Location
NATIVE RIGHTS UNDER LOCK & KEY: Ottawa Rally to support the Algonquins of Barriere Lake and jailed Customary Chief Benjamin Nottaway
http://barrierelakesolidarity.blogspot.com/2008/12/ottawa-rally.html
* bring banners, signs, placards, noise-makers…
**Hot chocolate will be served.
Join us in front of Indian and Northern Affairs Canada for speeches by Barriere Lake community spokespeople, Elizabeth May of the Green Party, NDP parliamentarians, representatives from the Public Service Alliance of Canada and the Canadian Union of Postal Workers, formerly jailed leadership from Ardoch First Nation, and others. Then march to the Hull Detention Centre, where Benjamin Nottaway, the 28-year old Customary Acting Chief of Barriere Lake and father of six, will be spending the holidays.
Nottaway is a political prisoner of the governments of Quebec and Canada, who would rather jail an Indigenous leader for peaceful protest than honour signed agreements. Both governments have refused to implement an internationally praised agreement to sustainably develop Barriere Lake’s traditional territories, and the Canadian government has gone so far as to oust Customary Chief Nottaway and his Council. Community members were left with no choice but to peacefully blockade the highway outside their reserve, to which the Quebec government responded by sending in riot squads and jailing Nottaway for two months, while the Canadian government washed its hands of responsibility for the situation.
