Coastal GasLink Protesters Convicted After Pleading Guilty to Criminal Contempt Charges

The LNG Canada industrial energy project is seen under construction in Kitimat, B.C., on Sept. 28, 2022. (The Canadian Press/Darryl Dyck)

Five protesters involved in blocking access to the construction of a liquefied natural gas pipeline in northern B.C. last November have pleaded guilty to criminal contempt of court for defying a court order that forbade them from continuing with the blockade.

All five Coastal GasLink opponents were sentenced by Justice Michael Tammen at the B.C. Supreme Court on Dec. 12, resulting in a $500 fine for three of them, and 25 hours of community service for the other two, according to a CBC News report the same day.

Tammen delivered the sentence based on a joint submission from the Crown and defence lawyer Frances Mahon, which recommended that the judge allow the defendants to choose either to pay a fine or opt for community service.

Skyler Williams, Layla Staats, and Nina Sylvestor opted for the fine while Joshua Goskey and Amanda Wong went for service.

The five were part of a larger group of protesters who blocked access to the site where Coastal GasLink workers were constructing the 670-kilometre-long pipeline, according to an agreed statement of facts, obtained by the CBC. The RCMP arrested the five of them in November 2021.

Supporters of the Wet'suwet'en hereditary chiefs who oppose the Coastal Gaslink pipeline set up a support station at kilometre 39, just outside of Gidimt'en checkpoint near Houston B.C., on Jan. 8, 2020. (Jason Franson/The Canadian Press)

In a statement on Nov. 18, 2021, Coastal GasLink said blockades at Morice Forest Service Road, which provides access to the pipeline, left 500 workers stranded behind the blockade for almost four days without access to new supplies of water, food, and other essentials.

If completed, the pipeline would transport natural gas from Dawson Creek in northeastern B.C. to Kitimat on the Pacific coast. In an update on Nov. 29, Coastal GasLink said the project has reached 80 percent completion, and the company “has installed more than 470 km of pipe across the 670-km route” to date.

The pipeline has the support of 20 elected First Nation governments along the route, including the elected governments of the Wet’suwet’en Nation and Haisla Nation. But it’s opposed by the Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs and environmental activists, whose protests against the pipeline spread to other parts of the country in early 2020, in many cases with protesters setting up blockades on railroads.

According to the agreed statement of facts, Crown prosecutor Tyler Bauman said the protests were accompanied by social media posts shared widely to indicate that Coastal GasLink had been “evicted” from the area.

The prosecutor added that the five accused “knowingly breached the injunction ... in a public way” when they refused to move away after an RCMP officer read them a short script detailing the terms of the order.