Canada's busiest highway could be the target of future blockades after protesters temporarily shut down a section of Highway 401 during the countrywide aboriginal day of action, a Mohawk activist warned Friday.
"This is the first time ever we've shut down the 401, and I don't believe it's going to be the last," Shawn Brant said shortly after police reached a deal with Mohawk activists to reopen the highway in eastern Ontario.
"It was certainly a good test run for us."
Police shut down a 29-kilometre stretch of Highway 401, the major road link between Toronto and Montreal, at midnight over safety concerns before protesters had a chance to block it.
Traffic began flowing shortly after 11 a.m. ET, after more than 11 hours of rerouting travellers around the stretch between the towns of Belleville and Napanee, Ontario Provincial Police Const. Kim Guthrie told CBCNews.ca.
The dissident group led by Brant got an early start to the Assembly of First Nations protest day by setting up barricades late Thursday on Highway 2 and the CN rail line in Deseronto, about 50 kilometres west of Kingston.
The protest day aims to draw attention to issues facing Canada's aboriginal communities, including poverty, soaring high school dropout rates, high suicide rates and unresolved land claims.
Assembly of First Nations Chief Phil Fontaine insisted the day of action should be a peaceful occasion designed to educate the public and raise awareness. He urged aboriginal people and non-aboriginal people not to misinterpret the day as an occasion for violent confrontation and illegal road blockades.
After the Mohawk protesters reached the deal with police, Brant said he didn't want to aggravate long-weekend travellers more than necessary by keeping the 401 closed throughout Friday.
"We've been able to demonstrate the courage, commitment and resolve of our community members," said Brant, of the Bay of Quinte Mohawks Tyendinaga reserve.
"We don't want people to see this [as] a stepping back: we don't feel that it is."
Brant, who previously said the protesters had access to weapons, denied any of them were armed.
To a request from OPP Commissioner Julian Fantino to take down all barricades, Brant said he had replied, "absolutely not."
Reached in nearby Napanee on Friday, Fantino said he was still in personal contact with Brant about the potential early removal of remaining barricades.
Police issued an arrest warrant early Friday for Brant on a charge of mischief, but as of midday, no action had been taken to bring him into custody.
"We began this whole exercise with the focus of maintaining the peace and public security," Fantino told CBC News.
"We know all of this is an inconvenience, but at the end of the day, we wanted to ensure that we didn't jeopardize public safety or officers' safety."
The protesters set up their first barricade at 9 p.m. ET on Thursday, three hours before the day of action officially began, parking a school bus on Highway 2 and lighting a bonfire nearby.
The protesters, many wearing masks and army fatigues, sang and beat drums on the road.
The actions reverberated along transportation lines throughout southern Ontario, which sparked frustration for commuters.
"I think they're hurting people who have absolutely nothing to do with their problem," said one woman among the crowd of stranded travellers at Toronto's Union Station.
Brant said his protesters are ready to keep up their blockades until midnight Friday and have stockpiled food and water, and trucks, tree trunks and wooden pallets ready to build more barricades.
He added Friday he would turn himself in to police at midnight.
"Well, I'm certainly not going to do that before end of the day and we'll make arrangements," Brant, flanked by supporters wearing masks and camouflage gear, told reporters at one of the barricades.
"I know there are consequences that have to be brought forward and ones that I have to bear.… I'm obviously in a position where I've done that in the past and I have to accept responsibility for my actions."
Fantino said he would take Brant "at his word" that he would surrender, but warned police would have to act if he didn't.
"The warrant for arrest has to be executed and he will have be put before the court," he said.
The blockade forced CN to suspend all service on the Montreal-Toronto corridor indefinitely in the third closure due to aboriginal actions in 15 months, CN spokesman Mark Hallman said.
The line would be closed until police can remove protesters and ensure safe operation, he told CBC News early Friday.
He said it was impossible to put a dollar value on the disruption, but noted that $100 million in commodities is transported through the corridor every day.
'I know there are consequences that have to be brought forward and ones that I have to bear.' —Protest leader Shawn Brant
"We would like to see this situation resolved as soon as possible," Hallman said.
In anticipation of Ontario blockades, Via Rail cancelled all Friday train services between Toronto and Montreal, and between Toronto and Ottawa.
Via spokeswoman Catherine Kaloutsky said the rail company began alerting passengers to a possible disruption earlier in the week.
"We did not want to risk putting our passengers in a position where we didn't know if we could get them to their destination," Kaloutsky told CBC News on Friday.
All other service east of Ottawa and west of Toronto was not being affected, she noted.
She added Via would offer full refunds for travellers and waive any service fees that would normally be applied to changing tickets. Full service to be restored on Saturday, she said.
The Assembly of First Nations' chief's plea that aboriginal leaders hold peaceful rallies aimed at educating the public didn't stop some other native groups from planning protests, either.
Elsewhere in central Ontario, provincial police shut down County Road 45 on Friday morning for an "undetermined amount of time" after a road blockade by Alderville First Nations south of the village of Roseneath.
On the East Coast, several dozen aboriginal demonstrators and their supporters staged a "traffic slowdown" along the New Brunswick-Nova Scotia border. A motorcade slowly worked its way east along the Trans-Canada Highway from Aulac, N.B., with RCMP keeping a close watch.
Meanwhile, in Manitoba, the Rolling River First Nation planned for a partial blockade mid-Friday morning on Highway 10, the main route through Riding Mountain National Park south of Brandon.
Other groups in the province called for an economic boycott to draw attention to the fatal shooting of 18-year-old Matthew Dumas by Winnipeg police in 2005.
Also Friday, Alberta's aboriginal chiefs placed an ad in Edmonton and Calgary newspapers calling for an end to colonization, saying treaties signed more than 100 years ago are not land surrenders.