Locals stand in solidarity with the Wet’suwet’en First Nation

By Taylor McClure, Special to The Record

Tuesday morning a group of masked protesters made their way to the train tracks located behind the Familiprix in Lennoxville to set up a railroad blockade in solidarity with the Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs in British Columbia. By the end of the day, Sherbrooke Police officers (SPS) were in the process of dismantling the protest and identifying those involved. According to SPS spokesperson Martin Carrier, the protest began at around 9 a.m. on Tuesday when a group of 19 protesters established a blockade along the train tracks on Samuel-Gratham Street in support of Canada’s Wet’suwet’en First Nation. The two train tracks are owned by the Canadian Pacific Railway and the St. Lawrence and Atlantic Railroad (Quebec). The blockade was a part of a nationwide movement in response to the TransCanada Coastal GasLink Pipeline project. The protests are concerning the location and construction of the pipeline on traditional unceded Wet’suwet’en territory. More recently, the RCMP enforced a court-injunction from the Supreme Court of British Columbia that granted the Coastal GasLink company access to the territory. See full story in the Wednesday, Feb. 26 edition of The Record.

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