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By Andrea Smith
Windspeaker.com Contributor
The Tiny House Warriors of the Secwepemc Nation in B.C. are furiously building tiny wooden homes today to protest Kinder-Morgan’s Trans Mountain pipeline. The Warriors are planning to put their homes right down the middle of the proposed pipeline path.
Ten homes are going to be built in total, over the course of the next month, but the Warriors hope it’s just the start of many more to come.
“We have around 10 skilled carpenters and a whole bunch of other people that just want to be involved in this project and want to be here for this historic moment,” said Kanahus Manuel, a member of the Women’s Warrior Society of the Secwepemc Nation.
“It’s really neat… We have other tiny house builders that are interested and people are saying they want to donate tiny houses. So, we’re having a lot of interest and this is going to gain a lot of momentum,” she said.
Manuel helped form the group, now known as the Tiny House Warriors, which consists of more members of the Secwepemc Nation, and many of the Women’s Warrior Society members.
According to her, only three of the 17 Secwepemc bands consented to the pipeline being built, which leaves a majority of them who are still opposed.
To honor the traditional decision-making process, Manuel believes all of the Secwepemc people—all 10,500 registered members—need to consent before it’s ethical to push any agenda forward. At a meeting this past June, the Secwepemc Nation members discovered just how many people they had left who were still opposed to the deal, and even issued a declaration to prove it.
“There’s so many volunteers that have come out to help… like hundreds of people. We had over 100 people at our Secwepemc Assembly in June. And we have the support of people throughout our Nation,” she said.
The declaration is published on https://www.secwepemculecw.org/ . There they write: “We, the Secwepemc, have never ceded, surrendered, or given up our sovereign title and rights over the land, waters and resources within Secwepemcul’ecw. We have lived on our land since time immemorial and have never been conquered by war. We collectively hold title and governance regarding Secwepemcul’ecw and the collective consent of the Secwepemc is required for any access to our lands, waters and resources…”
The declaration continues on to say they are standing together against the Trans Mountain pipeline, which will cover 518 km of Secwepemc territory, and it notes that both the federal and provincial governments are infringing upon Secwepemc traditional law, rights, and title to the land.
Manuel compares the issue to what happened in Standing Rock in North and South Dakota last year—which she was present at, arrested for being present at, and still has charges pending for her involvement in.
She says the idea for the tiny homes came from her experience during those Dakota protests when a few kind-hearted people from Portland came out and built a tiny home for Manuel (and her four children) to stay in while she was there.
“Everyone says this is going to be the next Standing Rock. And yeah, we want that many people, but we don’t want that much violence against the peaceful people… And we need (Prime Minister Justin) Trudeau to keep his hands off land defenders and deal with them differently, rather than using RCMP as their goons,” she said.
Along with members of the Secwepemc Nation and the volunteer carpenters, Greenpeace is also present.
Mike Hudema is a climate campaigner with Greenpeace Canada. He is originally from Edmonton, but found himself drawn to the Tiny House Warriors movement because he agrees with their anti-Trans Mountain Pipeline sentiment.
“I’ve been fighting the tar sands for almost a decade now, and definitely, we’re very concerned about the impacts that the Kinder-Morgan pipeline would have,” said Hudema.
“I don’t have a lot of carpenter skills, but we’re doing our best to help out with both the build and the camp logistics, helping to feed people while we’re here and get the story out, as well,” he said.
According to Hudema, Greenpeace has contributed some of the building materials the Tiny House Warriors are using. And they’ll be helping out until at least the first house is complete, hopefully making it back for another round or two later to help with installing solar panels on the homes.
“If this pipeline moves forward, it’s going to bring threats to every single community it passes on its way to the ocean… So when we heard the call-out, we wanted to respond. And you know, this pipeline does not have consent by all the Nations it passes through,” he said.
For more information, follow the Tiny House Warriors on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/tinyhousewarriors/