Category: Unnecessary Developments

Mohawk pro­test­er Brant gets light penal­ty for block­ades
Sep­tem­ber 29, 2008

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Mohawks stop instal­la­tion of police facil­i­ty, Sep­tem­ber 24, 2008

…a group of about 50 peo­ple were at the site Tues­day after­noon, vow­ing to block offi­cials from plac­ing a pre­fab build­ing they feel the com­mu­ni­ty was not con­sult­ed about.

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Six Nations group stops work at Eagle Place hous­ing site in Brant­ford, Sep­tem­ber 16, 2008

A Six Nations group blocked an attempt to begin work Mon­day on the site of a new hous­ing devel­op­ment at Erie Avenue and Bir­kett Lane.

Up to 30 mem­bers of the Hau­denosaunee Men’s Fire gath­ered at the site of a 99-home sub­di­vi­sion at about 6 a. m. and didn’t leave until ear­ly after­noon.

Their efforts pre­vent­ed city work crews from begin­ning work to pro­vide ser­vic­ing to the site, which is one of five des­ig­nat­ed no-go zones in bylaws passed by the city and an injunc­tion obtained in Ontario Supe­ri­or Court pro­hibit­ing activ­i­ties that stop con­struc­tion work.

“We’re required to be here. It’s our duty to be here, ” said native spokesman Dahwehido:geh, also known as Phillip W. Skye.

“This land is part of the Eagle’s Nest Tract. It has nev­er been sur­ren­dered, ced­ed or giv­en up and it’s our duty to pro­tect it.

“We’re here to make sure that no shov­el is put into the ground.”

As he spoke, Skye had a repli­ca of the Two Row Wampum draped over his arm.

He said devel­op­ment of the site would dam­age the area’s eco-sys­tem and he encour­aged city offi­cials to move away from devel­op­ing vacant land.

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Arrests spark Six Nations block­ade in Cale­do­nia, Sep­tem­ber 02, 2008

Yes­ter­day morn­ing, Stephen Pow­less, 43, and two teens were arrest­ed in Brant­ford for alleged­ly being on the con­struc­tion site at the Hamp­ton Inn on Fen Ridge Court, next to the Kingspan Insu­lat­ed Pan­els devel­op­ment site from which they are barred.

Police said the trio are under a court order to stay away from the land and were all charged with breach of a court order and mis­chief.

Clyde Pow­less, a spokesper­son for Six Nations, said the arrests were a “cat­a­lyst” for the block­ades, but that the com­mu­ni­ty is also frus­trat­ed by the slow pace of land claim nega­tions with the provin­cial and fed­er­al gov­ern­ments.

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Six Nations peo­ple shut down anoth­er Brant­ford devel­op­ment, August 6, 2008

More than 30 Six Nations pro­test­ers shut down work on a $500-mil­lion indus­tri­al and com­mer­cial devel­op­ment on Oak Park Road Tues­day morn­ing, say­ing envi­ron­men­tal con­cerns must be addressed.

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Six Nations peo­ple take aim at hotel project, July 19, 2008

They set up a large teepee at the edge of the Hamp­ton Inn hotel site on Fen Ridge Court after suc­cess­ful­ly halt­ing con­struc­tion of the near­by Kingspan Insu­la­tion ware­house and head­quar­ters.

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Six Nations peo­ple block job site over land dis­pute, July 14, 2008

BRANTFORD, Ont. — Ten­sions over native land claims in South­ern Ontario flared again Mon­day morn­ing as a pro­test­er blocked a cement truck’s access to a build­ing site and then alleged­ly assault­ed a police offi­cer.
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The dis­agree­ment in Brant­ford stems from plans to build an insu­la­tion fac­to­ry and head­quar­ters on land that is sub­ject to a long-out­stand­ing native land claim.
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“We’re con­tin­u­ing to mon­i­tor the sit­u­a­tion. The under­ly­ing issue here is a 200-year-old land claim against the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment, so the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment needs to accel­er­ate the nego­ti­a­tions lead­ing to a res­o­lu­tion of this issue,” said Greg Crone, Mr. Bryant’s press sec­re­tary.

