Protesters gathered at a rail yard in Vaughan, Ont., on Saturday, vowing to continue the pop-up protests in solidarity with the hereditary chiefs of the Wet’suwet’en who oppose a natural gas pipeline to be built across their traditional territory in northern B.C.
With the blockade on Tyendinaga Mohawk territory near Belleville, Ont., in its 10th day, the Vaughan protest was one of several similar blockades across the country that have cut both passenger and freight rail services, with pressure mounting on the federal government to end them.
There were also protesters gathered in downtown Toronto and some blocking rail tracks carrying GO trains in northwest Toronto.
“We are going after Canada where it hurts the most,” Vanessa Gray, an environmental and Anishinaabe activist from Aamjiwnaang First Nation in southwestern Ontario told CBC News.
“There are many groups, many networks organizing. This is across the nation, across the world. We’re working apart but together in solidarity for the Wet’suwet’en land defenders.”
Saturday’s protest coincided with a meeting between the federal Indigenous Services minister Marc Miller and representatives of the Mohawk Nation to discuss the Belleville blockade.
Vanessa Gray, an environmental and Anishinaabe activist, talks about expectations from Saturday’s protest. 1:04
The blockades support efforts by the Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs in B.C., who have been protesting the Coastal GasLink pipeline scheduled to be built across their land. Armed RCMP officers have moved in on the protesters and arrested several in an attempt to clear the way for pipeline construction.
“I hope the Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs’ demands are met, that the RCMP leave the Wet’suwet’en territory immediately, and I would like to see all those cops who were involved, who are involved, see consequences for their actions,” Gray said.
Vanessa Gray, an environmental and Anishinaabe activist from Aamjiwnaang First Nation, is one of the protest organizers. (CBC)
“We are just standing up and fighting back for our sovereign Indigenous right to be on our own territory without a military police raid or response.
“Canada’s relationship to the oil industry is the deepest relationship that they have and we’re here today to talk about the deep relationship Wet’suwet’en people have with their water. The urgency to protect that is dire right now. This is an emergency,” Gray added.
‘Settlers need to stop and listen’
Sarah Rotz, a professor at York University who’s been supporting and helping to organize the protests, said “it’s important that settlers consider and take seriously” what’s going on across Canada.
She said using terms like “the rule of law” to justify the crackdown in Wet’suwet’en territory is not helping.
“When we use terms like the rule of law, we’re ignoring Indigenous legal systems and we’re assuming that the colonial legal system is the only legal system, so really undermining Indigenous legal systems,” Rotz told CBC News.
Rotz said she is “standing in solidarity” with Indigenous peoples and nations who are defending their land and their legal system and trying to educate settlers about their traditional governance systems and cultures and ways of being.
“Settlers need to stop and listen,” Rotz said.
Sarah Rotz, a professor at York University, says it’s not up to the Canadian government to decide for Indigenous peoples what kind of resource allocations and proposals should be approved on Indigenous lands. (CBC)
The York professor said it is not up to the Canadian government to decide for Indigenous peoples what kind of resource allocations and proposals should be approved on Indigenous lands.
“You can talk about reconciliation as much as you want and use really kind, nice words, but how are you going to actually change your mechanisms, your systems of governance? You can’t talk about reconciliation and then impose your system of governance on Indigenous peoples and then approve or deny a corporate proposal to build a pipeline on Indigenous lands,” Rotz added.
A group of protesters at the Bloor and Spadina intersection in downtown Toronto on Saturday. (Sarah-Émilie Bouchard/CBC)
At another protest at the Bloor and Spadina intersection in downtown Toronto, a group of noisy protesters shouted, “How do you spell racist? RCMP,” and “It’s not their land, not then, not now. Coastal GasLink, shut the f–k down.”
Natali Euale Montilla, who was at the downtown protest, said the government does not respect hereditary chiefs or colonial law.
“The Canadian government has no jurisdiction over their lands, it is the hereditary chiefs who have rule of law in those territories,” Montilla told CBC News.
“What Canada is doing is totally unlawful and they’re violating the right to live and the right to survive that the folks out there have, and all over what we now call Canada.”
Shortly before 3 p.m. (ET) on Saturday, Anne Marie Aikins, spokesperson for Metrolinx, said there were approximately 80 people on the GO tracks north of York University GO Station on the Barrie corridor.
“We have to cancel some trains and modify others. Our priority is to ensure everyone near [the] tracks remains safe,” Aikins wrote in an email to CBC News.
Metrolinx is a government transportation agency that manages and integrates road and public transport in Ontario, including GO Transit.
