FIRST READING: Decolonization activists get $300,000 to block pipelines with dogs

First Reading is a Canadian politics newsletter curated by the National Post’s own Tristin Hopper. To get an early version sent directly to your inbox, sign up here.

TOP STORY

In one of the more bizarre examples of Canadian paid protest, the Vancouver Foundation just revealed it gave $300,000 to decolonization activists seeking to block pipelines with stray dogs.

The non-profit Vancouver Foundation is one of B.C.’s oldest charitable contributors, and in its most recently updated list of grant recipients, it lists a $300,000 grant for a “Decolonial Dog Sanctuary,” a project described as a “form of land-based re-occupation.”

“The project is deeply embedded in cultural, legal, and territorial frameworks maintained through relational, hereditary authority rather than external or colonial agreements,” it reads.

Unmentioned is that the sanctuary was very explicitly established as an illegal forest blockade intended to hinder the construction of the Prince Rupert Gas Transmission (PRGT) pipeline.

Known as Wilp Aasosxw, the sanctuary carries the motto “puppies not pipelines” and https://www.instagram.com/p/DB9kowEsYkr/ and a converted bus in the forests outside Hazelton, B.C.

As of the latest update to the sanctuary’s official Facebook page, the site has hosted more than 42 dogs since it was established.

The sanctuary’s overseer is Teresa Brown, who lives on site and is described in Vancouver Foundation grant documents as a “Wilp Matriarch and Hereditary Representative of the territory.”

“They’re not getting in here. Over my dead body,” Brown said in a November 2024 profile published on the website Indiginews that made clear the sanctuary’s anti-pipeline mission.

A web video posted around the same time even identified the project as a “Land Defence + Dog Sanctuary” built right in the middle of the planned right-of-way for the PRGT pipeline.

In most recent posts to the sanctuary’s official Facebook page, Brown has said she had limited knowledge of dog care before starting the sanctuary, but believed that aggressive dogs could “evolve into versions of themselves that thirst again for love.”

In a Dec. 12 post, she said the project has been helpful in allowing her to reduce her dependence on pain meds and other prescription medications, attributing it to the healing nature of the land.

“Tell me the land does not heal. Tell me she is not alive. When you see me angry, it’s because I’m protecting my mother and these pure souls. Would you not protect your mother that heals you? With everything you have?” she wrote.

The general concept for the sanctuary was inspired by the various activist encampments established to hinder the construction of the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion. Most notably, the “Tiny House Warriors,” an activist group that used mobile homes to obstruct roadways and work camps servicing the project.

Earlier this year, four members of the Tiny House Warriors were handed suspended sentences by a B.C. court on charges stemming from damaging pipeline equipment and attacking Trans Mountain employees during eviction procedures.

One of the structures on site at the dog sanctuary is a trailer constructed by activists in Victoria over the summer, and https://www.instagram.com/p/DLvWQ_Jhb4L/?img_index=1 for the purpose of being “part of the physical blockade against the pipeline.”

The PRGT pipeline would service the Ksi Lisims LNG export terminal. Both projects were notably included in the second tranche of “nation-buildings projects” added to the purview of the Major Projects Office, a new agency established by the government of Prime Minister Mark Carney. An official write-up praised it as “one of the world’s lowest-emission LNG operations … with emissions 94 per cent below the global average.”

Like much of B.C.’s burgeoning natural gas sector, the PRGT project features heavy Indigenous buy-in, which factored into it making the federal list.

The pipeline is co-owned by the Nisga’a Nation, and features the official endorsement of the Gitxsan Hereditary Chiefs, whose traditional territory covers the area where the sanctuary is located.

Just last month, in fact, the Gitxsan Development Corporation cheered the addition of the PRGT pipeline to the Carney government’s major projects list.

“This designation is a testament to the economic opportunity and energy security these projects represent, but we must recognize the PRGT pipeline crosses the unceded territory of the Gitxsan Nation. This project continues to depend on the support and consent of Gitxsan Hereditary Chiefs whose lax yip the project trespasses,” read a statement.

IN OTHER NEWS

As B.C. still reels from the August court decision declaring that a piece of Richmond, B.C., is Aboriginal territory, the government of Premier David Eby has offered loan guarantees to affected homeowners. It’s a response to revelations from multiple owners that they’ve lost financing or seen sales fall through as a result of the sudden ambiguity of their land titles wrought by the Cowichan decision.

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The obvious problem with simply having government cover the loan guarantees is that the Cowichan decision set a precedent that could conceivably apply to millions of additional hectares of Canada. Any piece of the country not covered by a numbered treaty could theoretically be declared Aboriginal land under a similar decision. So, in an extreme case, there literally would not be enough money in the entire country to cover it all. In B.C. alone, the assessed value of its combined real estate is about $2.83 trillion.  Canada’s annual GDP, by comparison, is about $3 trillion.

First Reading is a Canadian politics newsletter curated by the National Post’s own Tristin Hopper. To get an early version sent directly to your inbox, sign up here.