Transport Minister Marc Garneau says Canada’s freight rail system faces “many, many weeks” of delays as a result of protests by and in support of indigenous groups across the country. As of this morning, just one of the blockades that have appeared over the last three weeks is reported to remain in place.
In a subscribers-only Wall Street Journal story, Garneau said recovery will be slow because there is “inertia in the system. There have been companies that have virtually stopped their operations. There are 50 ships on the Pacific Coast waiting to pick up grain.”
The first and arguably most crippling blockade, on the Canadian National near Belleville, Ontario, was cleared on Monday, but Mohawk protesters remain at the Tyendinaga site. On Wednesday night, some set fires near the railroad right-of-way, slowing or stopping train movements. Global News footage shows fires just feet from passing trains, as well as an earlier incident when protesters stood on the tracks in front of an oncoming train.
Global News also reports that 37 people were arrested in Tuesday evening’s move to clear a blockade in Toronto’s West end, which had disrupted service on GO Transit’s Milton line. Twenty-five of those were released unconditionally, while 12 were charged with mischief and seven face charges related to the Rail Safety Act
Another 19 people were arrested Tuesday at Lennoxville, near Sherbrooke, Quebec, as police cleared a blockade on Genesee & Wyoming’s St. Lawrence & Atlantic Railroad. Those protesters were also charged with mischief, the Sherbrooke Record reports.
The remaining blockade is on First Nations land — at Canadian Pacific’s Adirondack Junction at Kahnawake, Que., south of Montreal. It continues despite an injunction served earlier this week. The law enforcement authority at the Mohawk blockade at Kahnawake, which is blocking CP and Exo commuter traffic, is the indigenous group’s only police group, the Peacekeepers, and its head has said his agency has no interest in “criminalizing people for standing up for our rights,” the CBC reports. At Listuguj on the Gaspe Peninsula, where a provincial railroad connects to New Brunswick, protesters refused to leave when served the injuction but cleared the tracks “as a show of good faith.”
VIA Rail Canada says that as of Wednesday, 859 trains have been cancelled and more than 143,500 passengers have been affected by the blockades. Ongoing cancellations of Toronto-Ottawa and Toronto-Montreal service are now extended through at least March 1, as is the Canadian and service between Senneterre and Jonquiere, Que. Service to Prince Rupert, B.C., is cancelled through at least March 4.
— Updated at 8:30 a.m. CST to reflect just one remaining blockade.
