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Idle No More protesters make good on threats to shut down Canadian infrastructure
Making good on threats to shut down infrastructure across Canada, flag-waving, drum-beating protesters marched Wednesday under the banner of the Idle No More movement as they set up blockades snarling traffic and halting trains across the country.
In Windsor, Ont., about 600 marchers — one of the largest of the protests — took to one of the city’s links to Detroit, the Ambassador Bridge, backing up commercial traffic beyond city limits.
The so-called national day of action created tension outside Edmonton where protesters blocked the main artery between the Alberta capital and Calgary. One driver in a large blue pickup truck slowly edged their way through the blockade as protesters jumped on the truck’s hood before finally letting the driver pass. No one was injured during the confrontation.
With minor exceptions, the protests were peaceful and went off without incident.
More than one chief who spoke out in Windsor, however, put the federal government on notice that, should it not heed the call to meet and discuss treaty rights with Canada’s indigenous leaders, protesters would return with much larger numbers. (Photo: John Woods; Robin Rowland/The Canadian Press)
Fresh road and rail blockade threats as chaos and confusion mar First Nations meeting
OTTAWA — A meeting scheduled between First Nations leaders and Prime Minister Stephen Harper was mired in chaos and confusion this morning, amid conflicting demands and claims from chiefs and new threats of road and rail blockades.
Shawn Atleo’s leadership as national chief of the Assembly of First Nations also appears to be on the line as chiefs demanded that he boycott the talks.
As arguments heated up over the form the meeting should take, protesting Attawapiskat chief Theresa Spence emerged today from the teepee in which she has been undertaking a month-long liquid diet to talk about the hardships native Canadians face and urged the government to “renew” the relationship. (THE CANADIAN PRESS/Patrick Doyle)
Harper agrees to meet with First Nations leaders after weeks of protests
Prime Minister Stephen Harper has agreed to meet with aboriginal leaders on Jan. 11 to discuss their ongoing treaty concerns and to soothe rising tensions.
Earlier this week, Assembly of First Nations National Chief Shawn Atleo asked Harper and Gov. Gen. David Johnston to meet with chiefs on Jan. 24 — the one-year anniversary of Harper’s summit in Ottawa with aboriginal leaders — to help end ongoing hunger strikes and address lingering treaty issues.
Attawapiskat First Nation Chief Theresa Spence has been on a hunger strike since Dec. 11 in hopes of forcing Harper into talks with aboriginal leaders. Spence said a late-January meeting was not satisfactory and demanded a meeting with the prime minister in the next 48 hours. (Geoff Robins, Cole Burston/The Canadian Press)
First Nation leaders to meet as Idle No More movement ‘becoming more volatile’
First Nations leaders are meeting today to clarify the demands of hunger-striker Chief Theresa Spence, in the hopes of getting closer to a resolution of recent unrest.
National Chief Shawn Atleo is meeting several key regional chiefs from the area surrounding Spence’s Attawapiskat reserve in northern Ontario.
Spence’s spokespeople said Wednesday in a written statement that the situation “is becoming more volatile” with each passing day that Prime Minister Stephen Harper doesn’t meet with Spence.
At the same time, Atleo has issued what he calls an urgent invitation to Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Gov. Gen. David Johnston to meet chiefs on Jan. 24 _ the one-year anniversary of Harper’s summit with First Nations. (The Canadian Press)
Canada, First Nations headed in ‘dangerous direction’ as Idle No More hunger strike continues: Former PM Joe Clark
A visibly weak Chief Theresa Spence made a brief appearance on Sunday — in Day 20 of her fast — as a parade of politicians and protesters turned up the volume to demand action from the Harper government on treaty issues.
Through a spokesperson, the chief of the Attawapiskat First Nation said she was “deeply humbled” by the support she’s received from aboriginals and non-aboriginals in her appeal for a face-to-face meeting with Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Governor-General David Johnston.