The Six Nations claim own­er­ship of the area as part of a his­tor­i­cal treaty that they allege was not prop­er­ly hon­oured. The local gov­ern­ment received a tem­po­rary injunc­tion in May that pro­hibits inter­fer­ence with devel­op­ment on the site — owned by Ire­land-based Kingspan — and sev­er­al oth­er near­by prop­er­ties.

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Ignor­ing injunc­tion, Six Nations peo­ple stop work at devel­op­ment sites, July 8, 2008

‘Today is the first day of tak­ing back our ter­ri­to­ry’
Ignor­ing injunc­tion, native pro­test­ers stop work at devel­op­ment sites

Natives ignored a court injunc­tion Mon­day by march­ing onto devel­op­ment sites across the city.

Con­struc­tion was halt­ed at five projects as about 150 native pro­test­ers burst onto dusty work sites and ordered employ­ees to shut down equip­ment.
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When the pro­test­ers moved along Fen Ridge Court to the con­struc­tion site for Kingspan Insulation’s new head­quar­ters and indus­tri­al plant, they found all the work­ers, their cars and equip­ment were behind a locked eight-foot met­al fence.
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When the work­er refused, say­ing the land belonged to the devel­op­ers, sev­er­al natives sim­ply lift­ed a por­tion of the met­al fence out of its moor­ings and swung it out like a gar­den gate. When it top­pled, the natives walked over it and swarmed over the enor­mous prop­er­ty, rang­ing out to where huge earth-movers were oper­at­ing and insist­ing the work stop.

At each site, the pro­test­ers wait­ed patient­ly for the work­ers to shut down equip­ment, pack up their tools and move out of the area, often wav­ing good­bye.

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Sol­i­dar­i­ty with Tyen­d­i­na­ga and Six Nations, May 1, 2008

Ontario Provin­cial Police (OPP) attacked the Mohawk peo­ple at the Tyendinaga/Deseronto reclaimed quar­ry on Fri­day, April 25, 2008, arrest­ing as many as 10 peo­ple and point­ing guns. Sol­i­dar­i­ty block­ades, actions and demon­stra­tions took place in Six Nations/Caledonia, Akwe­sasne, Kah­nawake, Guelph, Ottawa, Toron­to and Van­cou­ver over the fol­low­ing four days. On April 26, the OPP threat­ened to remove by force the block­ade of the High­way 6 bypass at Six Nations/Caledonia, but rein­force­ments that arrived from the reserve con­vinced the cops oth­er­wise. The OPP backed-off from the Tyendinaga/Deseronto quar­ry on April 29 and the block­ade of the High­way 6 bypass at Six Nations/Caledonia was brought down.

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Show of OPP force ends native block­ade, April 23, 2008

Native pro­test­ers who orches­trat­ed a block­ade of a major por­tion of this town ear­li­er this week dis­persed Tues­day morn­ing when con­front­ed by a pha­lanx of OPP offi­cers.

As well, the devel­op­er who sparked the inci­dent pledged Tues­day to stay away from devel­op­ing any por­tion of lands involved in the native claim known as the Cul­bert­son Tract.
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Pro­test­ers are still occu­py­ing por­tions of the dis­put­ed land devel­op­ment, most notably at the near­by Thur­low Aggre­gates quar­ry along Deseron­to Road, which they have occu­pied since last March.

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Devel­op­ment must stop on our land, Octo­ber 20, 2007

Mem­bers of Six Nations staged a 12-hour protest Fri­day at Hen­ry Street and Wayne Gret­zky Park­way, halt­ing con­struc­tion of a $40-mil­lion com­mer­cial devel­op­ment.

About a dozen natives arrived at 6:30 a.m., block­ing the site entrance to stop work­ers from dri­ving in. They erect­ed Six Nations flags and signs that read “Six Nations Land” and “Your Lease is Up.” City police mon­i­tored the site dur­ing the protest, which end­ed at about 6 p.m.

