K'JIPUKTUK, HALIFAX - As anti-fracking protesters faced off with police on Highway 11 in New Brunswick today,  allies gathered outside the residence of the Lieutenant Governor of Nova Scotia, calling on the Crown's representative to step in.

"In addition to the [shale gas protests] being about protecting our water, and in addition to it being about police repression, this is also an issue that has to do with 250 years of the British Crown ignoring the treaties," says Max Haiven, a member of the Halifax Coalition Against Fracking, which organized the demonstration in Halifax.  

"Peace and Friendship Treaties don't include a surrender of land," says Alyson McCready, also a member of the Coalition.  "They're about ceasing hostilities and establishing a trading relationship.  But they don't give up the land.  Even the federal government acknowledges this."

"There's no treaty that would allow the Crown or their representatives to do hydraulic fracking or seismic testing on Mi'Kmaq territory," says McCready.  

The Coalition delivered a letter to the Lieutenant Governor, reminding him that as the Queen's representative, it is his responsibility to uphold the Peace and Friendship Treaties between the Crown and the Mi'Kmaq people.  

"We know that the Peace and Friendship Treaties of this region do not cede title of land and resources to the Crown, but rather title belongs to the Original People, who have clearly expressed that they oppose fracking in their territories and are currently defending their water. There is no treaty that allows representatives of the Crown to steal or poison the water.

We ask for an immediate cessation of all shale gas fracking-related activities in New Brunswick, for the charges against protestors to be dropped, for the spurious injunction to be immediately repealed, and the treaties to be upheld in good faith."

Today's protests in Halifax were part of a National Day of Action in solidarity with Elsipogtog.