“A very opaque police bureaucracy has expanded over the past few decades and the ‘extremists’ or targets of national security are those opposing resource extraction such as those participating in protests against pipelines, mines, fracking and hydro projects. These protests are being interpreted as threats to national security and infrastructure,” says Monaghan.

Blenis said the Project Mountain Upham group has: “drawn attention to how the project’s environmental assessment stated there are no regulated wetlands in the project site; indeed there is, and a full assessment of surrounding wetlands has not been completed.” She asks: “We are not happy with this, but does that warrant RCMP monitoring?”