By Ian Elliot and Lisa Jemison
Friday, June 29, 2007 - 00:00
Kingston Whig-Standard
Local News - One of the main aboriginal organizers of yesterday’s major highway and rail blockade in Eastern Ontario vowed to give himself up to police today, even while promising more disruption in future.
Ontario Provincial Police issued an arrest warrant for charges of mischief against Shawn Brant, a Mohawk from the Tyendinaga reserve.
Train traffic was stopped yesterday and the 401 closed in both directions west of Kingston during the morning as a result of a national day of protest organized by native Canadians. Highway 2 was also closed down.
But the expected flashpoint in Deseronto, between Kingston and Belleville, remained calm.
Brant said he would turn himself in early today SAT, after the conclusion of the nationwide day of action, a protest against the slow pace of treaty negotiations and what natives feel is the marginalization of their issues by the federal and provincial governments.
Brant, 43, is on bail over previous charges of mischief, disobeying a court order and breach of recognizance in connection with the blockade of the CN rail line in April.
“This is the first time ever we’ve shut down the 401, and I don’t believe it’s going to be the last,” Brant told reporters shortly after police reached a deal with Mohawk activists to reopen the highway shortly after 11 a.m. yesterday. “It was certainly a good test run for us.”
Traffic was backed up along a 29-kilometre stretch of Highway 401 between Belleville and Napanee yesterday after police blocked the road in the early morning hours, anticipating the blockade by native protesters.
The natives also parked a dilapidated school bus across the CN tracks west of Deseronto as a symbolic protest. Both Via Rail and the nation’s freight train companies announced that they would not be running trains along the Toronto-Montreal corridor due to the threat to block the tracks and disrupt traffic.
“The OPP stopped traffic on the 401, our people didn’t do it,” said Brian Isaacs, an elder on the Tyendinaga reserve, standing outside the school bus blocking the tracks. Brant was sleeping inside the vehicle yesterday afternoon.
“Our people were the ones who reopened it. Please don’t blame that on us.”
Isaacs said the day of action, which involves an outstanding land claim west of Kingston near Deseronto, was an attempt to draw attention to lands that the aboriginals have historically had a claim to and which the government denies.
“We’ve been dealing with this land claim for 10 years now,” Isaacs said.
“What do we have to do to get attention?”
The improvised protest site, on a little-travelled back road on Mohawk territory, attracted scores of media and vehicles full of Mohawks and their supporters dressed in camouflage fatigues and with bandannas over their faces. They came and went from the site all afternoon, brusquely refusing to be interviewed.
The bus had a satellite dish mounted to its back bumper and around 1 p.m., a group of natives turned on a CTV television crew after viewing a live update broadcast on the channel’s all-news network.
Angered by the broadcast that had just aired, the group of natives rushed out of the bus swearing at the TV crew and ordering them to leave, although they did not move past the level crossing arms that separated the media from the protesters.
The crew retreated to their satellite truck but did not leave the scene.
Many of the stranded travellers who were headed west ended up at the Flying J truck stop in Napanee, where the OPP were diverting traffic onto secondary roads. The travellers seemed more resigned than angry about the delay.
“I’d rather be driving, but we knew from last night that this was going to happen today,” said truck driver Bruce McNaughton as he smoked a cigarette outside the truck stop.
“They have to do what they have to do and I just hope this isn’t going to go on for too much longer.”
Sheila Webb was heading from Montreal to Kitchener to attend a friend’s wedding and said she was unaware of the blockades until she got into her car early Friday morning.
She noted that native issues have a high priority in Quebec and said she had some sympathy for the protesters.
“I’d like to see their concerns about land claims and other issues get more attention from Ottawa,” she said.
On the reserve, Mohawk Chief R. Don Maracle said he doesn’t condone Brant’s actions, but action must be taken towards improving the living conditions for First Nations peoples.
“Everybody, including Shawn Brant, has the right to speak out,” Maracle said. But, he added, he feared protests such as Brant’s could cause the real message to be lost and foster more ill will than good.
“The goal of today is to build allies,” he said.
“Through what we do today, the future can be written with a better story.”
Maracle described the day of action as “a call for equity and justice.”
Canadians need to understand that First Nations lack things other communities take for granted, such as clean drinking water, education and access to economic development, he said.
“Canadians should not only be concerned with their own individual comfort. They should recognize that sharing with the First Nations is a just cause.”
Members of Maracle’s community - and other, non-native supporters – stood at the corner of Highway 2 and Shannonville Road yesterday, stopping passing cars to hand out information flyers about First Nations in Canada.
Standing in small groups along the roads and at the corner, volunteers held flags and signs, calling out to motorists to stop for a flyer.
Their goal wasn’t to stop traffic, just slow it down enough to make their message heard.
“The Crown voluntarily made certain promises to our people,” the chief said. “It’s rather ironic, as Canada celebrates its 140th birthday, that the Crown has failed in its fiduciary responsibility to our people.”
He said his community and First Nations communities across the country are facing problems of poor health care, poor housing, high rates of suicide and a lack of necessary resources.
There are still about 770 homes in the Mohawk community that use wells, Maracle said. Over half of them are polluted and even those that aren’t face water shortages in summer months.
Furthermore, “ten thousand First Nations people are waiting for post-secondary education,” he added.
Maracle said he doesn’t view the money First Nations communities receive as a sort of hand out or charity. His ancestors agreed to share their land with the Europeans when they arrived.
“Fairness calls that it has to work both ways,” he said. Instead, the Crown took aboriginal lands and now refuses to recognize their land claims.
Although some cars rushed past the Mohawks – ignoring the signs and sometimes angry calls asking them to slow down – most passing motorists rolled down their windows to accept a pamphlet.
Katsitsiase Maracle, who stood on a corner with a Mohawk flag, said the group had been lucky with the good weather.
“I woke up and said ‘the Creator blessed us today, it’s going to be a good day,’ ” she said, adding that the response from passing motorists has been generally positive.
“The people who are hostile, I think, just don’t understand,” she said.
The volunteers stood by the roadside until noon, at which time they broke for a barbecue.