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Headlines for 11 August 2010

Oka land deal reached

An agreement in principle has been reached regarding land in Oka, Quebec that was claimed by the Mohawk community of Kanesatake.

 
The town of Oka has reached an agreement to buy the disputed land from Norfolk Financial, the real estate promoter that had hoped to build there. The land is adjacent to the disputed pine stand that was at the heart of the 1990 Oka Crisis.

On Friday, Norfolk President Normand Ducharme and other Norfolk representatives were met by Mohawk protesters when they showed up to mark trees to be cut. Provincial police officers intervened after about 30 Mohawks shouted at Ducharme and the others and struck their vehicle.

 
The1990 Oka Crisis involved the dispute between the town and the Mohawk community over plans to expand a golf course onto the land claimed by Mohawks as traditional burial ground.  The stand-off lasted 78 days.

 

 

24 arrests at 2-day prison blockade in Kingston

This Sunday and Monday, farmers and prison justice activists blockaded the road out of a federal prison in Kingston, Ontario. Corrections Canada announced last February that it would close six penitentiary farms, two of which are in Kingston.

Eight people were arrested Sunday, when blockaders sat or stood through the rain for over six hours, preventing cattle trucks from ferrying cows out of Frontenac Institution so they can be sold at auction. On Monday, police brought in a riot squad of about 40 provincial police officers and arresting 15 protesters, in some cases dragging away and cuffing them or forcing them to the ground. The arrested protesters have been charged with mischief.

The decision to close the prison farms sparked a public campaign led by farm organizations, unions, social justice groups and sustainable food groups, to save the farms. The campaign is not abolitionist, but organizers with abolitionist politics have pointed out online that the closure of the prison farms is directly linked to new "superprison" construction in Canada.

On July 23, two hundred and fifty people including farmers, local residents and prison justice activists set up a blockade to the regional headquarters of the Correctional Services of Canada in Kingston.