The First Gulf devel­op­ment was also the site of a Six Nations protest in March, when natives asked for a delay in work until the com­pa­ny met with the Six Nations Con­fed­er­a­cy.

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OPP arrest nine at Cale­do­nia re-occu­pa­tion, Sep­tem­ber 20, 2007

The last pock­et of native pro­test­ers was cleared yes­ter­day from a res­i­den­tial con­struc­tion site where a house builder was severe­ly beat­en last week.

With neigh­bours watch­ing and cheer­ing from their back yards, about 50 OPP offi­cers in riot gear marched in and arrest­ed nine men and women who had defied their native elders by refus­ing to leave the Stir­ling Street devel­op­ment.

The oper­a­tion went off with­out any major hitch­es and natives watch­ing from the side­lines made no attempt to assist the pro­test­ers. It was in marked con­trast to the abortive OPP raid at Dou­glas Creek Estates on April 20, 2006, when pro­test­ers with clubs and crude weapons chased off a heav­i­ly- armed police tac­ti­cal team, injur­ing sev­er­al offi­cers.
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For the first time since last Thurs­day, when all con­struc­tion had stopped, oth­er trades­peo­ple had start­ed trick­ling back in as well.

Even with the large police pres­ence, Gualtieri said his brick­lay­ers were appre­hen­sive and were work­ing much faster than usu­al.

They had noticed a hand­ful of native pro­test­ers pok­ing around a large mound of dirt on the east side of the devel­op­ment where there was a large ban­ner accus­ing Cana­da of geno­cide against abo­rig­i­nal peo­ple.

In the ear­ly after­noon, police start­ed set­ting up check­points and road­blocks around the sub­di­vi­sion and told work­ers to leave for their own safe­ty.

By about 2 p.m., a large num­ber of vans and oth­er spe­cial­ized police vehi­cles, plus two canine units, rolled onto the site.

By about 2:30 p.m., there were about 100 offi­cers on the site, includ­ing mem­bers of Hamil­ton police, and a large con­tin­gent of tac­ti­cal offi­cers in riot gear.

Gualtieri said he was impressed by the mil­i­tary pre­ci­sion of the oper­a­tion as he watched the tac­ti­cal offi­cers suit­ing up and prepar­ing to con­front the pro­test­ers.

He added it was empow­er­ing to watch the baton-wield­ing offi­cers tap­ping their shields in uni­son as they closed in on the pro­test­ers, who had refused to budge when a uni­formed offi­cer had asked them to leave a few min­utes ear­li­er.

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Native protest stalls Brant­ford project, Sep 5, 2007

A small city devel­op­er fears he has lost his financ­ing, trades­peo­ple and sup­pli­ers for a $1.2‑million, four-duplex devel­op­ment native pro­test­ers shut down yes­ter­day.

May­ber­ry Homes own­er Mike Quat­tro­cioc­chi, a for­mer Brant­ford city coun­cil­lor, said sev­er­al pro­test­ers climbed into a foun­da­tion hole being dug and sat down in front of a back­hoe, effec­tive­ly stop­ping work at 11 a.m.

They argued the land is the sub­ject of a land claim.

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Fol­low the links above for more info on each protest, and more.

For oth­er indige­nous resis­tance in Cana­da dur­ing 2007, see http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/22099

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Back­ground 2005 arti­cle on indige­nous resis­tance: Min­ing: Steal­ing the Land from Under Us

Back­ground -
In 1995, Tyen­d­i­na­ga filed a spe­cif­ic claim for the Cul­ber­ston Tract, a 923-acre par­cel near their ter­ri­to­ry. In 2003, as part of the land claims nego­ti­a­tions, the Fed­er­al Gov­ern­ment acknowl­edged that the Cul­bert­son Tract had nev­er been sur­ren­dered, but rather than return the land, want­ed Tyen­d­i­na­ga to take a cash buy-out.