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By Jorge Barrera APTN National News HOUSTON,BC–Officers from the Houston, B.C., RCMP detachment are investigating an explosion set off at the gates of an anti-pipeline blockade in the province’s interior.A crude explosive device was detonated next to a sign leading to the blockade Monday evening by unknown individuals who fled the scene up a logging road in a vehicle.“We have received a report this morning and have initiated an investigation,” said Sgt. Steven Rose, who is based in Houston.Rose said investigators were treating it as an “isolated” incident. He said the local detachment would lead the investigation, but may request additional assistance from the district level.“(The explosion) certainly changes the public perception of what the blockade represents,” said Rose. “From our police perspective, our role is to investigate any reports of damage, mischief or criminal offenses.”The blockade is led by the Unist’ot’en clan who are part of the Wet’suwet’en people. The blockade was erected about 16 months ago on a forest service road to stop surveyors from entering the territory. The blockade is associated with a camp built several years ago near the path of three planned pipelines. The blockade sits about 66 kilometres south of Houston and about 1,000 km north of Vancouver.Wet’suwet’en Hereditary Chief Toghestiy said he and some others were watching the movie Oblivion in a cabin near the blockade when they heard an explosion at about 10:20 p.m. local time.“We thought it was in the movie at first,” said Toghestiy. “It sounded like a gunshot behind me.”They immediately shut off all the lights and the generator. Toghestiy said he then fired a warning shot in the air with his rifle and the group crept toward the bridge through the darkness. They saw taillights from a vehicle fleeing the scene.“We spent probably two hours walking up alongside the road in the bush until we knew the place was secure,” he said.Photos and video from the scene show a long burn trail leading to the site of the explosion at the wooden, hand-painted sign declaring, “stop, no access without consent.” The video, which was posted on YouTube, showed remains of what appear to be plastic bottles that were tied together with surveyor tape. Toghestiy said it appears gas was used to set off the explosion.Toghestiy met with three RCMP officers Tuesday afternoon from the Houston RCMP detachment who took photographs of the burned-out area caused by the explosion and gathered pieces of the device for analysis in a lab.“I had a good chance to sit down with them, the three of them to educate them on decolonizing their minds,” he said.The blockade and camp were built to block the proposed Pacific Trails and Coastal Gas Links natural gas pipelines along with Enbridge’s proposed Northern Gateway pipeline which aims to pump Alberta tar sands bitumen to the Pacific Coast.All three pipelines are mapped to run through an area about a kilometre from the camp. Toghestiy said a traditional pit house is being constructed on the pipelines’ route.Monday night’s incident followed reports that locals in the area were planning to commit sabotage against the blockade.Freda Hudson, who is of the Unist’ot’en clan, said a local hunter was recently stopped by police on his way back from the blockade sight. The hunter told people at the blockade that he was questioned by police about the blockade. The same hunter also said he had overheard other hunters who had been drinking that they were upset over the blockade and planned to deal with it themselves. There was also an incident with some locals who revved their engine and honked their horn at the blockade before spinning their tires and pulling away.“Before we even got to the road we could hear them spinning out and they went to the police complaining we wouldn’t let them in,” said Hudson.Rose said the incidents are not related.“There is certainly information that has been given to us regarding historical conflicts or potential conflicts that have happened in the past couple of months, but it doesn’t really relate to the incident (Monday) night,” he said. “To draw a nexus between the two is far-fetched.”Toghestiy said the camp is already on watch for surveyors attempting to slip past the blockade. He said a helicopter carrying sub-contractors landed behind the blockade about two months ago, but were quickly intercepted and turned away.“It got quite heated,” he said. “I got really, really angry at them…I told them if they did it again things would accelerate really, really fast. They said they wouldn’t come back.”Toghestiy also said an RCMP special investigative unit from Prince George, B.C., tried to enter the camp over the summer.“We wouldn’t let them cross the bridge,” he said. “They just wanted to come in and poke their nose around.”Toghestiy said the camp is seeking to raise funds to purchase sensor cameras they hope to set up along the road.jbarrera@aptn.ca@JorgeBarrera read more

