Train lines continue to be blocked
Exo’s Candiac line is still down on Tuesday, blocked in Kahnawake, and I gather VIA to Toronto is also still unavailable. A Kahnawake spokesperson says that if people want to use the trains they should contact the federal government about the pipeline.
Chris 11:02 on 2020-02-11 Permalink
An anti-fossil fuel pipeline protest that blocks public transport!
But the highways continue unimpeded with their 1.1 people per car!
Genius.
Kate 11:21 on 2020-02-11 Permalink
Chris, please don’t be thick. Train tracks are a federal concern, they pass through or near indigenous reserves and are fairly easy to obstruct. They’re also an abiding symbol of Canada, coast to coast. A natural target for this action.
Chris 11:46 on 2020-02-11 Permalink
How am I being thick? Sure, it’s a “natural” target, it’s just the wrong one. The 132, 138, and 207 roads pass through their reserve too. They are also easy to obstruct. Public transport users are an ally against fossil fuel overuse, car users are not. They are targeting their ally, which is an odd thing to do.
If we want less pipelines, we need _more_ public transport, not less.
Ian 14:45 on 2020-02-11 Permalink
@Chris:
doc•tri•naire dŏk″trə-nâr′
adj.
Relating to, adhering to, or insisting upon a doctrine or theory without regard to practical considerations or problems.
n.
A doctrinaire person.
n.
One who theorizes without a sufficient regard to practical considerations; a political theorist; an ideologist; one who undertakes to explain things by one narrow theory or group of theories, leaving out of view all other forces at work.
thomas 15:21 on 2020-02-11 Permalink
But the Coastal GasLink pipeline is fully under provincial jurisdiction and has nothing to do with the federal government. Why should the British Columbia government care that commuters between Montreal and Toronto are inconvenienced?
dwgs 15:49 on 2020-02-11 Permalink
Chris, are you aware that those roads you advocate blocking in place of the railway also carry public transit vehicles?
thomas, as I understand it the protests here have more to do with how the RCMP, a federal police force, are blocking access to and from the Wetsuweten camp as well as conducting raids on the camp.
thomas 17:14 on 2020-02-11 Permalink
@dwgs The RCMP are contracted to provide policing to BC. They are just doing whatever the BC government tells them to do. It is not the place of the federal government to intervene.
Michael Black 01:31 on 2020-02-12 Permalink
People leverage with what they have, especially if they feel they lack power.
The environmental movement has at the very least done cultural appropriation, maybe even racism, so that’s leverage to present this as an environmental issue. It really gets people going.
In North Dakota the immediate concern was the pipeline was going over or under an important source of water. Water contamination is an existing problem among many of the peoples.
But a bigger issue is power. Europeans came over and put names on things and divided up the continent, as if nobody had been here. Treaties were made, “giving” to People as if they hadn’t already long used those areas, then broken, when it was convenient to Europeans. In BC if I remember right, the reserves weren’t even a result of treaties.
150 years ago there was an expectation that People should just roll over as Canada (and the US) spread out. How could we be traitors in Red River when few had any real ties to “Canada”? Even before settlers moved in, the continent was divided up by fur trade monopolies and absent owners claiming territory, and then sold and traded, again without concern with who was already there. Louis Riel formed a government, even involving people who didn’t completely agree with him, but it meant little. The expeditionary force went out to Red River, to “save” those who were hardcore Canadians, and there was more violence than during the Reistance. Not by the force, but just individuals wanting revenge. The force did include Sam Steele, and probably was the reason for the later formation of the North West Mounted Police.
And it was far worse for people who weren’t Metis.
People resisted back then, but it’s dismissed as “savages” being violent. People were badly subdued, and it’s taken fifty years, since the Occupation of Alcatraz, to fight back.
An injury to one is an injury to all. Which is why the Syilx came to Quebec during the “Oka Crisis”, and why Peoples are blockading railroad tracks now. It’s not about “the environment”, it’s about who gets to decide, and what gets decided.
People are people, they can have the same concerns as anyine else. But it’s not the same way as outsiders portray natives as environmentalists. Forget Grey Owl, and Earth Day ads with crying indians played by non-native actors, and appafently Chief Seattle’s famous speech was not made by him, or was mangled after he spoke it. Environmentalists may want to be native buddies, but it may not be the reverse, at least not as portrayed.
Chief Phillip was on stage with Greta Thunberg in BC some months back, but it’s more complicated. When he spoke on the current issue, he was speaking of sovereignity. He’s Syilx, he can speak for me.
“From first contact the influx of settlers was slow and yet steady, with both the Syilx/Okanagans and settlers worked towards a living arrangement.” Then “The Syilx/Okanagan people opposed the establishment of the reserves without first having negotiated a treaty.” And “We as the Syilx/Okanagan people still affirm that the land is ours, as no treaty has been negotiated.”
That’s distant family, from the ONA webpage. I’m sure all the other Peoples in BC see things similarly. That’s why trains are blockaded.
Meezly 15:53 on 2020-02-12 Permalink
Very simply put:
Thousands of Canadians are feared to be inconvenienced as actions in support of the Wet’suwet’en Nation intensify across the country.
“You have to understand, being inconvenienced is like genocide to us.”
https://walkingeaglenews.com/2020/02/11/scores-of-canadians-feared-inconvenienced/