Your CUSJ Board is monitoring key issues that are continually developing in the world and working with our partners to create pressure on government and other bodies on those issues. To see what issues we are working on, go to CUSJ Priorities.
Following are a few links to actions we have taken recently:
Action to protest new oil development in the Canadian Baie du Nord off Newfoundland shores.
Action with CAPE BC to protest the use of propaganda curriculum presenting natural gas as a green solution to climate change in British Columbia schools from Kindergarten to Grade 12. The curriculum was developed by Fortis.
Letter by Friends of the Earth to Minister Guilbeault (Federal Environment Minister) to request he close the loophole allowing single use plastics to continue to be manufactured in Canada and exported to other countries.
Letter from a coalition of NGO’s to a list of banks requesting that they meet with the Wet’suwet’en leadership for discussions about the Coastal Gas Link project and that without proper negotiated consent they stop financing the Coastal Gas pipeline.
And Our own Letter sent to:
November 20, 2021
Premier John Horgan
Mike Farnworth, BC Minister of Public Safety
Murray Rankin, BC Minister of Indigenous Relations
Sonja Furstenua, Leader of BC Green Party
Shirley Bond, Interim Leader of the BC Liberal Party
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau
Marc Miller, Minister of Crown Indigenous Relations
Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada, David Lametti
Jagmeet Singh, Leader of the New Democratic Party of Canada
Parliament Leader, Green Party of Canada, Elizabeth May
Leader of the Opposition, Erin O’Toole
It is with considerable alarm and concern that we are writing you. For the third time in less than two years, the RCMP is moving onto Wet’suwet’en territory with heavy machinery and arresting people, including Wet’suwet’en elders, a legal observer and two journalists. Further, they are blocking food and medical supplies to Wet’suwet’en homes.
On January 21, 2020, we wrote representatives of both federal and provincial governments, calling on governments to:
- Ensure there will be no violent enforcement of this injunction, and that there will be no removal of the Wet’suwet’en people from their own land.
- Withdraw the RCMP and associated security and policing services from Wet’suwet’en lands, in agreement with the most recent letter provided by the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimiation’s (CERD) request.
- Respect the Wet’suwet’en laws and governance system.
We reiterate this appeal. We condemn the violence of the RCMP and urge the governments of BC and Canada to stop this raid, to work toward a peaceful resolution that respects Wet’suwet’en sovereignty and to ensure the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples is upheld.
Sincerely,
Lynn Armstrong
President, CUSJ