an argument to be made so no I'm not throwing the the case out and we're going to have to litigate it and so it's really something to think of the exposure to liability when you're contemplating the kinds of protest in which you engage and whether or not you might be exposing yourself to something that you don't expect I'll close my remarks on that I don't have very much time for question but but here I am anyways if you have any you can ask me Josh we've got a question from Kathleen I'm going to read it for you what are the ramifications of protests related charges in relation to international travel does it make a difference if the charge is civil versus criminal well that's a really tough question to answer so as an overall matter any of these kinds of charges whether or not they're ultimately dropped can create barriers for you when you're trying to cross borders all of the information in our police databases is able to be shared with us customs and border patrol officers both inland here at Vancouver airport and also on the US side of the land border and so it's really up to the United States what they choose to do with that they can decide as individual officers oh I don't really care about this or oh this wasn't that serious or they can decide that it's very serious and and decide not to let you into the United States so any of these things any of these things where you come into contact with the police have the potential to wind up in the hands of US customs and border control and we have no control anymore over what happens with that information when it's there so there's not a lot of comfort that I can give to folks about oh well it was only a civil thing or whatever if your name is coming up as getting arrested that can be trouble okay great and josh do you think you have time for one or two more sure okay um and then I think we're going to try to get other ones to you after um there are some great questions coming in does the state of emergency in BC affect uh arrests you mean in relation I guess we're talking in relation to the fires um I'm not sure I can dispose of that quickly I just don't know I don't know the answer to that I'm sorry okay great and that was from pranshu pranshu thank you for your question um can people defend them this is from terry can people defend themselves in lawsuits brought in the types of situations you describe uh if the question is can you defend yourself without a lawyer the answer is yes but it's extremely difficult um and all of these things that are being accused against you tend to have very technical elements to them um uh and it can be really really hard to successfully defend against them without counsel so it can be done but it's it's difficult okay great I'm going to give you just one more question and I have I see that a few people are raising their hands because josh is going to have to go in just a minute please do type your questions into either the chat or the questions area and we'll try to get some more questions um answered later so don't just raise your hand go ahead and type your question in so the system will record them for us um so last question for josh um jeremy is asking the bernaby rcmp said consent requires an affirmative can we ask the rcmp whether free prior and informed consent has been provided well you can ask them about that for sure um but it's not the rcmp's so the the federal government and the provincial government have obligations um under I would argue under the union the united nations declaration of the rights of indigenous peoples to respect free prior and informed consent and they have obligations under Canadian law to respect the constitutional rights of first nations but the crown would say the government would say it's not individual rcmp members jobs to adjudicate that on the spot they have to follow the orders that they're being given so if they're being ordered by a court to to remove people or told by a court that it's illegal for people to be in a certain place they have discretion as to whether or not they're going to move in on a certain day or what they're going to do they don't necessarily have to go in and make arrests but it's not really up to them as individual officers to make decisions for themselves about about what they're going to do in relation to whether or not indigenous rights have been respected now in my saying this i'm not condoning or saying that i think it's a good thing for government agents to act in violation of the crown's constitutional obligations not at all just that um you can ask them that question I wouldn't expect them to have a particular answer on it and I wouldn't necessarily expect it to uh affect the way that they're going to deal with you all right I literally have to go now to pick up my kid at a child care facility day camp where she needs to be picked up from I just can't stay any longer I'm happy to answer some other questions later and thank you very much I'm gonna close my computer now great thank you so much Josh and everyone everyone stay with us here and again um uh and we're going to bring Chief Chamberlain and and also Sven Biggs in and if um did have a question for Josh please do remember to um type that into the chat or the questions area note that it's for Josh and we'll work on getting some of those questions answered after okay and um let's see I'm just going to see if we can get Sven's video going there we go okay great and wait I'm sorry will you remind me Sven I can't uh I have forgotten the order of our next part Bob uh this is the spot to give a pitch for the Coast Protectors Project if you wanted to do that now am I live now okay I'm quite excited to see that there's an excess of 200 people that are on this webinar uh the information that we just were provided was very useful in order for us to look after our rights and of course when I when I think of the Coast Defenders and I think of the numbers that we have amassed uh it makes for a very