national day of action in canada...

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http://www.ubcic.bc.ca/NDOA.htm

iill be here with my grandkids

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list of events across canaduh

http://www.afn.ca/nda/es.htm

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Rogue Mohawk ignores calls for peaceful day of action and shuts Hwy. 401
at 18:44 on June 29, 2007, EDT.
By SUE BAILEY AND CHINTA PUXLEY
A Mohawk protestor from the Bay of Quinte Mohawks Tyendinaga stands on an overpass over highway 401, void of any traffic after successfully shutting down the highway as part of their protest near Deseronto Ontario Friday. (CP PHOTO/Tom Hanson)
A Mohawk protestor from the Bay of Quinte Mohawks Tyendinaga stands on an overpass over highway 401, void of any traffic after successfully shutting down the highway as part of their protest near Deseronto Ontario Friday. (CP PHOTO/Tom Hanson)

DESERONTO, Ont. (CP) - Canada's busiest highway was shut down for 11 hours Friday and rail lines were closed to passengers and freight for even longer as a rogue Mohawk protester ignored calls for a peaceful day of action by aboriginals and set out to disrupt the country's economy.

The blockades, which inconvenienced tens of thousands of travellers and parked $100 million in cargo, stole the spotlight as Mohawks on a usually hectic stretch of Highway 401 near this eastern Ontario town lit bonfires and warned they were armed with shotguns and ready to resist any police intervention.

Phil Fontaine, chief of the Assembly of First Nations, appealed to Canadians to look beyond the extreme measures of one man, saying that the long-planned day of action with its many peaceful demonstrations was intended to raise awareness of aboriginal issues from poverty to suicide to land-claim disputes.

"We are looking for the basic necessities of life that come with being Canadian - clean drinking water, decent housing, education and health care," Fontaine told a news conference in Ottawa.

"We are looking for equality of opportunity so we can get good jobs and support ourselves and our families. We are looking to control our own destinies. Improving our lives won't only be good for us, First Nations people, it will be good for Canada."

Aboriginals across the country came out Friday, mostly in small numbers, to say prayers at sunrise, march through the streets, hand out leaflets and talk to Canadians about land claims that are languishing in the courts.

"Until now, we have worked very hard to reach agreements in a peaceful and honourable way and we will continue to do so," said Fontaine, whose words were the mirror opposite of Shawn Brant, a rogue Mohawk who has previously done jail time for his militant protests.

"This is the first time ever we've shut down the 401, and I don't believe it's going to be the last," said a defiant Brant, a wiry 43-year-old father of three who wears his hair long under an ever-present battle-fatigue cap.

"It was certainly a good test run for us."

Indian Affairs Minister Jim Prentice called Brant's protest illegal and said his government had taken decisive action to clean up land claims and the "mess" it inherited from previous governments.

There is a backlog of more than 800 aboriginal land claims in Canada.

"With the exception of what we experienced with illegal blockades in eastern Ontario, I think it has been a good day," Prentice said. "It's been a good day for democracy and for the articulation of a peaceful point of view by First Nation Canadians."

Brant is out on bail on previous charges of mischief, disobeying a court order and breach of recognizance in connection with a 30-hour blockade of the nearby CN rail line on April 20. He says militant protests are the only way to get the attention of the public and the politicians he says are keeping his people in poverty.

Brant's Tyendinaga Mohawks set up camp on the 401, used jumper cables to activate crossing barriers to close CN Rail's main line between Toronto and Ottawa and Montreal, and parked an old school bus across a secondary roadway, Highway 2.

In negotiations with Ontario Provincial Police Commissioner Julian Fantino through the night, Brant had agreed to vacate the 401 by Friday morning, giving the green light again to commuters needing the heavily used artery on the first long weekend of the summer.

"We don't want people to see this as stepping back; we don't feel that it is," Brant said as he announced the deal had been struck.

Brant said he did not want to aggravate travellers more than necessary and that he hoped his gesture of goodwill would be reciprocated by Canadians in their attitude toward natives.

Fantino said blockades and barricades are not what the call of action was about for many, but that such measures "arise from very complex situations that the police have no authority to resolve."

The commissioner said he realized many people had been inconvenienced by the police decision to shut Highway 401, but added: "Were there alternatives? I don't think so."

A warrant had been issued for Brant's arrest on a charge of mischief, and Fantino said he would have no choice but to face police.

"There's an arrest warrant," Fantino said. "I can't make it go away. He knows the procedure. I'm sure he'll seek legal advice on the matter, but he'll have to come before the system and be dealt with by the system."

Mischief charges under the Criminal Code carry a range of sentence from two to 10 years.

Brant said he wouldn't turn himself in when the barricades come down at midnight because "you don't go to jail on the long weekend," but that he would surrender to police in the middle of next week.

CN Rail's decision to halt traffic on its busiest Toronto-Montreal line meant a daily average of 25 freight trains and 22 Via Rail trains were blocked.

