(The following story by Unnati Gandhi appeared on the Globe and Mail website on June 26.)
TORONTO — A crucial highway and rail line that moves tens of thousands of people daily around Central Canada will be subject to a crippling blockade on Friday, a spokesman for the Tyendinaga Mohawk reserve in Eastern Ontario says.
The protesters are considering shutting down the CN Rail mainline that runs between Toronto and Montreal, as well as Highway 401, as part of the national day of action called by the Assembly of First Nations.
Other potential “targets” include Highway 2 and the road that leads to nearby Deseronto, which is midway between Kingston and Belleville.
“Certainly, it’ll be one, two, three or all of those targets,” spokesman Shawn Brant said last night.
“… Obviously we have a mandate to participate in an economic destruction aspect of that.”
Mr. Brant said the blockade is a way for the Mohawks to show “solidarity and support” for other native groups across the country.
“We want the people of Canada to know we do have power within these things, that we’re a strong people, and we’re committed and we simply want to have a strong voice within this society.”
The past several years have seen high-profile, violent clashes between natives, non-natives and police in Oka near Montreal and at Caledonia in Southern Ontario.
Yesterday, a prominent B.C. native leader warned that another such conflict could emerge over opposition to a provincial plan to cede a golf course at the University of British Columbia to the Musqueam band.
Mr. Brant said that all his people want is the alleviation of youth suicides and a healthy environment for their children to grow up in.
“For June 29, we want people to understand that those are our values and our expectations for our children and they’re very similar to those of non-native people,” he said.
In April, nearly 100 Mohawks from the Tyendinaga Reserve near Belleville shut down the same CN rail line with a blockade in a show of solidarity for the Six Nations Reserve in Caledonia.
In that case, the rail company obtained an injunction in Ontario Superior Court, ordering the blockade removed and protesters voluntarily started taking it down.