HEREDITARY CHIEFS: UNACCOUNTABLE ANACHRONISMS

Who are these hereditary chiefs of the Wet’suwet’en Nations who are stopping the Coastal GasLink pipeline in northern British Columbia? And who gave these chiefs the right to high-handedly override the desires of the native Canadians over whom they claim dominion? Like the paternalistic rulers of Western nations of old who claimed to rule by divine right — France’s Louis XVI and Russia’s Tsar Nicholas II were their countries’ last specimens — the hereditary chiefs of the Wet’suwet’en Nations are unaccountable anachronisms divorced from the needs of their people.