SUBMISSION BY GIDIMT’EN LAND DEFENDERS, WET’SUWET’EN NATION MILITARIZATION OF WET’SUWET’EN LANDS

In 2019 under the Early Warning and Urgent Action Procedure, the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) called upon Canada to urgently take a number of measures necessary to comply with legal obligations under the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD).10 The Committee called for Canada to halt work on the Coas. [...] In the case of the Wet’suwet’en, it affirmed that our Title is collectively held with the hereditary leadership as the proper rights holder and that the Baht’lats is the forum of Wet’suwet’en governance. [...] The “Reclaiming Power and Place: The Final Report of the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls,” calls on all government bodies and resource extraction industries to consider the safety and security of Indigenous women, girls, and 2SLGBTQQIA people, and for “governments and bodies mandated to evaluate, approve, and/or monitor development projects to complete gender-. [...] Canada and BC must withdraw the RCMP and associated policing and security services from our territory, and must immediately halt construction and suspend all permits for the construction of the CGL pipeline, in compliance with the CERD Recommendations. [...] 35(1) of the Constitution Act, 1982 states “The existing aboriginal and treaty rights of the aboriginal peoples of Canada are hereby recognized and affirmed.” 4 According to the UN Special Rapporteur on adequate housing, “The right to housing prohibits forced evictions as a gross violation of human rights, in line with the Declaration [on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples], which prohibits the forc.