Algonquins upset by police behaviour
Sûreté du Quebec breaks up aboriginal highway blockade
Dave Rogers, The Ottawa Citizen
Published: Wednesday, October 08, 2008Quebec police fired teargas or some kind of irritant at children and attacked elderly demonstrators when they cleared an aboriginal blockade on Highway 117 north of Maniwaki, Barrière Lake Algonquins said yesterday.
The Sûreté du Québec charged nine people, including two juveniles, with mischief yesterday after officers cleared a pile of logs from the highway that links the Outaouais to the Abitibi region.
Police released the accused on condition that they keep the peace.
Sgt. Melanie Larouche said police fired canisters containing a chemical irritant, not teargas at the crowd. She said paramedics determined afterwards that no one was injured.
The blockade began at 6:30 a.m. and police began removing the protesters and barricade from the highway at about 4 p.m.
Michel Thusky, a spokes-man for the Barrière Lake Algonquins, said police fired canisters into the crowd of 74 adults and about 40 children after reporters left the blockade.
The band said the police roughed up a 59-year-old woman when they removed protesters and an Algonquin man in his 20s struck by a canister was treated in hospital for neck burns yesterday.
Martin Lukacs, a volunteer who works for the band, said children were on the highway because the blockade was a community event and the Algonquins did not expect a violent confrontation. He said the police struck while the children were eating.
The Algonquins of Barrière Lake want the Indian and Northern Affairs Department to recognize their traditional council and chief and a federal-provincial treaty that would give them a share of natural resource profits on their land.
The unemployment rate in the community of 650 people, 300 kilometres north of Ottawa, is about 90 per cent.
In 1991, the Barrière Lake Algonquins signed an agreement with Canada and Quebec to sustainably develop its 10,000-square-kilometre territory. Since 1996, the federal government has recognized a minority group and chief that oppose the agreement.
Mr. Thusky said a police riot squad damaged tents and the children's tables.
"They tossed teargas into the crowd that hit our children right after the media left," Mr. Thusky said. "The police just ignored the presence of the children, elderly people and the disabled.
"We piled logs and six barrels on the road and put out food for the children and the elderly. The riot squad threw our beaver meat and other traditional food on the ground when they moved in, which is not respectful."
Mr. Thusky said the Algonquins will continue demonstrations to convince the federal and Quebec governments to honour an agreement with the band to manage the land co-operatively.
He said the Algonquin community doesn't receive any benefit from the millions of dollars earned each year from forestry, electric power generation and sports hunting on Barrière Lake land.
Indian and Northern Affairs has recognized the new band council headed by Chief Casey Ratt, whose house burned down in the spring under suspicious circumstances.
The previous band council, headed by former acting chief Benjamin Nottaway, has the support of the Algonquin Nation Secretariat and the Union of British Columbia Indian Chiefs, which accused Indian Affairs of supporting a coup in the community.
© The Ottawa Citizen 2008
Last Updated: Tuesday, October 7, 2008 | 5:11 PM ET
CBC News
A group of Algonquin demonstrators is accusing Quebec police of hurting a man and a little girl while breaking up a peaceful highway blockade on Monday, even as police accuse the protesters of violence that made tear gas necessary.
About 50 protesters of all ages from the Barriere Lake reserve, about 300 kilometres north of Ottawa, shut down Highway 117 for most of the day near Grand-Remous, where the highway joins du Lac Rapide Road in La Vérandrye wildlife reserve.
The highway is the sole direct route between the Abitibi region and the rest of Quebec. Riot police used tear gas to break up the protest late in the afternoon.
Quebec provincial police spokeswoman Melanie Larouche said police used tear gas only after giving protesters a verbal warning.
"We did a line in front of them and they became very violent at that time," she said. "They took cement blocks and they broke them on the road, and they took the pieces of cement in their hands."
Michel Thusky, a spokesman for the protesters, maintained that police were not being provoked when they began launching tear gas at the group, which included children, the disabled and the elderly.
Protesters said a three-year-old girl was hurt when she was hit by a tear-gas canister, as was a man who had to be hospitalized. Others required oxygen treatment, they said.
The group was protesting because they say the Canadian and Quebec governments are not respecting economic development and resource management agreements within their territory. They were also demanding that the federal government appoint an observer to oversee the selection of a new chief for the reserve, and said the blockade would continue until those demands were met.
Thusky said Tuesday that protesters were forced to reopen the road because their children were being hurt, but he added that the community will keep using pressure tactics until the provincial government agrees to meet with them.
Sounds very lawful and very reasonable to me. What's Canada's answer? Why is Canada violently attacking the traditional Indigenous people of Barriere Lake? Why is Canada violently attacking the Traditional Council of Barriere Lake? Why has Canada violently imposed its own puppet leaders in power in Barriere Lake? Why has Canada not honoured its new treaties with Barriere Lake ? Why do we ... Canadians ... permit our governments to violently attack Indigenous Peoples instead of honouring our agreements with them? BTW ... this is a typical piece of government stalling and dismissal: Canada won't recognize their selection process unless we send an observer. Chuck Strahl/Harper won't send one, so their puppets remain in control of the funds of Barriere Lake. They also won't honour the tripartite agreements negotiated at great cost to Canadian taxpayers, in the interests of peace and prosperity for all. The Barriere Lake people are right to be incensed, but it wasn't them who threw the first stone. They had pieces of cement block to defend themselves from heavily armed forces, who struck first ... hitting a 3 year old with a tear gas canister. I'm deeply ashamed of Canada.The group was protesting because they say the Canadian and Quebec governments are not respecting economic development and resource management agreements within their territory. They were also demanding that the federal government appoint an observer to oversee the selection of a new chief for the reserve, and said the blockade would continue until those demands were met.
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