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Native protest blocks Via Rail line near Kingston

[align=left]Via Rail service between Kingston and Toronto has been blocked by a native protest over disputed land near Deseronto.

Aboriginal protesters set up barricades outside a quarry there more than a month ago.

Early Friday morning, they moved their protest to the tracks, prompting Via to use buses to shuttle passengers between Montreal and Toronto, and between Ottawa and Toronto.

Protest leader Shawn Brant, of the Bay of Quinte Mohawks, said the protest will last 48 hours.

Provincial police are on the scene, but have not interfered.

The federal government has appointed a land-claims negotiator to try to resolve the dispute, but Brant has said talks are progressing too slowly.

CN spokesman Mark Hallman said the protest — which came on the first anniversary of an abortive police raid on another long-running First Nations blockade in Caledonia, Ont. — was affecting the entire corridor between Montreal and Toronto.

"This is of significant concern to the company as this dispute has nothing to do with CN," Hallman said.

"We're working with authorities on this matter; we want to resolve this issue as soon as possible."

On March 22, about 70 Mohawk demonstrators blocked access to the Thurlow Aggregates quarry near Deseronto.

At the time, Brant said they planned to stay until the province cancels the quarry's licence.

Since last November, Mohawk leaders and the federal government have been involved in discussions and negotiations over the land, which the Tyendinaga Mohawks claim is theirs.

"It's very difficult to carry out meaningful negotiations at the table while they're taking out 10,000 truckloads a year of our land," Brant said.

The land claim involves more than 400 hectares on the Bay of Quinte, east of Belleville, including the sites of many businesses such as the quarry.

"We shut [the rail lines] down as part of the ongoing rotational economic disruption campaign we promised," Brant said Friday.

Don Maracle, chief of Tyendinaga Mohawks in the area, said he sympathized with Brant's group. But, he said, the Mohawk council did not sanction the quarry blockade.
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My grade 12 social studies teacher had this idea: Give every single living native person a million dollars, and then tell them all to STFU and GBTW. It would be hella expensive in the beginning, but think of the peace and quiet afterwards....

   

Yeah.........sure.........great idea

   

That would be about 1 trillion dollars. We can't afford that and would drive the debt up much more. How about we give them nothing and stop dealing with terrorists?

   

Terrorists? That's a stretch....

   

Perhaps but in many ways not really. They are holding up a railway and are disrupting a valuable service for movement of people and goods so they can get more money and land. They are trying to use their actions as a bargaining tactic and are threatening the people and economy to get their way. They are essentially holding Canada hostage so what would you call them?

   

Go out and blockade a major highway or rail line saying that your taxes are too high and see how long it takes for the police to haul you away.

Natives get away with this way to easy and no one seems to care about the economic troubles that their little temper tantrums cause.

Pay them a one time payment and then tell them no more tax exemption, no more special status, nothing.

   

<strong>Title: </strong> <a href="/link.php?id=20843" target="_blank">Native protest blocks Via Rail line near Kingston</a> (click to view)

<strong>Category:</strong> <a href="/news/topic/18-law--order" target="_blank">Law & Order</a>
<strong>Posted By: </strong> <a href="/modules.php?name=Your_Account&op=userinfo&username=Scape" target="_blank">Scape</a>
<strong>Date: </strong> 2007-04-20 07:23:39
<strong>Canadian</strong>

   

Here we go again. If any one of us caused a blockage of public's right to free movement over any other issue, we'd be arrested. But if strikers or native protesters block movement of people and goods, even a court order doesn't budge the authorities into dislodging them for breaking the law, affecting people, maybe even impinging on their charter rights.

Confrontation is not good, it leads to injuries and flare up of tensions, but since when is blatent disregard for the law to be rewarded for groups like this?

   

Criminals. Nothing more. Nothing less.

   

If they are criminals they should be treated as such. Arrested, charged, convicted and put in jail. Not given money or land.

They should also have to pay both VIA and CN for lost revenue as a result of this illegal blockade.

   

Is it too little to ask that land claims be settled in an appropriate and timely manner.

If you choose confrontation that’s what you will get. If you decide that there should be a meaningful process to actually finally own the land that you live on then get it done.

My great grandparents left us this and kids will be grandparents by the time any of this gets settled at this rate. Do you think a little frustration builds after so long?

Read some history and try to understand that we have legal and moral obligations as First nations people to protect the land and rights that our forefathers gave us.

And in the meantime I'll try to understand that you need your Home Depots and Toys R Us stores stocked full every day.

   

Donny...I get frustrated with the way the governments work as much as most but I am not blockading a rail line or occupying a hydro-electric dam, as natives are in Northern Manitoba, to get my point across.

Granted the whole land claims issue has been drawn out for way too long and there seems to be little hope for a timely settlement, you have to think that blockades like this do not cast a very good light on these natives and adds fuel to the fires of discontent amongst non-natives.

   

Mohawk protesters ordered to remove rail blockade
Allison Hanes, National Post
Published: Friday, April 20, 2007
CN Rail has obtained an injunction in Ontario Superior Court ordering protesters blocking the tracks near Deseronto, Ont. to move their blockade.

Mark Hallman, a spokesman for the company which owns the property on which the tracks are laid, said the court order has been served on protesters by a sheriff.

Freight and passenger service on the busy Toronto to Montreal line ground to a halt today after about two dozen native protesters blocked the tracks with several school buses in an ongoing dispute over ancestral lands.

The blockade interrupted service for 3,500 Via Rail passengers who were supposed to board 22 different trains, company spokesman Malcolm Andrews said. Buses will be chartered to move passengers already holding tickets for destinations including Toronto, Montreal, Kingston and Ottawa.

Mr. Andrews said Via has stopped selling tickets to new passengers until the situation is cleared up.

“It would just mean we’d have to charter more buses,” he said. “They might as well go and buy a bus ticket themselves.”

The protest also stranded about 15 CN Rail freight trains after the blockade was moved into place around midnight, said Mr. Hallman.

“This is a significant disruption to our main line between Montreal and Toronto,” he said. “It sees roughly 50 trains a day between CN and Via Rail and is probably one of our busiest lines.”

The protesters are from the Bay of Quinte Mohawk nation, members of which have been occupying a quarry for the last month over a planned waterfront condo development.

The blockade leader has said the tracks will remain in place for 48 hours.

The Ontario Provincial Police are on the scene but have not so far intervened.

“We’re just here to keep the peace,” said Const. Jackie Perry of the Napanee detachment.

   

Why is it and I mean this seriously, just want to hear an honest answer, the natives don't cause shit and raise a ruckus (usually illeagally) until the land in question is suddenly financially attractive?


Now for the sarcasm, Donny try and tell us you and your "brothers" have never been in a Hmoe Depot or Toys R Us? Hey I'll admit it, I've shopped at the Mohawk Flint and Feather in Tyindenega.

   

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