Aboriginal demonstrators blocked a highway in western Quebec's Outaouais region Monday in a protest over logging and living conditions.

Quebec provincial police said they began receiving calls about the blockade on Highway 117, about 70 kilometres north of Grand-Remous inside La Vérendrye Park, around 5:30 a.m. ET.

Demonstrators blocked all lanes of Highway 117 for most of Monday.
(CBC)

Police were dispatched to the area where 50 protesters with lumber and heavy forest machinery were blocking the north and southbound lanes of the main route connecting the Laurentians with the Abitibi region.

"It's people from several different native groups such as Algonquin and Métis. And they are upset about logging practices in the region," said Quebec provincial police spokeswoman Mélanie Larouche.

She said police had no plans to take down the blockade by force.

Protesters want meeting

The protesters include an aboriginal extended family whose members split from the local Barriere Lake Algonquin First Nation in 1996, said Barriere Lake spokesman Hector Jerome.

The former Barriere Lake residents were backed by the Confederation of Aboriginal People of Canada, a Gatineau-based group that represents off-reserve natives and is not considered by local Algonquin First Nations to be an aboriginal group.

Guillaume Carle, national grand chief of the confederation, said the barricades would remain up until government officials agreed to meet with the protesters. He said the protesters are upset that they are not allowed to harvest wood from trees killed by storms or disease.

Carle alleged the Quebec government is reneging on an agreement allowing off-reserve aboriginals to log in the region, and he said the group wants a say in overall forestry planning.

The organization is also upset about the miserable living conditions of aboriginals living off-reserve who have no electricity, no heat and no water, Carle told the Canadian Press.

"The conditions are unacceptable," said Carle, who estimated about 200 people live off-reserve inside the park.

Protesters left reserve in 1996

But Jerome said the government is unlikely to believe that it is reasonable for a single family to make such demands.

"They're demanding that they have adequate housing and water, medical services — basically what a community has. But they're not [a] recognized community," he said, adding that the government should send a strong message that the demonstrators will not get what they're demanding.

"That's the only thing the government has to say," he said. "You have a community — go back to it."

With files from the Canadian Press