Indigenous Resistance, Arrests Continue Against Fracking in New Brunswick

ELSIPOGTOG, NEW BRUNSWICK – About 25 RCMP offi­cers in uni­form, along with about a dozen police cruis­ers, today con­tin­ued to flank equip­ment owned by gas explo­ration com­pa­ny SWN Resources Cana­da as they pro­ceed­ed with their seis­mic test­ing of high­way 126 in Kent Coun­ty, New Brunswick.   

Push­ing the scat­tered crowd of Indige­nous and non-Indige­nous peo­ple back “50 metres dis­tance” from the south­ward approach­ing seis­mic trucks – or ‘thumpers’ – the RCMP first arrest­ed one demon­stra­tor and chased anoth­er into the woods before arrest­ing Susanne Patles.

Patles, a Mi’kmaq woman, had scat­tered a line of tobac­co between her­self and the approach­ing police, then pro­ceed­ed to draw a cir­cle of tobac­co in the high­way, where she then knelt and began to pray. After about two min­utes, the police pro­ceed­ed to arrest Patles. An offi­cer Bernard not­ed that she was being charged with mis­chief.

Today’s two arrests fol­low anoth­er three made last Wednes­day, when peo­ple again placed them­selves in the path of SWN’s thumpers. Res­i­dents fear that the tests will lead to hydraulic frac­tur­ing – or frack­ing – of the area.

Lor­raine Clair, arrest­ed on Wednes­day, con­tin­ues to recov­er from nerve dam­age suf­fered from the rough treat­ment hand­ed down on her by RCMP offi­cers.

Resis­tance to SWN’s pres­ence, which is locat­ed in a part of tra­di­tion­al Mi’kma’ki ter­ri­to­ry known as Sig­nig­tog – or dis­trict 6 – has so far been strong. Thumper trucks have for days now been met with peo­ple who object to frack­ing from the sur­round­ing com­mu­ni­ties, as well as sup­port­ers from around the Mar­itimes who are now begin­ning to flock towards the focal point of the high­way.