this particular group is not signatory to any treaty at all. in fact, much of british columbia never signed any kind of treaty with any kind of european power. this puts them in a very different legal category that is presented here in a way that is somewhat confusing. the government cannot break a treaty that was never signed in the first place. further, it logically stands to reason that if no treaty was ever signed then the federal government ought to have no rights over the land at all. of course, this doesn't align with the logic of colonialism. however, the supreme court has ruled that areas that never signed a treaty have full aboriginal title, which is legally a type of land ownership that falls down somewhere higher than fee simple but still exists under crown control. this is a sort of legal compromise that aims to allow for a sort of "virtual sovereignty" in day-to-day matters without reversing the colonial land grab. that is to say that the supreme court has fabricated this legal fiction of the crown granting aboriginal title as a special fief that grants the owner more rights than fee simple but not full sovereignty.

what that means is that the harper government has a mechanism where it can legally appropriate land for specific purposes, so long as it "consults" with the inhabitants (which legally means "provide sufficient warning", rather than "carry out a significant conversation"). all of this stems from supreme court decisions designed to make the colonial appropriation process seem more liberal and friendly on the surface, while actually helping it along under the surface. none of it is by treaty. that is to say that none of it is consensual.

i would rather think there is a strong argument under international law that canada is carrying out a sort of colonization, accompanied by a military occupation of the region. except by the use of sheer force, it is difficult to ascertain how canada ought to have any rights over the area at all.

to put it simply, by what logic does the canadian government claim it has a right to build a pipeline through an area that never ceded it's sovereignty to it except the logic of sheer force overpowering legal and democratic legitimacy?