2020 Canadian pipeline and railway protests

From January to March 2020, a series of civil disobedience protests were held in Canada over the construction of the Coastal GasLink Pipeline (CGL) through 190 kilometres (120 mi) of Wetʼsuwetʼen First Nation territory in British Columbia (BC), including land that is not covered by historical treaties and subject to ongoing comprehensive land claims. Concerns of the protesters included Indigenous land rights, the actions of police, land conservation, and the environmental impact of energy projects on climate change.

Starting in 2010, the Wetʼsuwetʼen hereditary chiefs and their supporters made their opposition to the project known and set up a camp directly in the path of the Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipelines, a path similar to that which would later be proposed for the Coastal GasLink Pipeline. Northern Gateway was officially rejected in 2016, but the CGL project moved through planning, indigenous consultations, environmental reviews and governmental reviews before being approved in 2015. However, the approval of all the Wetʼsuwetʼen hereditary chiefs was never granted. In 2018, the backers of the pipeline project gave the go-ahead to the CA$6.6 billion project and it began construction. Access to the Coastal GasLink Pipeline construction camps in Wetʼsuwetʼen territory was blocked and the Coastal GasLink project was granted an injunction in 2018 to remove the land defenders. In January 2019, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) of British Columbia removed the blockades and CGL pre-construction work in the territory was completed. Subsequently, the blockades were rebuilt and Coastal GasLink was granted a second injunction by the BC Supreme Court in December 2019 to allow construction.

In February 2020, after the RCMP enforced the second court injunction, removing the Wetʼsuwetʼen blockades and arresting Wetʼsuwetʼen land defenders, solidarity protests sprang up across Canada.