For the time being, Mohawk activists in Kahnawake will maintain a rail barricade that has been in place for more than three weeks — despite a proposed deal announced Sunday between Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs and federal and provincial governments to resolve a dispute over a pipeline project.
The Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs are opposed to a natural gas pipeline in British Columbia slated to go through their ancestral territory, and the dispute has brought on solidarity protests and rail line blockades, including the one in Kahwawake, and transport disruptions across Canada.
The blockade on the Canadian Pacific Railway mainline in Kahnawake, which is used by eight freight trains daily and the Candiac commuter line, went up Feb. 8.
There would probably be no decision about the barricade before Monday evening, Kenneth Deer, Secretary of the Mohawk Nation at Kahnawake, who has been acting as a spokesperson for the activists, told reporters late on Sunday afternoon.
“We have been in touch with the Wet’suwet’en chiefs and we are still analyzing all of the information we have gotten from them. Some more discussion has to be had,” he told them. Some of the information “is a little vague,” he said.
“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,” he said.
The plan, Deer told The Gazette on Sunday evening, was for the Kahnawake community to meet on Monday at some point.
“The entire community has to come together and make a decision,” he said. “It can’t be just one small group: It has to be everybody,” Deer said.
A decision, if it comes on Monday, will probably not be before late afternoon or evening. “When the people decide that they have enough information, they’ll make their decision.”
He said that would probably take a day, however, to dismantle the barricade. “There are a lot of tents and all kinds of materials,” he said.
A provisional injunction granted last Tuesday by the Quebec Superior Court ordering protesters to end the Kahnawake barricades has not been enforced. “We hope that CP has a little more patience while we analyze the results,” Deer said Sunday.
He said he spoke Sunday with Chief Woos, one of the Wet’suwet’en hereditary leaders, about the meeting in British Columbia with government representatives. “There are some good things that came out of that meeting — and some things that are not so good,” Deer said.
“I think the draft MOU (memorandum of understanding) with the federal government and the chiefs about who is the custodian of the Wet’suwet’en territory and the recognition of the hereditary chiefs by the Canadian government is significant.
“However, the issue of the pipeline is still not resolved and that’s a very big issue, not only for the Wet’suwet’en chiefs, but everybody,” he told reporters.
“We were really hoping that they would really consider the re-routing of it — and that’s why we want to have a bit more discussion with the chiefs.”
Read rest at National Post
The First Nations in Canada are exactly that, by law. They are a nation within a nation. It’s a forever stand off. Pushme pullyou.
Real Democracy in action – 50% +1 and the minority has no say. Thank the Founding Fathers that they made the US a Republic, where minorities are still listened to. (And calling it a “Democratic Republic” is like saying “Military Intelligence” – if you’re familiar with how liberals feel about that expression.)
Yes useful idiots are everywhere like the useful idiots and their railroad Blockade look at the very useful idiots in the picture above