Kahnawake residents weigh in on whether to maintain rail barricade

Rail service was briefly disrupted Monday afternoon by separate blockade in Pointe-Saint-Charles

The rail barricade has been up since Feb. 8 in Kahnawake, on Montreal’s South Shore. (Diana Gonzalez/Radio-Canada)

Residents of the Mohawk territory of Kahnawake, south of Montreal, are mulling over whether to maintain a rail blockade that’s been up since Feb. 8.

Community members attended a meeting at a longhouse in Kahnawake Monday evening. Media were not permitted to attend.

“There’s a lot of thought and consideration being given to these next steps,” Kanen’tó:kon Hemlock, a spokesperson for the longhouse, said Tuesday morning.

“There’s no definite deadline, but people do definitely feel that a decision does have to be made soon.”

The barricade in support of the Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs crosses a Canadian Pacific Railway line and has disrupted both freight and commuter service.

A Quebec Superior Court judge issued an injunction against the Kahnawake blockade last week, though authorities have not yet enforced the order.

This flag flew above the blockade which was dismantled by police in Saint-Lambert last month. (Radio-Canada)

 

The Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs are opposed to a pipeline project that would run through their ancestral territory in northern B.C.

Their opposition sparked protests across the country after RCMP officers arrested several people in Wet’suwet’en territory last month.

Over the weekend, Wet’suwet’en chiefs and representatives of the federal and B.C. governments announced they had reached a draft agreement concerning some of the issues involved in the pipeline dispute.

• Draft agreement between governments, Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs offers hope and uncertainty

The tentative deal reportedly addresses Wet’suwet’en demands for rights and title recognition, but not the pipeline itself.

Kenneth Deer, a Mohawk elder serving as a spokesperson for the activists at the blockade, said they want to speak with Wet’suwet’en chiefs before deciding what to do next.

“It’s a big decision to decide to take down the barricade or not, and they want to make sure they have everything before they make that decision,” Deer told reporters at the barricade on Sunday.

Protesters stood on CN Rail tracks near Wellington Street in Montreal’s Pointe-Saint-Charles neighbourhood, Monday afternoon, before leaving. (Radio-Canada)

Via Rail, Exo service briefly blocked

Monday afternoon, a small group of masked protesters briefly disrupted passenger and commuter rail service in Montreal.

Around 20 protesters stood in the rain for several hours on CN Rail tracks near Wellington Street in Montreal’s Pointe-Saint-Charles neighbourhood.

They left after a sizeable police presence assembled nearby.

Via Rail, which uses the CN tracks, said the protest delayed some departures and arrivals.

Service was also temporarily delayed — out of safety concerns — on a separate commuter line that connects Mont-Saint-Hilaire to downtown, according to Exo.

Last month, CN applied for and received an injunction to dismantle barricades on its tracks within the province.

Police used this injunction to disperse protesters who had set up a barricade on CN tracks in Saint-Lambert on Feb. 21. SOURCE

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Mohawks prepare to enter 6th day of railway shutdown in support of Wet’suwet’en

Rail service between Toronto and Montreal disrupted since Thursday

Tyendinaga Mohawk member Jacob Morris says the injunction, which was issued by the Ontario Superior Court of Justice on Saturday at the request of CN, won’t change the goal of demonstration. (CBC News)

The people staging a demonstration in support of Wet’suwet’en pipeline opponents that has led to a five-day shutdown of passenger and freight rail traffic through eastern Ontario say they won’t back down in the face of possible police action.

Tyendinaga Mohawk members say they won’t end their demonstration until the RCMP leaves the territory of the Wet’suwet’en.

• What you need to know about the Coastal GasLink pipeline conflict

RCMP began enforcing an court order against those blocking construction on the Coastal GasLink pipeline in Northern B.C. last Thursday.

Tyendinaga Mohawk member Jacob Morris said a court injunction that forbids any continued interference with the rail line under the threat of arrest, which was issued by the Ontario Superior Court of Justice on Friday at the request of CN, won’t change the goal of demonstration.

“It’s a piece of paper in our eyes, another tree cut down so you can hand it to us,” said Morris.

“I’m not worried one bit.”

Via Rail has said at least 92 trains have been cancelled since the demonstration began, affecting over 16,000 passengers on one of Canada’s busiest rail corridors connecting Toronto to Montreal. CN said dozens of freight trains have been stopped, stalling shipments of everything from propane to feedstock for factories.

The CN-owned rail tracks run just outside the reserve boundaries of Tyendinaga, but are within a land claim area that stretches up to Highway 2 just north of the crossing.

The purple Haudenosaunee flag is attached to a dump truck, fitted with a snowplow shovel, that is parked near but not on the rail lines. (CBC News)A makeshift camp has sprung up along the rail tracks that now includes a porta-potty, green canvas tents and a barrel fire. The three-track crossing is about 250 kilometres west of Ottawa.

The purple Haudenosaunee flag is attached to a dump truck, fitted with a snowplow shovel, that is parked near but not on the rail lines. (CBC News)

The demonstrators have not put any obstacles across the tracks. A dump truck with a snowplow shovel attached is parked facing the tracks. However, their proximity to the rails has led to the shutdown of train traffic since Thursday.

Tyendinaga Mohawk Police Chief Jason Brant approached the demonstration camp Monday afternoon with a message that a sheriff from the court would arrive Tuesday morning to read the injunction to everyone there.

Demonstrations have flared across the country since the RCMP began enforcing the injunction on Wet’suwet’en territiory. Rail blockades have sprung up in B.C. near New Hazelton, B.C, and in Kahnawake, just south of Montreal, along with Toronto.

• RCMP arrests in Wet’suwet’en territory spark protests nationwide

• RCMP arrests another 7 as Wet’suwet’en efforts wrap up

On Monday, demonstrators from Tyendinaga watched events unfolding in British Columbia over Twitter and Facebook as the RCMP conducted another operation against the Wet’suwet’en’s Unist’ot’en camp, and spoke with one of the Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs by phone.

Andrew Brant from Tyendinaga says the Mohawk are returning the support shown by First Nations in B.C. during the 1990 Oka crisis. (CBC News)

Andrew Brant from Tyendinaga said the Mohawk are returning the support shown by First Nations in B.C. during the 1990 Oka crisis when Mohawks of Kanesatake, Que., faced the Canadian military over the expansion of a golf course.

“They stood with us when there was Oka, so we are going to stand with them now,” said Brant.

“We’ve gotten driven out of so many places, this is all we have left. We can understand what they are going through.” SOURCE