OTTAWA – Canada kicked the tires on the idea of buying used fighter jets from Kuwait to address a shortage of CF-18s, Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan revealed Thursday, but found they wouldn’t be ready in time.The revelation comes amid a bitter and escalating dogfight between U.S. aerospace giant Boeing and Montreal-based Bombardier, which has the backing of Justin Trudeau’s federal Liberal government.The Liberals had planned to buy 18 Super Hornets from Boeing to fill what they claim is a critical shortage of fighter jets, but have since threatened to go elsewhere over the Bombardier dispute.Boeing has accused Bombardier of selling its controversial CSeries commercial liners to U.S.-based Delta Air Lines at a significant discount, thanks to assistance from what it considers improper government subsidies.The dispute took a turn this week when the Department of Commerce ruled Bombardier did indeed receive improper subsidies and proposed a whopping 219 per cent duty on any CSeries planes entering the U.S.The penalties won’t be official until the U.S. International Trade Commission rules next spring on whether the Bombardier-Delta deal actually hurt Boeing’s business.The ruling has nonetheless divided the country — advocates in Quebec and Ottawa have been calling on the Liberals to fight fire with fire, while officials in Manitoba, where Boeing has a large facility, are urging calm.Speaking from Riga, Latvia, where Canada has about 450 soldiers helping guard against Russian aggression in the region, Sajjan said he was disappointed with the Commerce Department’s ruling.The minister wouldn’t say explicitly that the plan to buy Super Hornets is officially off the table, but he suggested as much.“We are going to be moving ahead with filling that capability gap,” Sajjan said. “We are pursuing other options.”There are growing signs that the top option could be to buy used F/A-18s from Australia, which is getting rid of the fighter jets as it upgrades to the controversial F-35 stealth aircraft.Kuwait, too, plans to sell its own used F/A-18s after securing its own deal to buy Super Hornets. There had been speculation the aircraft, which are similar to Canada’s CF-18s, would be in good shape.But Kuwait won’t be ready to sell fast enough for Canada, Sajjan said, and the government is instead working closely with the Australians about possibly buying their jets.“We have looked at the capability of the Kuwaiti fighters,” Sajjan said.“The biggest thing is right now they are not currently available. But we still want to pursue every single option. As you know, we are pursuing this option with the Australians at this time.”The key question appears to be whether any of Australia’s F/A-18s have enough life left in them to serve alongside Canada’s CF-18s until replacements for both begin to arrive in the mid-2020s.The government has repeatedly emphasized the need for speed when it comes to addressing the current fighter-jet shortage, and hoped to buy interim Super Hornets by the end of the year.That sense of urgency remains, Sajjan said, though he would not provide a timeline for when the government would pull the trigger on whatever option it decides to pursue.“That capability we needed a long time ago,” he said. “We had a plan in place, a very good plan that was going to fill the capability gap, invest in our current fleet and start the fighter replacement competition.”The government announced last November plans to purchase the planes to temporarily fill a critical shortage of fighter jets until the entire CF-18 fleet is replaced in the mid-2020s.Many defence experts, including 13 former air force commanders, have questioned Liberal claims the air force doesn’t have enough CF-18s, and said replacement jets could be purchased much faster.The Boeing-Bombardier dispute has become a major international battle, with the Trump administration backing the former and the Canadian and British governments siding with the latter.Bombardier has a large aerospace manufacturing facility in Northern Ireland.Yet it has also pitted different parts of Canada against each other.Quebec Premier Philippe Couillard, whose government invested $1 billion into the CSeries line, angrily called for a ban on all Boeing imports into Canada after the Commerce Department ruling.But Manitoba Premier Brian Pallister and Winnipeg Mayor Brian Bowman called for cooler heads on Thursday, and said such rhetoric is not helpful.Winnipeg is home to a Boeing manufacturing facility that employs 1,400 people and is the third biggest aerospace centre in the country.— with reporting by Chinta Puxley in Edmonton and files from Steve Lambert in Winnipeg— Follow @leeberthiaume on Twitter read more