stark political reality for the federal and provincial governments and I believe that cities such as Burnaby and Vancouver and the provincial government recognize that but where we fall down or where where the message needs to be furthered is with the federal government and of course um the Union of Beast Indian Chiefs has a resolution very clearly opposing Kinder Morgan in the expansion standing in solidarity with the nations that are firmly opposed but as with any effort within any campaign uh there is always always always a need for resources and I know myself that I'll be contributing $20 to help this and I'm hoping that you know between all of us if we can find that uh that place within us to maybe not go to Starbucks and Tim Hortons for a week and save that little bit of money and put it towards this very incredibly important initiative to stop something that has the potential to impact generations of British Columbians Canadians First Nations and very long-term serious serious threats to our environment and for the 200 people that are on here I want to thank you especially for your concern for the environment I see it around the world now that people are turning to Aboriginal people and recognizing that our holistic views of lands territory and resources are indeed the path forward it's in stark contrast to western civilizations approach to trees are to be cut down and oil is to be sold and so on and so on but what we are facing now is actually the health and well-being of the very planet that we live on and I know that everybody that's involved on this webinar today realized there is no plan B for an earth to live on and so I really want to thank everyone for taking time to be here today and encourage you to speak to your family your friends your circle of influence and let's keep some resources and come again so this important work can continue thank you very much thank you so much Chief Chamberlain my name is Sven Big and and I want to begin my little presentation here by acknowledging that I am on the the territory of the Bosquean Swarovitz and Squamish peoples here in Vancouver I'm going to update folks a little bit on what's going on Kinder Morgan's construction plans what's happened with the provincial government recently and some upcoming court cases about Kinder Morgan and then we'll open it up and Chief Chamberlain and I will try to answer some of your questions about what's going on with Kinder Morgan and we will also follow up this webcast with resources there'll be a video of everything so you can watch Josh's slide show again and go through that presentation and those two resources that he mentioned in his presentation the arrest guide and the the other information about about your legal rights in that situation so we've heard a lot in the media going all the way back to May with Kinder Morgan announced they had the financing in place for their pipeline that they were planning to start construction on September 1st of this year and according to a construction schedule they filed with the National Energy Board what that's going to look like is in September they'll begin work on the tanker terminal in Burrard Inwood right across from the Swelliches community they're going to start working on expanding the tank farm that they have as of their current tank farm on Burnaby Mountain they also have plans to begin their tunneling operation under the mountain itself and they're going to start constructing equipment and supply depots all along the road stretching from Vancouver all the way to Edmonton they've continued to kind of raise the the tension around this just last week they announced that they had identified a contractor for the lower mainland section of the pipeline that's a consortium of two major construction companies QIT and Leadcore for folks who are on the call that are part of the labor movement you'll be interested to know that both of those companies hire workers through CLAC or the Christian Labor Alliance of Canada which isn't part of the mainstream labor movement and in fact it works with employers to undermine the rights of their workers and we've been told that it's most likely that CLAC will represent workers on the Kinder Morgan pipeline and there's even a potential that the companies will bring in temporary foreign workers to do the construction work amongst the kind of labor rattling that we've seen from Kinder Morgan around construction stuff they've even in response to the the bc government's recent announcement of their first steps to address the threats of the of the pipeline we saw them even in their statement in response to that say that they were going ahead with construction on September 1st so they've been very clear in the media that that's their plan however we think the announcement from the bc government really changes the playing field around construction and the timeline so it was just two weeks ago now that bc's new attorney general david ebe and minister of environment and climate change strategies george heyman announced the first steps that their government are going to take to protect bc's coast and interest around the Kinder Morgan pipeline we think the most important part of that announcement was saying that Kinder Morgan had not met key conditions that are part of the permit that christie clark issued to the company when it comes to consulting with first nations without meeting these construct these conditions construction cannot begin on the pipeline this is a result i guess of a long-standing process practice and industry of just doing the bare minimum on consultations which is often called tick box consultations with first nations and indigenous people and governments of all political stripes turning a blind eye to that practice and allowing companies to get away with not needing their their the requirements that they have under the constitution and the permits that issued by government so we think it's a it's a strong signal that uh