RCMP used the anti-pipeline resistance at the Standing Rock reservation in 2016 to justify creating a unit in British Columbia to police similar opposition to the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion, newly released documents show.
Internal files, recently released to CBC News through access to information laws, show the RCMP cited the Sioux-led opposition as “supporting evidence” when creating the force’s Community-Industry Response Group (C-IRG).
Six years later, C-IRG tactical operations on Wet’suwet’en territory in northern B.C. and at Fairy Creek on Vancouver Island have sparked nearly 500 complaints and a systemic investigation by the force’s civilian review agency.
Then-Insp. Chuck McDonald’s proposal, called a “business case,” offers the earliest look at why the B.C. RCMP felt it needed
