This is not political correctness. This is an issue that should have been settled over 100 years ago, so yes, this is decades in the making. Blockades as are seeing now have been occurring on a regular basis since the late 1960s. First Nations have been actively trying to get settlement since at least the 1890s.
The same sort of protests are seen in Australia and New Zealand though in New Zealand they settled it all 25 or so years ago and have no longer seen the same issues coming forward.
The simple reality is that Canada has a constitutional obligation to most of the First Nations in BC and settle treaties with them but have consistently and constantly done everything to break the law and not do it. The courts for close on 50 years I have been telling the Crown to negotiate but they seem to never take seriously and just go on with the status quo. The courts have been pushing slowly but consistently to try and get the Crown to do anything. What Canada can not do is show the legal mechanism by which they gained title to the land.
The current fiasco could have been settled 20 years ago in the current treaty process if the Feds had decided to take the process seriously and some to an agreement with the Office of the Wet'suwet'en. The Wet'suwet'en were seeking a treaty. This whole process is doing serious harm to the Wet'suwet'en people internally.