Blockade to celebrate birthday

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Natives protesting clear-cut logging practices in this remote northern community are manning the longest blockade in Canadian history.

On May 13, Elders and other protesters from the Canoe Lake band, Ile a la Crosse and other Native communities in northwest Saskatchewan will celebrate the blockade's birthday. The Protectors of Mother Earth, the name the group chose for itself, are protesting logging around the Meadow Lake Tribal Council's nine member communities.

They've survived summer heat and winter's frigid blasts by building cabins from logs already cut by Mistik Management, the company harvesting in the area. Numbers at the blockade fluctuate because people have to leave to take care of other commitments, but there are always some protesters there.

"When we started the blockade, we didn't think we'd be out more than a few days," said Leon Iron, 69, a wild rice grower and spokesman for the Protectors of Mother Earth.

"We quickly chose a name and drew a line," Iron said. "But we have always felt that it would be in the best interests of all concerned to genuinely negotiate the clear-cut issue, which more generally affects Native people in many parts of Canada's north."

Tim Quigley, lawyer for the Protectors, will be back before a Court of Queen's Bench justice on May 11. Last October, he asked the court to decide if harvesting trees

is a development under environmental legislation. If it is, the government must order an environmental assessment.

Delays, including challenges from the logging companies, operating in the disputed area, have postponed the decision several times. But Quigley hopes that if they win the May 11 motion to have a trial, he can arrange a quick court date to argue the case.

On March 19, Quigley argued against the provincial government's attempt to evict the protesters from their camp. The government claims they are trespassing on Crown land. The protesters claim the land they are on was given up when Treaty 10 was signed, but that under the 1930 Natural Resources Transfer Agreement, they were given the right of access to trap, hunt and fish on that land.

No date for that decision has been set.

Several complaints have been registered with the Human Rights Commission. The commission has accepted the complaint that by trying to evict the Elders, the government was interfering with their freedom of association. The Protectors and government now are in a negotiating phase.

The protesters have also claimed that by signing away the forest with no regard for Aboriginal rights, the government is guilty of racism.

"If we're successful, I think it would mean the government cannot sign Forest Management Licence Agreements without at least consulting Aboriginal groups in the area," Quigley said. That decision would also apply to mining and other developments with that kind of impact, he added.