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Manitoba blockade

Manitoba chiefs’ organization announce blockades will be going up as PQ blockade comes down

Feb 23, 2020 | 1:43 PM

WINNIPEG – First Nations leaders in southern Manitoba are
planning blockades next month at four border and provincial boundary
crossings.

The Southern Chiefs Organization says the blockades will last two
hours on March 20, and are aimed at drawing attention to the plight
facing Indigenous people.

Grand Chief Jerry Daniels says even though Indigenous people are
the original land owners, they have been relegated to society’s
margins since Confederation.

He says issues such as those between the Wet’suweten, Coastal
GasLink and the British Columbia government will not end until
Canadians understand that.

Premier Brian Pallister says no one wants to escalate the
situation at the blockades.

But he says it’s in no one’s interest for authorities to stand
back while laws are being broken, because it can put people’s lives
and well-being in danger.

A blockade south of Montreal that halted rail traffic and frayed nerves since Wednesday was abandoned late Friday after riot police arrived to enforce a court injunction.

The roughly two dozen protesters, acting in solidarity with Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs contesting a British Columbia natural gas pipeline, had begun dismantling the encampment earlier in the evening following discussions with police.

They took downs tents and carried items such as sleeping bags, pots, propane tanks and a wood stove to the edge of a security perimeter established earlier in the day by Longueuil municipal police.

Then at around 10 p.m., a spokesman wearing a ski mask and sunglasses announced the rail blockade in St-Lambert, Que., was ending but said the fight was not over.
(The Canadian Press)