VANCOUVER – Contract negotiations resume today in Vancouver in a labour dispute that has paralyzed container cargo shipping at British Columbia’s ports since Monday.
The BC Maritime Employers Association and International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 514 are scheduled to meet for the next three days in mediated talks to try to break a deadlock in negotiations.
The union, which represents more than 700 longshore supervisors at ports, including Vancouver, Prince Rupert and Nanaimo, has been without a contract since March last year.
The latest talks come after employers locked out workers in response to what it said was “strike activity” by union members.
The start of the lockout was then followed by several days of no engagement between the two parties, prompting federal Labour Minister Steven MacKinnon to speak with leaders on both sides, asking them to restart talks.
MacKinnon had said that the talks were “progressing at an insufficient pace, indicating a concerning absence of urgency from the parties involved” — a sentiment echoed by several business groups across Canada.
In a joint letter, more than 100 organizations, including the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, Business Council of Canada and associations representing industries from automotive and fertilizer to retail and mining, urged the government to do whatever it takes to end the work stoppage.
“While we acknowledge efforts to continue with mediation, parties have not been able to come to a negotiated agreement,” the letter says. “So, the federal government must take decisive action, using every tool at its disposal to resolve this dispute and limit the damage caused by this disruption.
“We simply cannot afford to once again put Canadian businesses at risk, which in turn puts Canadian livelihoods at risk.”
In the meantime, the union says it has filed a complaint to the Canada Industrial Relations Board against the employers, alleging the association threatened to pull existing conditions out of the last contract in direct contact with its members.
“The BCMEA is trying to undermine the union by attempting to turn members against its democratically elected leadership and bargaining committee — despite the fact that the BCMEA knows full well we received a 96 per cent mandate to take job action if needed,” union president Frank Morena said in a statement.
The employers have responded by calling the complaint “another meritless claim,” adding the final offer to the union that includes a 19.2 per cent wage increase over a four-year term remains on the table.
“The final offer has been on the table for over a week and represents a fair and balanced proposal for employees, and if accepted would end this dispute,” the employers’ statement says. “The offer does not require any concessions from the union.”
The union says the offer does not address the key issue of staffing requirement at the terminals as the port introduces more automation to cargo loading and unloading, which could potentially require fewer workers to operate than older systems.
The Port of Vancouver is the largest in Canada and has seen a number of labour disruptions, including two instances involving the rail and grain storage sectors earlier this year.
A 13-day strike by another group of workers at the port last year resulted in the disruption of a significant amount of shipping and trade.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 9, 2024.
The Royal Canadian Legion says a new partnership with e-commerce giant Amazon is helping boost its veterans’ fund, and will hopefully expand its donor base in the digital world.
Since the Oct. 25 launch of its Amazon.ca storefront, the legion says it has received nearly 10,000 orders for poppies.
Online shoppers can order lapel poppies on Amazon in exchange for donations or buy items such as “We Remember” lawn signs, Remembrance Day pins and other accessories, with all proceeds going to the legion’s Poppy Trust Fund for Canadian veterans and their families.
Nujma Bond, the legion’s national spokesperson, said the organization sees this move as keeping up with modern purchasing habits.
“As the world around us evolves we have been looking at different ways to distribute poppies and to make it easier for people to access them,” she said in an interview.
“This is definitely a way to reach a wider number of Canadians of all ages. And certainly younger Canadians are much more active on the web, on social media in general, so we’re also engaging in that way.”
Al Plume, a member of a legion branch in Trenton, Ont., said the online store can also help with outreach to veterans who are far from home.
“For veterans that are overseas and are away, (or) can’t get to a store they can order them online, it’s Amazon.” Plume said.
Plume spent 35 years in the military with the Royal Engineers, and retired eight years ago. He said making sure veterans are looked after is his passion.
“I’ve seen the struggles that our veterans have had with Veterans Affairs … and that’s why I got involved, with making sure that the people get to them and help the veterans with their paperwork.”
But the message about the Amazon storefront didn’t appear to reach all of the legion’s locations, with volunteers at Branch 179 on Vancouver’s Commercial Drive saying they hadn’t heard about the online push.
Holly Paddon, the branch’s poppy campaign co-ordinator and bartender, said the Amazon partnership never came up in meetings with other legion volunteers and officials.
“I work at the legion, I work with the Vancouver poppy office and I go to the meetings for the Vancouver poppy campaign — which includes all the legions in Vancouver — and not once has this been mentioned,” she said.
Paddon said the initiative is a great idea, but she would like to have known more about it.
The legion also sells a larger collection of items at poppystore.ca.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 9, 2024.
