Central Executive Committee 

March 2020

The YCL-LJC expresses full solidarity with the Wet’suwet’en Hereditary Chiefs, Wet’suwet’en people, and all those who spoke out for the right of self-determination and stood up against the RCMP invasion of their sovereign territory. Furthermore, the YCL-LJC stands in full solidarity with Indigenous resistance movements and recognizes that Indigenous nations (First Nations, Métis, and Inuit) have an unquestionable right to their land, territories, and resources. We also salute the initiative taken by young people to organise a solidarity school walk-out on March 4th.

The Canadian Crown has violated their own laws (sec 25, 35 CCRF), International law (UNDRIP), and Wet’suwet’en law, ‘Anuc niwh’it’en. The Wet’suwet’en have never ceded their sovereign title and rights over the 22,000 square kilometers of land, waters, and resources within their Territories. The Wet’suwet’en Hereditary Chiefs are the Title Holders, and maintain the authority and jurisdiction to make decisions on unceded lands. Free, prior and informed consent protocols are the inalienable right of all Indigenous nations (First Nations, Métis, and Inuit). 

Corporations seek profit with total disregard for the degradation of the environment and violence caused by ‘man camps’. The Wet’suwet’en are asserting their sovereignty to defend the land and water that is essential to continuing their way of life. This has outraged capitalists and sparked a broader movement for Indigenous sovereignty and for the protection of our environment.

The Wet’suwet’en resistance showcases the irrationality of oil and gas extraction. As Kinder Morgan withdrew from the TransMountain Expansion project knowing it would not be profitable with such low oil prices, the Government bought it back for an announced price of $4.5 Billion, an amount that keeps increasing steeply. This is a classic move of State Monopoly Capitalism: socialise the losses and privatise the profits.

On the long term, this project is equally irrational: instead of increasing tar sands extraction by over 600% (which would prevent Canada from reaching its COP21 CO2 reduction target), we should be investing these billions into greener, more sustainable energy. 

As an anti-imperialist, anti-colonialist youth organisation that struggles for socialism in Canada, the YCL-LJC stands with those who oppose the interests of profiteers. We express unwavering solidarity with the Wet’suwet’en nation’s resistance against the same corporations that destroy our environment and spur global war. Those corporations that seek to dispossess Indigenous peoples of their lands and territory in Canada also play a role in the plunder of Latin America, Africa and throughout the world in the interest of their shareholders.

We, as Young Communists recognize the Canadian state was built on Indigenous land and on the exploitation of the working class. Today, this formula remains the same. 

With this frontal attack by both the Federal and the BC NDP Government (which stands in strong favour of the development of the Coastal GasLink project despite being the first Province in Canada to make the UNDRIP as the main canevas for their relations to Indigenous nations), all hopes of a possible “reconciliation” between Canada and Indigenous nations, one of Trudeau’s main promises, are now out of the question.  When the Canadian Crown talks of reconciliation, they mean making Indigenous Law compatible with capitalism, and ultimately finishing their genocidal project for assimilation. For “reconciliation” between nations in Canada to be meaningful, the Canadian state must fundamentally recognize and respect Indigenous sovereignty and self-determination, up to and including the right to secede.

Wet’suwet’en struggles are today’s strongest reminder that Canada is a country of many nations none of which, except for English-Speaking Canada, are guaranteed their inalienable right to self-determination.This is at the core of capitalist exploitation, and fighting for national equality is fundamental to achieve the class unity necessary to build socialism in Canada.