Via Rail was forced to cancel 24 trains for about 5,000 passengers between Montreal and Toronto, and Ottawa and Toronto.

Gene Guillian, 38, had planned to catch a train to Toronto on the way to a Buddhist retreat, but Friday's disruptions forced him to take a bus instead.

"A three-hour bus ride turned into a six-hour bus ride," he said. "There was a big traffic jam because everybody was going around (Highway 401) to avoid that blockage. My butt hurt really bad afterwards, sitting for six hours."

Being a Buddhist, Guillian said he took the inconvenience in stride, even if it was frustrating.

"We're not supposed to be overly angry and we're supposed to try to find constructive ways to facilitate dialogue, so I sure hope the Canadian government and these native peoples can find a way to talk with each other," he said.

Although Via Rail said it expected normal service to resume Saturday, CN said the rail line would remain closed until the company got assurances from police that protesters had left the tracks for good.

CN expressed frustration that the railway was losing business because of native disputes. Officials suggested police should do more to stop the disruptions to its business.

"First Nations protesters are again blocking CN's rail corridor and the OPP continues to refuse to intervene," officials said in a statement early Friday.

Several smaller county roads in Ontario were barricaded for several hours, but did not cause disruption on the scale of the 401 blockade.

Brant's protests began in response to a developer's plan to build condominiums on land called the Culbertson Land Tract, the subject of a land claim accepted by the federal government for negotiation in 2003.

The basis of the Mohawk claim is that no part of the Culbertson Tract was ever given up and that it was illegally taken in 1832.

The protesters have been occupying a gravel quarry on the land since late March.

©The Canadian Press, 2007

Opinions expressed on this page are those of the reporting journalists. Shaw Cable does not necessarily share those opinions.

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Death of daughters prompted Brant to hard-line native activism
at 18:04 on June 29, 2007, EDT.
By SUE BAILEY

DESERONTO, Ont. (CP) - The man who has emerged as the voice of hard-line aboriginal militancy in Canada has a story to tell, but it has nothing to do with barricades or outstanding land claims, or even the leaders of his community who have distanced themselves from his law-breaking actions.

Written off by some as a one-time spotlight grabber and lauded by others as a charismatic and blunt-talking antidote to the numbingly bleak status quo, Shawn Brant is a man who has something to say and isn't afraid of the consequences.

The rogue Mohawk protester, who managed to turn a polite day of earnest speeches and orderly marches into a political shriek of outrage against native poverty and outstanding land claims, knows that may cost him his freedom at the end of the day.

But the price of rattling a few cages is worth it, he says.

"If that's what it takes ... for our issues to be resolved, we'll continue to push that button so we can see some real change," he said Friday through a shimmering haze of bonfire smoke near the same CN rail line he blocked last April 20.

Pulling a similar stunt late Thursday - plus shutting down a secondary road, and prompting police to divert traffic around a large stretch of Highway 401 - will land him in jail "for a long period of time," he says with a rueful grin.

Brant was under specific bail conditions from last spring's "economic disruption" to forego illegal protest.

Instead, he led an orchestrated, three-pronged attack on business as usual. Dozens of headlines and soundbites later, Brant was declaring mission accomplished.

About 40 of his hard-core supporters - especially several teenagers and kids - now possess new strength and assurance, he says.

"This is the first time ever we've shut down the 401 and I don't believe it's going to be the last. It was certainly a good test run for us."

It's a path that Brant chose a long time ago.

The wiry, fatigue-clad father of three recalls how something crossed over in him years earlier when his former wife, soon to deliver twin girls, hurt herself trying to draw water from a well.

They had no running water. He blamed that lack of even the smallest luxury for the related birth complications that claimed both baby girls.

He has been a hard-line activist almost ever since, plotting major economic disruption as his way of making Canada sit up and listen.

Brant is a veteran of the most violent and iconic native clashes, from Oka to Ipperwash. He has been known to take over and sometimes trash the offices of politicians, and has done jail time as a result.

Friday's national aboriginal day of action is just the beginning, he says.

He's threatened even harder and more prolonged action the next time around, although he's already raised the ire of Canadian National, which is suing for financial losses related to the disruption of freight and passenger traffic along the busy Toronto-Ottawa-Montreal railway corridor during the blockades.

The only voice they have, the only time they can get the government and the Canadian public to listen to their grievances, is when they target those things which inconvenience people, he says.

Brant is a solitary figure when it comes to such bravado, a reality he blames on a "campaign of fear" waged by the federal government.

Elected native leaders who rely on Ottawa for billions of dollars in funding have taken to heart the message that confrontation means fiscal cuts, he says.

His own chief has distanced himself from that in-your-face approach.

Brant says he understands the need to protect already stretched cash for social, housing and education programs.

But he took aim at Indian Affairs Minister Jim Prentice and what he called the cheap buy-off of his partner in blockade threats, Terry Nelson, chief of Roseau River First Nation in Manitoba.

