The Globe and Mail - 02.03.2020

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OTTAWA/QUEBEC EDITION ■ MONDAY, MARCH 2, 2020 ■ GLOBEANDMAIL.COM

Wolverine Supplies, one of Cana-

da’s largest independent gun re-

tailers, celebrated Valentine’s Day

with a risky product announce-

ment.

After a year of research and de-

velopment, the Manitoba-based

gun shop sent an e-mail to cus-

tomers unveiling its latest inno-

vation, the WS-MCR, a semi-auto-

matic rifle with a pistol grip,

AR-15-type magazine and free-

floating hand guard.

It is virtually identical to an-

other rifle developed by Wolve-

rine’s founder and in-house de-

signer, John Hipwell, that became

one of the best-selling guns in the

country.

The WS-MCR should be des-

tined for similar fortunes, but for

one Howitzer-sized caveat: It is

precisely the kind of gun that the

Liberalgovernment promised to

ban during last fall’s election

campaign.

Mr. Hipwell is undeterred.

“We can’t just stop looking for

new products and ways to ex-

pand just because of some ru-

mours about what might be

banned,” said Mr. Hipwell, foun-

der of the store and a prominent

member of the country’s firearms

retail community.

“I still have to live. I still have a

mortgage to pay.”

As the Liberal government

irons out details of its proposed

assault-rifle ban, new models

continue to hit the market, sow-

ing greater confusion over what

might be banned and when.

One gun-control advocate says

the government should impose

an immediate suspension on new

sales of certain semi-automatic

rifles like the WS-MCR.

“We’ve asked the government

to freeze new sales until new

measures are announced and im-

plemented,” said Heidi Rathjen,

co-ordinator for Poly Remem-

bers, a group launched in the

wake of the 1989 École Polytech-

nique shooting to advocate for in-

creased gun control.

“The more of these guns in cir-

culation, the greater the risk to

public safety.”

Her comments echo the gov-

ernment’s own sentiments over

the past year.

Public Safety Minister Bill

Blair’s office has called assault-

style rifles “military weapons de-

signed to hunt people, and not

animals, in the most efficient

manner possible that maximizes

the body count at minimum ef-

fort.”

GUNS,A

AsLiberals

workout

assault-rifle

ban,newguns

hitthemarket

PATRICKWHITE

A

t first, Shirley Wilson was

dead set against the Coast-

al GasLink pipeline.

“There’s no way they’re going

to come wreck our land,” the 63-

year-old member of Skin Tyee

First Nation remembers think-

ing, chuckling at the memory.

But slowly, Ms. Wilson, a mother

of four grown children, started to

soften.

She hopes the pipeline can

help chip away at the crushing

poverty that is the cause of so

many social ills – addictions,

abuse, suicide and premature

death. In the past four years, she

buried her 40-year-old son and

her 37-year-old son-in-law.

The Skin Tyee reside on the

south shore of Francois Lake, a

deep, wild trout lake in British

Columbia’s north country.

Over five days last week, The

Globe and Mail travelled from

Kitimat to Burns Lake and back,

more than 1,250 kilometres in to-

tal, speaking to First Nations

people who live along the most

contested stretch of the pro-

posed pipeline.

WET’SUWET’EN, A

FirstNations

alongpipeline

routespliton

prosandcons

NANCYMACDONALD

:ITSETbB½C½

The federal and B.C.governments have
reached a proposed arrangement with the
Wet’suwet’en Nation to recognize its
hereditary governance system, but a reso-
lution to a pipeline dispute remains elu-
sive.
Talks between hereditary chiefs and se-
nior government officials focused during
the weekend on the future status of the
Wet’suwet’en’s unceded traditional terri-
tory covering 22,000 square kilometres in
British Columbia, and defining those
boundaries.
The deal was hailed as a milestone for
Indigenous rights and title, but details of
the arrangement weren’t released on Sun-
day because they require approval from
Wet’suwet’en members.
Coastal GasLink said the company’s
crews will resume construction on Mon-
day on its $6.6-billion pipeline project, af-
ter suspending work near Houston, B.C.,
last Thursday while the talks were being
held.
Since Feb. 6, protests and blockades
have spread across the country in sup-
port of a group of eight Wet’suwet’en
hereditary house chiefs who oppose
Coastal GasLink’s plan to build a natural
gas pipeline in northern British Colum-
bia.
“As Wet’suwet’en, we are the land, and

the land is ours,” Frank Alec, who goes by

the Wet’suwet’en hereditary name Woos,

said during a news conference.

