RCMP reactivated list of flagged activists days before Trans Mountain decision, papers show

Days before Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced a initial capitulation for a Trans Mountain pipeline, a RCMP reactivated a clearly asleep list of Indigenous rights activists deemed intensity “criminal threats,” inner RCMP emails and papers show. 

An RCMP comprehension initiative called Project Sitka, that resolved in Mar 2015, identified 89 people — Indigenous and non-Indigenous — that a Mounties dynamic were “willing and able of utilizing wrong tactics” during Indigenous rights protests, according to a documents, that embody memos, emails and reports, provided to CBC News. 

The RCMP launched Project Sitka to get a hoop on Indigenous rights-related demonstrations that flared opposite a country, including Idle No More, from Dec 2012 until a finish of 2013. The RCMP wanted to brand specific activists who had been arrested, arrested and charged and convicted, emanate profiles and links to organizations opposite a country. After probing some-more than 300 activists, a RCMP came adult with a list of 89 during a finish of a comprehension project.

The papers display reactivation of a list were obtained by Miles Howe, a informative studies PhD claimant with Queen’s University, by a Access to Information Act.

Please yield any updates to Project Sitka’s list of disruptive and flighty subjects from particular divisions– Eric Stubbs in email to all RCMP divisions

The Sitka list had not been updated for over a year when a comparison officer sent a ask to groups opposite a republic for new information to supplement to a existent profiles, days before Trudeau’s Nov 2016 announcement.

“We would like to refurbish and, if required, supplement to objector profiles opposite all groups to support front-line operations in responding to open sequence events during protests,” pronounced a Nov. 23, 2016, email from Chief Supt. Eric Stubbs, who was then-director ubiquitous of National Criminal Operations and Contract and Aboriginal Policing. 

“Please yield any updates to Project Sitka’s list of disruptive and flighty subjects from particular divisions….”

Six days later, on Nov. 29, 2016, Trudeau announced his supervision had given a initial capitulation for a Trans Mountain pipeline, that was owned by Kinder Morgan during a time, and for Enbridge’s Line 3. 

Trudeau also announced a supervision had deserted Enbridge’s Northern Gateway pipeline.

Roughly dual weeks before Trudeau’s announcement, a RCMP’s superintendent obliged for National Security Criminal Operations met with officials from a Canadian Security Intelligence Service, Natural Resources Canada and Justice Canada to plead “timelines for tube decisions,” according to a Nov. 14, 2016, email contained in a documents. 

The RCMP was also gripping a tighten eye on anti-Trans Mountain protests during a time. On Nov. 14, 2016, an email circulated inventory a series of anti-Trans Mountain vigils designed opposite a republic that was slated for Nov. 21.

Howe pronounced it’s transparent from a papers that a RCMP reactivated a list of 89. 

‘Ongoing, updated executive list’

“It appears it is an ongoing, updated executive list,” pronounced Howe, who performed apart RCMP files display his name came adult during Project Sitka, though was not combined to a list.

Howe was concerned in Mi’kmaq-led anti-shale gas protests in 2013, though was never convicted of any crimes connected to a demonstrations. 

The RCMP pronounced in a matter final week a inhabitant rapist comprehension zone no longer maintains a list. 

“The RCMP does not now say a list of protester profiles associated to any form of open proof as partial of a inhabitant rapist comprehension functions,” pronounced a statement.

“The RCMP collects and analyzes information as it relates to rapist activity, regardless of ethnicity, and prepares assessments to surprise RCMP supervision and front-line military officers about rising threats.”

Project recommended maintaining activists list

Project Sitka had endorsed that Indigenous rights protests be reclassified alone from their previous categorization underneath a terrorism-extremism powerful since of their singular chronological roots in unused land claims and rights issues. 

It also endorsed that RCMP groups say and feed into a executive database of activists deemed intensity rapist threats that would be accessible to front-line officers confronting Indigenous rights protests. 

The email trade shows that a RCMP were dealing with Sitka on dual marks in Nov 2016, pronounced Jeffery Monaghan, an associate highbrow of criminology during Carleton University who performed a strange Sitka report, along with researcher Andy Crosby, in 2016 underneath a Access to Information Act.  

On one track, comparison officers, including submit from then-RCMP commissioner Robert Paulson, were drafting media lines in response to a news news about a project, perplexing to play down Sitka by emphasizing a plan was over and that it did not aim Indigenous people, he said. 

