Prentice urges end to blockade

Barry EllsworthFriday, April 20, 2007
By Barry Ellsworth
The Belleville Intelligencer

Natives should “abandon” their blockade of the main CN line between Toronto and Montreal and return home, says Jim Prentice, the federal Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development.

“I continue to ask that everybody return home and do so peacefully,” he said during a brief telephone interview Friday. “That is the best way forward.”

Just past midnight Friday, Mohawk protesters blocked the rail line, forcing CN to bus VIA Rail passengers around the demonstration. The move follows the takeover of a gravel pit about a month ago. Protesters said both actions have been taken to force the government to speed up settlement of the Culbertson land tract, which protesters say was illegally taken from them in 1832.

But Prentice said negotiations between Ottawa and Natives concerning the land tract are proceeding and the protesters may jeopardize the talks.

“There’s been enormous progress made,” he said, and both he and Mohawks of the Bay of Quinte Chief Don Maracle are worried the talks will lose momentum because of the protest.