Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says his government is committed to finding a quick and peaceful resolution to the anti-pipeline blockades that have shut down swaths of the country’s train system and temporarily blocked bridges and highways.
The comments came Monday as Trudeau emerged from a closed-door meeting with members of his cabinet in Ottawa, where the Liberal government has been under growing pressure to end the blockades.
The prime minister, who said he had spoken to a number of premiers and Indigenous leaders, did not offer any specifics on how he and his government plan to deal with the crisis.
“I understand how worrisome this is for so many Canadians and difficult for many people and families across the country,” Trudeau said on the steps of the building housing the Prime Minister’s Office.
“We’re going to continue to focus on resolving the situation quickly and peacefully, and that’s what we’re going to do.”
The meeting in Ottawa followed more than a week of protests against a natural-gas pipeline that crosses Wet’suwet’en territory in northern British Columbia and is opposed by the First Nation’s hereditary chiefs.
Those protests have manifested themselves as blockades on different rail lines across the country that have ground large amounts of passenger and freight traffic to a halt.
Trudeau had been scheduled to travel to Barbados today to try to win Caribbean votes for Canada’s UN Security Council bid, but cancelled the trip at the last minute to deal with the rail blockades.
He faced criticism last week over his presence in Africa and Europe as the protests were beginning, so Foreign Affairs Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne will represent Canada in Trudeau’s place.
As the Mohawk-led blockade on Tyendinaga territory continued near Belleville, Ont., on Monday, Wet’suwet’en supporters across the country geared up for solidarity events. In Toronto, a march to the legislature has been planned for the afternoon, while in Montreal, some were preparing to gather at McGill University. A rally was also planned for Ottawa’s Confederation Park in the afternoon.
Meantime, there’s mounting political pressure for Trudeau to put an end to the blockades.
Ontario Premier Doug Ford spoke with Trudeau late Sunday and issued a statement urging the federal government to take action.
“Premier Ford asked the prime minister to take immediate action and provide detail on a clear plan to ensure an end to this national issue,” the statement read.
Federal Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer said last week that Trudeau should tell Public Safety Minister Bill Blair to use his authority under the RCMP Act to end what he called the “illegal blockades.”
But Trudeau shot back, arguing that Canada is not a country “where politicians get to tell the police what to do in operational matters.”
Thus far, the public-facing part of Trudeau’s plan appears to centre on discussions and negotiations, rather than police action.
Carolyn Bennett, the minister for Crown-Indigenous relations, is due to meet with her British Columbia counterpart today, Indigenous Relations Minister Scott Fraser. Bennett is also ready to meet with Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs, should they give the go-ahead.
In Ontario, federal Indigenous Services Minister Marc Miller met Mohawk Nation representatives for hours on Saturday and said they made “modest progress.” The focus of their talks, he said, was on the pipeline in northern B.C. rather than the blockade on Tyendinaga territory near Belleville, Ont., which was at that point in its 10th day.
Miller pointed to the Oka and Ipperwash crises as reasons why dialogue is preferable to police intervention, in a Sunday appearance on CTV’s political show “Question Period.”
A police officer died during a police raid in 1990 when Mohawks at the Kahnawake reserve south of Montreal blocked the Mercier Bridge into the city, which became the Oka crisis. Five years later at Ipperwash, Ont., one man was killed during a standoff over a land claim by Chippewa protesters outside a provincial park.
“Thirty years ago, police moved in in Kahnesatake and someone died,” Miller said. “And did we learn from that? Did we learn from Ipperwash?”
But while Ontario Provincial Police have so far declined to enforce injunctions and remove protesters from that blockade, RCMP in B.C. have made more than two dozen arrests while enforcing similar injunctions near worksites for the pipeline at the centre of the dispute.
Read it from Vancouversun.com – Photo as posted on Vancouversun ( A supporter of the indigenous Wet’suwet’en Nation wears a mask, joining others occupying railway tracks as part of a protest against British Columbia’s Coastal GasLink pipeline, in Toronto, Ontario, Canada February 15, 2020. REUTERS/CHRIS HELGREN )