this our new government is going to enforce the law around this kind of consultation and we're really pleased to see that that change beginning to happen in our provincial government it's really important to know that that doing a proper consultation is going to take months it is not a short term or brief uh making phone calls to banned officers what we've seen in the past so this is really a a a serious break on construction um we have also as part of that announcement the bc government hired former supreme the supreme court of bc chief justice thomas burger to act as their new lawyer on uh legal issues relating to kinder Morgan um thomas burger is probably best known for his work leading with the kenzie valley pipeline inquiry he's also considered to be one of the pioneers of enshrining the rights of indigenous people in canadian law so and from our opinion he's uh probably one of the best possible people to to take on this job and we'll be watching closely to see what kind of legal strategies he comes up with with the province and how they're implemented um and then just yesterday um as one of the first at his act uh thomas burger filed paperwork with the federal court of appeal to intervene in the legal challenges that have been brought by first nations and environmental groups and cities against the project um we think the this kind of package from the province is a really good first step and um we need to keep up the pressure on them to to make more steps in this direction but we're we're pleased with the direction that they're headed in for for now um so that takes us uh to the legal challenges that are going on right now there are 19 different legal challenges against the permits that have been issued for the kinder morgan pipeline and by far the strongest comes from first nations um it was just announced last week we have uh court dates for the federal challenges um they're gonna going to start on october second of this year and once they're the 12th in the federal court here in vancouver um ultimately it's these kind of cases brought by first nations that stock emberges northern gateway pipeline so we have a lot of hope for these cases however they're incredibly expensive and it's a huge burden for the first nations that are bringing these court cases to have to to make they have to literally choose between uh putting money into these kind of trials and paying for lawyers and providing services to their communities in some cases so it's a lot to ask them to do um because of that uh the environmental community has come together and launched our fundraiser called pull together you can find it online at pulltogether.ca we've already raised half a million dollars through this um we the goal is is 600 000 so we're close but we yet need to raise more and um but even then we're just beginning to kind of scrape the barrel a case like this if it goes all the way to the supreme court it cost each nation involved over a million dollars so more needs to be done to support those nations um that that is the kind of where we're at we feel pretty strongly that uh kinder morgan is going to try to continue to kind of bluff around construction uh and we need to prepare both to to stand up to them on the ground and uh to support first nations and other folks fighting them in the courts um and I think we're ready for your questions take a look got a bunch uh here that are probably better for a lawyer um but I see uh somebody here they're asking about a construction camp near valmont um so this is one of those camps that that I mentioned that we were expecting to see in september if they go ahead at this point though they would be in violation of provincial law they did that all right and uh Sven this is Ann we brought uh chief chamberlain's video back up and chief chamberlain you're still muted though we should unmute you there you go perfect thank you so if there are other questions about what's going on okay here I see a question from the moron are there plans to pick it the advertising and production companies with CNS with KM Contractors Association energy company propaganda with hong gree watching um there aren't currently uh anybody that I know planning to target the folks making those ads although that's an interesting point of view what we've really found is that uh by mobilizing on social media and organizing ourselves the best way to push back uh and coast protectors is a great part of that so if you haven't already taken the coast protector pledge we encourage you to to go to coastprotectors.ca and take the pledge and we'll keep you in the loop about what's going on and how to how to get more involved as we move forward so I see a question here uh interview is bernaby going to be a hot spot at least initially for this protest um I mean based on the construction the schedule um it it absolutely is going to be a hot spot um one of the key things to get this project done on time which kind of morgan needs to do to satisfy their investors is to start the tunnel under bernaby mountain on september 1st currently we don't believe that can legally happen uh but kind of morgan seems willing to at least um is at this point bluffing like they're going to go ahead with or without permits um which is a pretty dangerous thing to be doing so um I think folks in bernaby uh should be thinking about uh how to how to get organized um but we also are uh are uh going to be looking for communities all along the pipeline right to be standing up and we know that there are folks organizing in the indigenous and non-indigenous community bob is uh did you want to jump in on any of these well there there's quite a range of questions here and i'm thinking you know like the the one that I see from robert about uh oh my gosh where did it go there's quite a list what the reasonable scenario you know when I consider what's going on in in canada right now where we have the federal government taking on the 10 principles for