He was speaking in his Grizzly House

territory on behalf of the eight house

chiefs on Sunday in Smithers, B.C.

The hereditary chiefs wrapped up their

three days of meetings late Saturday night

with federal Crown-Indigenous Relations

Minister Carolyn Bennett and Scott Fras-

er, B.C.’s Minister of Indigenous Relations

and Reconciliation.

“It is quite a milestone for all of us to

view this together,” said Mr. Alec, who is

head chief of Grizzly House under the Git-

dumden clan.

Mr. Alec, Ms. Bennett and Mr. Fraser

also issued a joint statement, committing

to “an expedited process to implement

Wet’suwet’en rights and title.”

Details of the process for the Wet’suwe-

t’en’s review of the proposed arrange-

ment need to be ironed out.

“For me, it is about humility,” Ms.

Bennett said during the news confer-

ence.

“It is about learning and for all that we

have learned over these days, and the

work that we’ve been able to do with re-

spect. It is, as Chief Woos said, a milestone

in the history of Canada.”

About 190 kilometres of the 670-kilo-

metre pipeline route cross Wet’suwet’en

territory.

PIPELINE, A

CarolynBennett,MinisterofCrown-IndigenousRelations,FrankAlec,whogoesbytheWet’suwet’enhereditarynameWoos,andB.C.
IndigenousRelationsMinisterScottFraseraddressthemediainSmithers,B.C.,onSunday.JONATHAN HAYWARD/THE CANADIAN PRESS

‘Milestone’dealwithOttawa

recognizeshereditarysystem

DetailsofproposedpactnotmadepublicassomeWet’suwet’en

leaderssaytheyremainopposedtoCoastalGasLinkproject

BRENTJANGSMITHERSbB½C½

The explosive spread of a virus in China’s
Hubei province has now killed more than
2,900 people. But that death toll doesn’t in-
clude Fang Heshun. And the list of the sick

• more than 80,000 confirmed cases with
  COVID-19 in the province – doesn’t include
  Chen Guangcai, Wang Bin or Gong Qunxin.
  Each confronted serious illness: cancer,
  leukemia, a tumour. And each has strug-
  gled to get care as health authorities con-
  verted hospitals, hotels, stadiums and con-
  ference centres to respond to the virus,
  leaving little room for people needing oth-
  er forms of medical intervention.
  Even now, as authorities in China claim
  partial victory over the virus – sending
  people back to work, releasing plans for
  the reopening of schools, releasing num-
  bers that show a slowing in new virus cases


• many of the seriously sick in Wuhan have
  been unable to find hospital beds. Some
  have died.
  The stresses on health provision in Chi-
  na stand as a warning to other parts of the

world, where the sudden expansion of the

outbreak in South Korea, Japan, Iran, Italy

and elsewhere has begun to pinch health-

care systems. Epidemiologists have

warned that the speed with which CO-

VID-19 can spread means that the best re-

sponse requires a rapid allocation of

health-care resources.

In Wuhan, at the epicentre of the virus,

that has meant dedicating hospitals to the

outbreak and evicting those already ad-

mitted for other purposes. In recent days,

Hubei, the province where Wuhan is the

capital, has seen a decline in numbers of

new cases, andgovernments have ordered

more attention be paid to patients with

other illnesses.

Yet even those who have successfully

petitioned for help have struggled to get

suitable care from the overburdened

health-care system.

Doctors diagnosed Fang Heshun with

kidney cancer in 2018. But in October, 2019,

he felt discomfort. Doctors discovered that

tumours had spread into his lungs and his

brain and began radiation therapy at Tong-

ji Hospital, a university-affiliated institu-

tion that is one of the best in Wuhan.

CHINA,A

InChina,patientswithotherillnesses

squeezedoutbycoronavirus

NATHANVANDERKLIPPE
ASIACORRESPONDENT
BEIING

OSMAN ORSAL/GETTY IMAGES

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