Canadians divided on pipeline protests

Opinion

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This article was published 20/02/2020 (1784 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

ROAD and rail line blockades in support of the hereditary chiefs of the Wet’suwet’en First Nation in British Columbia have been up for weeks now. While the blockades have both caused disruption and drawn media attention for some time, this week brought real-world economic consequences as Via Rail announced roughly 1,000 employees would be temporarily laid off work.

With rail travel ground to a halt, there was little for the Via employees to do but wait out the conflict. Propane and consumer-goods shortages may be on the horizon.

Blocking roads and railways is designed to both draw attention to First Nations’ concerns and generate pressure on governments to address those concerns. What, if any, effect are the blockades having on public opinion?

This week, Ipsos and Global News released the first poll addressing Canadians’ views on the blockades. The results are a mixed bag for both Indigenous protesters and the government.

Most importantly, a majority of Canadians disapprove of the blockades. When asked whether they thought shutting down roads and rail lines constituted “justified and legitimate protests,” 61 per cent of those surveyed disagreed. The results appear to be related to age, with younger respondents more open to the legitimacy of these blockades. Older Canadians, in contrast, are more likely to disapprove.

Thinking the blockades are unjustified is one thing, but it is quite another to think that they should therefore be taken down by force. Doing so would likely result in violence, which calls to mind the shooting deaths of Indigenous protester Dudley George during the 1995 Ipperwash standoff and a Quebec police officer during the 1990 confrontation at Oka.

The question is whether Canadians remember these episodes or if both, now more than a quarter of a century old, have faded into history.

The answer is mixed. When asked whether they support “police intervention” to take down the blockades, a majority of Canadians (53 per cent) agreed. That number is likely higher than many would have thought. Nevertheless, just under half of Canadians would not approve of police action to break the blockades, despite that a comparably high number disapprove of them.

This makes sense when other responses to the Ipsos poll are taken into account. When asked whether the federal government must act now to raise Indigenous Canadians’ quality of life, fully 75 per cent of respondents agreed. While many Canadians do not approve of blockades as a tactic, they agree that some of the concerns raised via the blockages are legitimate.

This ambiguity — disapproval of blockades but concern about some of the problems confronting First Nations — has left a lot of room for the federal government to continue to negotiate. There is no need for the federal government to immediately shut down the blockades and risk another Ipperwash or Oka, and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau knows this.

Thus, when Trudeau rose in the House of Commons earlier this week to address the blockades, he did not give Canadians much to sink their teeth into. He committed himself to dialogue with the protesters and mutual respect. “Our government will continue to work night and day to peacefully find a solution.” Then, in a reference to Ipperwash and Oka, Trudeau noted “In the past, we have seen just how quickly these situations can change.”

In his response to Trudeau’s speech, Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer stood with the Canadians who support police intervention, condemning “radical activists” and their “illegal blockades,” and calling for the imposition of “the rule of law.” Trudeau’s response was to exclude Scheer from an all-party meeting of leaders to address the issue, saying Scheer “had disqualified himself with his unacceptable speech.”

Conservatives condemned the prime minister’s “word salad.” It’s likely Trudeau was speaking in general terms so as to allow himself maximum room and time to continue to negotiate with the Indigenous protesters. With public opinion divided but a reservoir of goodwill toward First Nations evident, Trudeau can negotiate rather than face the prospect of having to shut down the blockades and potentially triggering violence.

Can the prime minister and new Indigenous Services Minister Marc Miller bring about a peaceful resolution? Miller claims he sees a clear path forward to just such a resolution.

But Trudeau may find such an outcome elusive. Despite the prime minister’s enthusiastic embrace of the language of reconciliation, Indigenous leaders argue that little was achieved for First Nations communities during Trudeau’s first term in office. Even where his government has brought about successes, these have been on program issues related to education and infrastructure rather than on the land-rights issues that, in part, motivate these protests.

For Indigenous protesters invited into dialogue with the prime minister, it might be a case of “Fool me twice, shame on me…”

Royce Koop is an associate professor and head of the political studies department at the University of Manitoba.