Judge rules RCMP remarks racist, but B.C. pipeline protesters’ convictions will stand

A B.C. Supreme Court judge has found members of the RCMP made “grossly offensive, racist and dehumanizing” remarks about Indigenous women who were arrested in 2021 during a blockade of Coastal GasLink pipeline construction.Justice Michael Tammen said in a ruling delivered in Smithers, B.C., on Tuesday that his findings of state misconduct don’t warrant a stay of proceedings against the women, but they and another protester will get a reduction in their sentences for criminal contempt as an “appropriate” remedy.Tammen said audio recordings captured police laughing and comparing the women protesters to “orcs” from The Lord of the Rings.