Indians in Canada cut train service

Indians in Ontario cut Canada’s east-west train service Friday, demanding federal action on land claims and better housing. Indian leaders said natives who barricaded the country’s main rail lines were inspired by Mohawks who have blockaded parts of Quebec for more than a month in another land dispute.

Canada’s cross-country passenger and freight train traffic came to a stop overnight because of two Indian blockades in northwestern Ontario.

The government instructed Canadian National Rail to get the lines cleared. CN appealed to the provincial police to do the job. Police declined to move into the area while railroad officials conducted negotiations with Indians holding the main line tracks.

Chief Roy Michano of the Heron Bay-Pic River Band said Indians would block the Trans-Canada Highway near Heron Bay next week if Canada’s minister of Indian Affairs declined to meet with Iroquois tribe members.

Piles of steel rails and wooden ties blocked the rail track at Longlac on the CN main line. About 60 miles to the south it was the same scene with the Canadian Pacific main line blocked by the Heron Bay-Pic River Band at the Pic Mobertcq Reserve. At both locations, dozens of Iroquois set up tents alongside the tracks. The double blockade brought cross-country freight and passenger traffic to a halt.

The blockades brought senior railroad executives to negotiate with Indians, and provincial police officials from Toronto to monitor the situation.

CN formally asked the Ontario Provincial Police for assistance. Constable Ken Gorst of the Longlac detachment said senior police officers ordered their people to “just stand by. We’re not taking any enforcement action at the present time as long as there is a possible negotiated settlement,” said Gorst.

“We want this settled as peacefully as possible,” said Constable Gary Cooper, OPP public information officer at Longlac. “Ours is a wait-and-see position.”

The bands at Longlac and Pic Mobert said they were not fighting the railways. Band spokesmen said blocking the railways was a lever to get Ottawa to move on long-standing land claims. The Indians also said they wanted better housing.

The tactic didn’t get much sympathy from Canada’s minister of Indian Affairs. Tom Siddon said the federal government wouldn’t negotiate the land claims in question until the Indians stopped the railroad blockades.

George Hollo, chief of communications and planning of Canada’s Bureau of Indian Affairs, said policing was a provincial responsibility.

“We’re dealing with Indian land claims costing hundreds of millions of dollars,” said Hollo.

CP tracks near White River were covered by piles of steel rails placed by Indians from the Pic Mobert Reserve. Chief James Kwissiwa said his band had been trying to settle land claims for 10 years. Kwissiwa said members were living in deplorable conditions. The chief said he wasn’t scared off by threats that police would be brought in to take down the barricades.

“We’re not afraid of this,” said the chief. “If they’re going to start forcing us with weapons and whatever … that means the government doesn’t care about native people. We natives have dealt with this for centuries. How could they come and force us out of something we feel is right?”

The Indians said they wouldn’t deal with anyone except the federal government.

Negotiations to end the Mohawk dispute in Quebec continued Friday. Mohawk leaders met with federal and provincial representatives. No one would comment on the talks held in a news blackout. Mohawk and police barricades remained at Oka and in Chateauguay in Quebec.

Quebec Premier Robert Bourassa met Thursday night with mayors affected by the barricade at the Mercier Bridge near Montreal. Bourassa said provincial police (the QPP) wanted to be replaced by the Canadian army. The army was on standby alert in Quebec, but manned no barricades Friday.

The Quebec dispute began when Mohawks at Oka barricaded themselves to protest community plans to expand a golf course onto an Indian burial ground. A police corporal was killed during a gun battle on July 11 when the QPP attempted to storm an Oka barricade in compliance with a court injunction order.