First Nations may engage in economic blockades if Canada refuses treaty talks

First Nations lead­ers have dis­cussed plans to launch coun­try-wide eco­nom­ic dis­rup­tions by the mid­dle of Jan­u­ary if Prime Min­is­ter Stephen Harp­er doesn’t agree to hunger-strik­ing Attawapiskat Chief There­sa Spence’s demand for a treaty meet­ing

First Nations lead­ers have dis­cussed plans to launch coun­try-wide eco­nom­ic dis­rup­tions by the mid­dle of Jan­u­ary if Prime Min­is­ter Stephen Harp­er doesn’t agree to hunger-strik­ing Attawapiskat Chief There­sa Spence’s demand for a treaty meet­ing

Dur­ing three days of meet­ings and tele­con­fer­ences, chiefs from across the coun­try dis­cussed a plan set­ting Jan. 16 as the day to launch a cam­paign of indef­i­nite eco­nom­ic dis­rup­tions, includ­ing rail­way and high­way block­ades, accord­ing to two chiefs who were involved in the talks who request­ed anonymi­ty.

“The peo­ple are rest­less, they are say­ing enough is enough,” said one chief, who was involved in the dis­cus­sions. “Eco­nom­ic impacts are immi­nent if there is no response.”

Chiefs were still final­iz­ing details of their plans Mon­day evening and it remained unclear to what extent their dis­cussed options would trans­late into the offi­cial posi­tion.

Assem­bly of First Nations Nation­al Chief Shawn Atleo is expect­ed to write Harp­er a let­ter out­lin­ing the chiefs’ posi­tion.

Spence launched her hunger strike on Dec. 11 to force a meet­ing between Prime Min­is­ter Stephen Harp­er, Gov­er­nor Gen­er­al David John­ston and First Nations lead­ers to dis­cuss the state of the treaties. Spence said in a state­ment issued Mon­day that the aim of the meet­ing was to “re-estab­lish” the treaty rela­tion­ship and final­ly put First Nations peo­ple in their “right­ful place back here in our home­lands that we all call Cana­da.”

The plan of action comes as the Idle No More move­ment con­tin­ues to sweep across the coun­try through round dances, ral­lies along with high­way and rail block­ades.

The Tyen­d­i­na­ga Mohawks briefly block­ad­ed a main CN rail line between Toron­to and Mon­tre­al Sun­day, strand­ing about 2,000 Via Rail pas­sen­gers. The Mi’kmaq from the Lis­tuguj First Nation, Que., con­tin­ue to hold a rail block­ade on a CN line along with mem­bers of the Aamji­w­naang First Nation who have shut a CN line in Sar­nia, Ont. In British Colum­bia, the Seton Lake Indi­an Band end­ed a rail block­ade on Sun­day.

How the chiefs’ action plan will mesh with the Idle No More move­ment remains to be seen. Idle No More orga­niz­ers issued a state­ment Mon­day that dis­tanced the move­ment from the chiefs.

“The chiefs have called for action and any­one who choos­es can join with them, how­ev­er, this is not part of the Idle No More move­ment as the vision of this grass­roots move­ment does not coin­cide with the visions of the lead­er­ship,” said the state­ment, post­ed on the Idle No More Face­book page. “While we appre­ci­ate the indi­vid­ual sup­port we have received from chiefs and coun­cil­lors, we have been giv­en a clear man­date by the grass­roots to work out­side the sys­tems of gov­ern­ment and that is what we will con­tin­ue to do.”

One of the chiefs involved in action plan dis­cus­sion said the lead­er­ship want­ed to be sen­si­tive to the grass­roots-dri­ven move­ment and make clear that their plans are being devel­oped in sup­port and as a response to Idle No More.

“Chiefs are stand­ing firm in sup­port of Idle No More and grass­roots cit­i­zens,” said the chief. “We now need to uni­fy.”