“This is a call to arms and a call to action in the most peaceful and respective way that reflects our natural laws as Indigenous nations,” Spence said in the statement. (Robin Rowland, Fred Chartrand/The Canadian Press)
Graphic: A snapshot of Canada’s aboriginal population
“Our goal is much increased aboriginal participation in the economy and in the country’s prosperity,” Stephen Harper said at a historic Crown-First Nations gathering in Ottawa Tuesday. “In terms of participation, standard of living and quality of life the time has come for First Nations to fully share with other Canadians from all walks of life.” If current statistics on the aboriginal community are an indication, however, the road could be a long one.
John Ivison: Pragmatic PM looks ahead as Chiefs air old grievances
The Crown-First Nations gathering in Ottawa was a classic example of a failure to communicate. Both Prime Minister Stephen Harper and National Chief Shawn Atleo recognized the history of Canada’s relations with its First Nations as a register of crimes and misfortunes. Both paid lip-service to the idea of unlocking the potential of aboriginal Canadians.
Attawapiskat crisis is Canada’s ‘moment of reckoning in First Nations relations’: Chief
The crisis gripping the community of Attawapiskat in northern Ontario is “this country’s moment of reckoning in its relations between First Nations and Canada,” Assembly of First Nations Chief Shawn Atleo declared Tuesday. Atleo said he believes the controversy at Attawapiskat could be a watershed moment for this country’s aboriginal communities and the “hundreds of Attawapiskats” scattered across Canada.
Harper should visit Attawapiskat before pointing fingers: NDP
Fresh off a trip to the impoverished First Nation community of Attawapiskat, NDP interim leader Nycole Turmel called on Prime Minister Stephen Harper to visit it himself — and stop dwelling on money
John Ivison: The rising toll of a ‘failed experiment’ with isolated reserves
Canadians are accustomed to the Red Cross sending emergency aid to Haiti and the Horn of Africa. They are less used to the organization sending blankets and winter clothing to impoverished native Canadians living in tents.
In the stricken northern Ontario aboriginal community of Attawapiskat, it is being portrayed as an alternative to government. The Red Cross stepped in after Alberta wildfires and Quebec floods, but Attawapiskat is a slower-moving disaster. The fly-in reserve near James Bay is facing an acute housing shortage. A state of emergency was declared at the end of September and, as winter begins to bite, dozens of people are living in wood-frame tents and uninsulated sheds, using slop buckets as toilets.
Pictures and video posted online by northern Ontario NDP MP Charlie Angus have shocked Canadians, and the story is likely to get more coverage Tuesday when interim NDP leader Nycole Turmel visits. Small wonder the Opposition is going big. Shots of mouldy, overcrowded houses and Third World poverty beamed into suburban living rooms move people to ask questions of their political leaders. (Photo: Allison Dempster/CBC News)
Aboriginal Arts Challenge winners let their work speak for itself
The winners of this year’s Aboriginal Arts Challenge have a few, perhaps surprising, things in common. First, neither of them grew up in communities that prioritized the arts, and secondly, they both took a contemporary approach to their winning pieces.
Joseph Tisiga, 26, won in the 19-29 age category for his painting With Friends, his reimagining of the day his mother was taken from her family. Taylor Thom, 17, won the 14-18 age category for her pencil drawing Soar Again, a metaphor about the stagnation she sees in the aboriginal community.
Thom, who grew up in Gift Lake, Alta., spent a month working on her winning drawing and says it represents the continued burden of residential schools, but also the hope that the community can continue moving forward. It’s the first time she has won anything like this, and she said she was just expecting a “thanks for participating” certificate in the mail, not the $2,000 first prize.
Mohawks set up camp in Toronto’s High Park
A group of Mohawk Warriors has set up camp in a section of High Park, on land it says is a sacred burial site that has been over-run by off-road cyclists.
But any similarities to Oka and Caledonia end there; this is more of a public works project than a tension-filled standoff, with city officials providing a portable toilet and a shed for tools, and police insisting the campers “are not protesters.”
Councillor Sarah Doucette (Parkdale-High Park), who met with the natives last Tuesday at City Hall, said she is aware of the “sit-in” and is “OK with it.”
“The city has had archeologists go and test, they’ve had about 40 test pits, and it does not show it to be a burial mound. However, we realize that the BMX bikes, as great as exercise and fresh air for these kids as it is, we want to return High Park to what it should be,” Ms. Doucette added. (Photo: Aaron Lynett/National Post)
