Coastal GasLink pipeline protesters avoid jail time

DAWSON CREEK, B.C. — Three Indigenous Coastal GasLink (CGL) protesters convicted of contempt of court will not go to jail so long as they do not breach the pipeline’s injunction again during the next year.

In Smithers on Friday, October 17th, B.C. Supreme Court’s Justice Michael Tammen ruled ordered a net 17-day sentence for Molly Wickham (also known by her Wet’suwet’en name Sleydo’), 12 days for Corey Jocko, a Mohawk from Akwesasne, Ontario, and nine days for Gitxsan member Shaylynn Sampson.

All sentences are suspended and include one-year peace bonds. Jocko, Sampson and Wickham are required to keep the peace and be of good behaviour, appear in court if required, report to a bail supervisor and perform 150 hours each of community work service with the Lax’yip Firekeepers, a Gitxsan youth organization.

The trio was convicted in January 2024, but failed to stay proceedings based on the alleged Charter of Rights and Freedoms breaches when they were arrested, detained and transported between November 19th to 23rd, 2021.

Last February, Tammen determined the charges would stick because of the trio’s “calculated, prolonged and well-organized attack on a court order.”

However, he found there were minor charter breaches by RCMP officers and that qualified the trio for reduced sentences.

On Octpber 15th, Crown prosecutor Paul Battin asked Tammen to sentence 44-year-old Wickham to 30 days, less eight days time served, for being a spokesperson and leader of the protest.

He also proposed 25 days, minus eight days time served, for 39-year-old Jocko and 20 days, minus six days time served, for 26-year-old Sampson.

Battin said any sentence they receive should be reduced by two to five days each after Tammen’s February decision.

In the end, Tammen agreed with the gross proposed amounts, but reduced each of their sentences as a remedy to the breach of their rights.

Their defence lawyer, Frances Mahon, wanted time served and community service work sentences. Alternatively, if Tammen wanted a custodial sentence, Mahon proposed house arrest instead of jail.

Battin told Tammen on October 15th that the sentencing was not about the opinions of Jocko, Sampson and Wickham, but instead the way they expressed those opinions: by acting in violation of a court order.

A day later, Mahon urged Tammen to consider the historical context of her clients’ moral blameworthiness, specifically how “colonization created the problem” faced by the Wet’suwet’en people in affirming title to their land.

The protest activity delayed, but did not stop, the completion of TC Energy’s 670-kilometre CGL pipeline from Dawson Creek to Kitimat’s LNG Canada plant. LNG Canada launched its first export shipment on June 30th.