reconciliation with first nations and of course that is taking a backward look at different legislation and processes and laws which are not consistent with the rights and title or the court of case law that's supposed to guide them and so I'm curious to see just how quickly uh the results of this federal initiative are going to be and I'm also quite focused on how well this uh the coalition of the provincial NDP and the provincial green party do and embracing new and declaration of rights indigenous people of course when you consider the division of power from the constitution between canada and the province the look examine and understand how is it that first nations free part consent is going to be folded into that decision making in the province and at the federal level uh to meet with uh mr eiford when he did his work for the previous government and I suppose to him I said well if we're going to have a pipeline I said we have to be cognizant of the reconciliation direction from the from the supreme court of canada and of course that's not in my mind so simply focused on the government's relationship with first nations but first nations relationship with themselves as well as with British columbians and I had suggested to him at that time at a couple of his meetings that from the source of the pipeline to the end of the pipeline that they coordinate uh workings of all the first nations whose territories are affected or potentially affected uh vis-a-vis uh oil spills which of course we know will happen it's not a question of if the oil spill will happen the question of where and what I proposed was having a harmonizing of some measure of land use planning and economic development visions for each nation's territory you can understand each other's priorities and and pursuits but as I see it now the the free prior and informed consent seems to be going with the majority of first nations are the ones that are are most vocal or finding favor uh with the government and of course I'm mindful of the work that's been going on on the uh management and oversight committee of first nations but I was quite surprised to see the minister announce that that was one of the big reasons that kinder Morgan got approved and of course so that represents a group of first nations coming together and expressing opinion but it doesn't take into account the rights of those people that stand opposed and certainly the UN declaration on the rights of indigenous people does not say free prior and informed consent only if you're in a majority um it talks about free prior and informed so the slave would says I think not I think I know that their rights need to be respected their wishes need to be embraced they have an answer for free prior and informed consent but what we're witnessing right now with this being approved by the federal government is what I've always said about consultation processes I believe that Canadians want things to be fair they want it to be just and to have adequate processes I have yet to counter myself for many leaders at all that can say that the consultation process with government has ever led to a meaningful stopping of an initiative supported by either crown and industry and so that's what I always say to people that say f pic or free prior and informed consent does not represent it counter-argument to that is consultation has always led to the answer yes or very just it's all but I do believe that we need now is an effort to bring First Nations together along the school or service engagement really arrive at free prior and informed consent that represents everybody's indigenous rights thank you thank you Chamberlain we have another question here for you can you tell us what you think about the potential for the federal government to expropriate First Nations land for the Kinder Morgan pipeline well the concern that I've always had when I hear the government speak about major resource development of course is when they talk about it being in the national interest and when I think when I believe when I hear those words spoken by any level of government that of course is national it's federal that in their minds gives them the authority to override anything and everything and I know that today when you drive down the highway or when you see perhaps unfavorable components of major projects you find them on reserve and so the government has zigzagged in the past to make sure that they land on reserve land but I think with the changing landscape today around the UN Declaration on Rights Indigenous people I think that not I think I know that First Nations would stand up and be vehemently opposed if there's going to be an expropriation of reserve lands if there's going to be laying down of things which is completely unwelcome in our territories and as I stated in the previous webinar that I don't think there's a First Nation in Canada top priority for economic development is I want a pipeline through my territory put everything at risk that we rely on and where I draw my identity from there are ones that accept it as inevitable but there is still the same resolve among many many First Nations and British Columbians and Canadians that just simply don't want to see this project go ahead that the risks far away the benefits and I don't believe the technology has advanced to the point now where we can have any measure of comfort in terms of this being a six successful building this project thanks we've got a couple of questions here from folks about banks and boycotts folks might not know that Kinder Morgan is as a company not doing that well financially and they needed to go out and borrow almost all of the 7.4 billion dollars to build this pipeline and the vast majority of that has come from Canada's Big Five Bank in particular the Toronto Minions that's paid a big role in financing this project and we saw earlier this year some work from STAN but also from the Treaty Alliance against tar sands expansion this