Nelson backed off plans to block rail lines in his community after Prentice offered him 75 acres (30 hectares) toward settling a much larger, long-standing land dispute.

"Seventy-five acres is hardly worth compromising a person's principles," Brant said recently.

It takes 13 years on average to settle land claims. The claim on the particular tract of land that has driven Brant to protest was submitted in 1995 and accepted for negotiation in 2003. Federal and band negotiators have been wrangling over the 370 hectares of rolling countryside for years.

Brant says it's a sad statement that native people are forced to the extremes of protest.

Since March, he's been living at the quarry in an old school bus that was once converted into a deer-hunting camper. He sleeps in one of four crammed bunk beds, a half-machete slung over one of the posts.

Living in a bus on a quarry for more than 90 days has taken its toll on his family. It has sparked no end of debate within a Mohawk community that is itself divided.

But Brant is clear on his convictions and determined to stay.

For years he carried around a newspaper story about a 10-year-old boy in northern Ontario who left class one day in 1994 and hanged himself from a swingset.

Brant says he's asking Canadians to put themselves in the shoes of aboriginal people, and to be patient with whatever disruption may come.

"We simply want to provide for our kids a safe, healthy environment - and optimism for the future," he said.

©The Canadian Press, 2007

Opinions expressed on this page are those of the reporting journalists. Shaw Cable does not necessarily share those opinions.

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Mohawk protester Brant says someone will fill his shoes if he ends up in jail
at 17:24 on July 3, 2007, EDT.

http://start.shaw.ca/start/enCA/News/NationalNewsArticle.htm?src=n070376A.xml

DESERONTO, Ont. (CP) - Mohawk demonstrator Shawn Brant says there will be someone to fill his shoes if he ends up in jail after turning himself in to police later this week.

Brant, who led blockades of roads and a railway in eastern Ontario during last week's aboriginal day of action, declined Tuesday to name the man who will help lead the group of Mohawk protesters.

Brant said he plans to turn himself over to Ontario Provincial Police in Napanee, Ont., on Thursday morning and then attend a bail hearing that afternoon. But it's unlikely he'll get out on bail.

Brant, who has previously done jail time for his militant protests, had already been out on bail on previous charges in connection with a 30-hour blockade of the CN rail line near Deseronto, Ont., on April 20.

A warrant has also been issued for Brant's arrest on a charge of mischief, which carries a range of sentence from two to 10 years under the Criminal Code. Brant agreed to surrender to police last week.

But that's the cost of standing up for his convictions, he said.

"In our community, people are as proud and as happy as I've ever seen them in my life," he said.

Last Friday's protest, which shut down Canada's busiest highway for 11 hours and closed rail lines near Deseronto, was a "tremendous success," he added.

"It was something that needed to be done and brought forward to demonstrate our strength and our convictions, and I think our people did it with courage as well as discipline," he said.

"I'm personally proud because it's my job to bring the guys home and bring them home safely, and I was able to do that."

Brant, who has been living since March at a gravel quarry on disputed land near Deseronto, said he'll spend his remaining free time with his children and fellow protesters.

He's also spoken with Phil Fontaine, chief of the Assembly of First Nations, and Ontario Provincial Police Chief Julian Fantino.

"I certainly have a lot of respect for the man," Brant said of Fantino. "I do for anyone that's as worthy an adversary, and he's obviously committed, and his convictions are strong.

"I have a greater appreciation for his job than I certainly did before."

Brant's protests began in response to a developer's plan to build condominiums on land called the Culbertson Land Tract, the subject of a land claim accepted by the federal government for negotiation in 2003.

The basis of the Mohawk claim is that no part of the tract was ever given up and that it was illegally taken in 1832.

-By Maria Babbage in Toronto.

©The Canadian Press, 2007

Opinions expressed on this page are those of the reporting journalists. Shaw Cable does not necessarily share those opinions.

Submit Feedback to The Canadian Press.

[SuzzeQ4]

I think the day went well. I also think all the types of action were important. I think what we did was needed.

As for Shawn Brant, yes he did go against what the AFN called for, but that doesn't mean that he went against what all the leaders called for, in fact some leaders took part in blockades. Shawn is a good passionate guy who wants to do what ever it takes to stand up for his community, for our people. The community out here isn't really all that political but weather you like his tactics or not, we need people like him & his heart is in the right place, Also he keeps things peaceful. He gets bad press because he forces Canadians to look at the present as well as the past, thats why the news always plays such actions in the way they do pretending like there's a big threat, but lets face it, the violence at blockades tends to be against our people not from our people.

I'd like to thank all of those who were out there on the 29th, especially those who were brave enough to risk arrest at a blockade; without these people there wouldn't have been any news coverage. No one would have been interested in the less radical actions of the day if there hadn't been something more in their face to critisize.

Also thanks for bringing this to everyones attention middle of the sky, good to know that there was others from here out there that day!

Suzze

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i hope changes are made for the better