Protesters ignore order to end Via Rail blockade

Last Updated: Friday, April 20, 2007 | 8:22 PM ET

CBC News

CN has an injunction ordering a group of Mohawk protesters to stop blocking the Via Rail line west of Kingston, Ont., cutting off rail service to Toronto.

Rail service between Kingston, Ont., and Toronto has been blocked since early Friday morning.
(Ian MacAlpine/Kingston Whig Standard/CP)

The injunction was served early Friday afternoon, but the protesters are ignoring it.

Rail service between Kingston and Toronto has been blocked since early Friday morning when a school bus was parked across the rails in a protest over disputed land near Deseronto.

Aboriginal protesters set up barricades outside a quarry there more than a month ago, but early Friday morning they moved their protest to the tracks, forcing Via to stop service between Ottawa and Toronto, and Montreal and Toronto.

Via announced it is sending passengers by bus from Montreal to Toronto, but this service is only operating Friday and only in the one direction. There is no service from Toronto to Montreal or between Toronto and Ottawa.

Protest leader Shawn Brant, of the Bay of Quinte Mohawks, said the protest will last 48 hours.

Provincial police are on the scene, but have not interfered.

Talks progressing slowly

The federal government has appointed a land-claims negotiator to try to resolve the dispute, but Brant has said talks are progressing too slowly.

Deseronto is about 26 kilometres east of Belleville, Ont.
(CBC)

CN spokesman Mark Hallman said the protest — which came on the first anniversary of an abortive police raid on another long-running First Nations blockade in Caledonia, Ont. — was affecting the entire corridor between Montreal and Toronto.

"This is of significant concern to the company as this dispute has nothing to do with CN," Hallman said.

"We're working with authorities on this matter; we want to resolve this issue as soon as possible."

On March 22, about 70 Mohawk demonstrators blocked access to the Thurlow Aggregates quarry near Deseronto.

At the time, Brant said they planned to stay until the province cancels the quarry's licence.

Since last November, Mohawk leaders and the federal government have been involved in discussions and negotiations over the land, which the Tyendinaga Mohawks claim is theirs.

"It's very difficult to carry out meaningful negotiations at the table while they're taking out 10,000 truckloads a year of our land," Brant said.

The land claim involves more than 400 hectares on the Bay of Quinte, east of Belleville, including the sites of many businesses such as the quarry.

"We shut [the rail lines] down as part of the ongoing rotational economic disruption campaign we promised," Brant said Friday.

Don Maracle, chief of Tyendinaga Mohawks in the area, said he sympathized with Brant's group. But, he said, the Mohawk council did not sanction the quarry blockade.