the Union of BC and the Indians chooses a key player in and lead now and some other groups working to put pressure on Toronto Dominion to stop funding these kind of projects I think we're going to see more of that in the next little while and people should look out for from us and from other folks to get updates on how we can put pressure on the banks that are are funding these projects and making them possible to to go ahead um all right I see we've got a question here uh from about the C-51 and how that affects potential protesters Chief Chamberlain I know you the organization did a little work on C-51 do you have any thoughts on how it might impact this particular project well I think with Bill C-51 I mean it lands squarely in that that area that the federal government is going to be reviewing in relationship to respecting of Aboriginal rights as defined in the Constitution again like myself like many leaders and many Canadians are are now awaiting the outcome of the work of the federal government in modifying or or doing away with various pieces of legislation that the Stephen Harper government thought was very beneficial I'm believing that the Liberal government is going to be while I'm remaining hopeful that there's going to be a thorough and comprehensive analysis with a thorough and comprehensive response I do know that it wasn't the first out the gate it hasn't been as positive as we had hoped but I think that the continued pressure in the voice of Canadians needs to be heard I've stated many times if there's one thing that's incredibly sacred to every politician that you vote and so if we can organize and make sure that we have a large scale as large as we can make it I mean we all have different circles of influence and to ensure that we have the communication and public statements and twitter and facebook and so on just to make sure that that the message is out there Sven I see a question here from Don Morrison about the collective land use planning I'd like to answer to I know that when we start to consider land use planning I know myself as a First Nation leader when we've discussed this and envisioned this it would have to include all of our hereditary chiefs it would need to include our community it needs to include people beyond the reserve boundaries and I believe now that when we start to react or respond to the challenge from minister Jody Wilson-Raybould about who are the appropriate title holders for our territories that we have to begin those discussions for ourselves within our communities of course that begins with talking with our families and making sure that the council is responsive to those situations so I would like to see and what I propose to Mr Eifford is that we look at all the land use plans because now we can view those not simply as a tool to engage with the provincial government but actually can be viewed as an expression of a First Nations interest or what they wish to see within their title lands and of course that is then supported by the Chilcotin where our lands are territorial in nature it then also responds to the UN Declaration of Rights Indigenous people and as been mentioned by the federal government this commitment now from the feds and the provincial government on UN DRIP squarely puts the ball back in our court to prepare ourselves to make sure that we have the proper mechanisms in place and the appropriate governance structures to ensure that our membership or what gets spoken by leaders is in fact representative of all the membership not just ones that are on and off reserve so Dawn I hope that I hope that answers your question. Okay I see a question here from Trevor seeking some clarification around the QIT led core contracting and then using CLAC as the employee representative we've actually been in touch with the DC building trade and it it's based on their information that we believe these jobs will likely be through CLAC. We are at one o'clock just a little over so I'm going to ask Chief Chamberlain for some closing thoughts and then we'll wrap up we're hoping to hold more webinars like this as this issue heats up over the fall so please look out for invites in your inbox and if we didn't answer some of your questions feel free to reach out to us by email and we'll do our best to get back to you and answer all. Okay well Ben thank you for for your assistance on this important webinar today and I'm again I can't say it enough I want to thank everybody that's taken the time to to be a part of this and become more informed of how it is that you can actively participate and that always be mindful of your own individual rights just as Aboriginal people are very mindful of our Aboriginal rights. If there's one thing I'd like to leave everybody with is the fact that on September 9th at 1pm at the Vancouver Art Gallery organized by climate convergence there is going to be the answer is still no and it's going to be a rally of course that's going to be focused on the topic at hand I'm going to review my calendar and I'm really hoping that I have that time open so I can be there but I very much encourage everybody to make time and whether it's on September 9th at 1pm at the Vancouver Art Gallery or wherever these things are going to be held is that we show up in numbers we ensure are as broad a group as and representative of British Columbians can be there so we can have that message and I encourage everyone that's on this webinar to find ways to support First Nations in terms of advancing our vision for our lands and title and to become knowledgeable of the 10 principles of reconciliation which the federal government is pursuing because that is going to be where justice is found for First Nations and it's going to be able to put us in a place where we are going to be able to speak to our territories and I think that by and large we're finding a lot of unity with Canadians and protection of the environment so thank you very much for this opportunity