On a other track, officers concerned in sovereign policing were relocating to reactivate elements of Sitka as a sovereign supervision prepared to announce a initial capitulation of Trans Mountain, he said.  

“These meetings are function about tube announcements,” pronounced Monaghan.

“They motionless that it competence be worthwhile, all of a sudden, out of a blue, re-kickstarting it and updating these profiles … that is too most to simply be a coincidence.”

The email thread starts when Stubbs was tasked by a emissary commissioner on Nov. 9, 2016, to yield superiors with an refurbish on Sitka, according to inner emails. 

The ask came a day after Aboriginal Peoples Television Network reported on a existence of a Project Sitka comprehension plan that combined a list of activists.

Stubbs seemed misleading about a standing of a list and wrote in an email that he was surprised to find out his section was obliged for progressing a list, that hadn’t been updated in months. 

“Yesterday, there was an essay in a media about this. Now, we’re looking during a project. … It doesn’t seem that most has been finished to say a list,” wrote Stubbs. 

“Deputy commissioner … is seeking to be updated on a plan … Can we strew some light on where this went when it came to us? we find it peculiar that we would take this on given a miss of infrastructure in a unit.”

Stubbs perceived a response observant that “divisions were ostensible to continue to feed into a file.”

Told media Sitka did not ‘target Indigenous protests’

The RCMP afterwards perceived a series of media requests about Sitka and began building media lines and breeze responses to give to sovereign ministers in doubt duration about a project. 

A Nov. 15, 2016, email thread shows that a media response went by Paulson’s office, who requested a specific line be combined that finished adult during a tip of a final media statement. 

“Sitka was designed in sequence to apart and strengthen a people’s elemental right to criticism and to yield a ability for a military to examine rapist conduct,” pronounced a initial line. 

The matter also said the RCMP “did not privately aim Indigenous protests” and that “Project Sitka is now concluded.”

At a same time, emails uncover that comparison RCMP officers continued to plead and accommodate on relocating on some of Sitka’s recommendations. This led to a preference to emanate a division-wide ask for information to refurbish a Sitka list of flagged activists. 

The diction of a request, that was sent out by Stubbs, was drafted with submit from Supt. Marie-Claude Arsenault with a National Intelligence Co-ordination Centre, according to an email thread that ran between Nov. 21-22, 2016. 

“We contingency have a transparent summary that a concentration is on Aboriginal protests (not Aboriginal protesters) as per Sitka’s objectives,” wrote Arsenault on Nov. 21. 

Project Sitka was led by a National Intelligence Co-ordinating Centre with support from what was afterwards famous as Community and Aboriginal Policing in 2014. The concentration for a comprehension centre that mercantile year was “Aboriginal open sequence events,” according to a lecture note contained in a documents. 

Many activists from B.C.

The prior year had seen a Idle No More Indigenous rights transformation brush a republic followed by anti-shale gas protests in New Brunswick around a Mi’kmaq First Nation of Elsipogtog, that saw several RCMP vehicles set on glow during one clash.

The RCMP had no centralized routine for traffic with Indigenous rights protests during a time after disbanding a Aboriginal Joint Intelligence Group in 2010, according to a lecture note.

Of a 89 people identified in a Sitka report, 16 came from British Columbia and several on a list were also connected to a stay set adult by a Wet’suwet’en nation to retard pipelines from channel their territory. 

Last January, a RCMP arrested 14 people in B.C. after raiding a fortified checkpoint set adult by Wet’suwet’en republic members opposite a Coastal GasLink healthy gas pipeline. 

Monaghan pronounced a Sitka list was designed to be accessible for front-line officers traffic with Indigenous rights protest. He pronounced a criteria a RCMP used to place people on a list might over-dramatize a tangible hazard an romantic poses. 

“Their analysis of sensitivity or disruptive has to do with what they call background, proclivity and tongue and a networks we have, associations and mobility, things stable by a Charter,” Monaghan said.

“Things we do — talk to people, accommodate with people, or rivet in digital communication with people — all that things is being collected by a military to sign what kinds of celebrity these people are.”

“Where we start carrying situations where military officers are told forward of time that their reserve is during risk, that there are flighty activists, a chances of de-escalation are dramatically reduced,” he said.

Article source: https://www.cbc.ca/news/indigenous/rcmp-project-sitka-list-1.5422152?cmp=rss