'Reconciliation Is Dead,' Says MPP Sol Mamakwa After Tyendinaga Arrests
TORONTO — “Reconciliation is dead. It’s dead in this province.”
That was First Nations NDP MPP Sol Mamakwa’s message for the Ontario government after police arrested protesters at a blockade in Mohawk territory and the Progressive Conservatives introduced the singing of “God Save the Queen” in the legislature.
Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) arrested several demonstrators Monday morning at a rail blockade in Tyendinaga Mohawk Territory just outside Belleville, Ont. The blockade was put up in solidarity with Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs in British Columbia who are resisting a natural gas pipeline on their traditional territory.
Mamakwa, who is a member of the Kingfisher First Nation, said police should have waited for demonstrators to take their blockade down voluntarily as progress was made in B.C.
“This is a very complex issue … We need to have dialogue,” he said.
But Ontario Indigenous Affairs Minister Greg Rickford said there was nothing more police could do.
“I think we went as far as we possibly could,” he told reporters. “To the credit of the Ontario Provincial Police, our men and women in blue worked very closely with the activists, had direct communication.”
The response “protected and respected” the recommendations made in the Ipperwash Inquiry, Rickford said. That inquiry was ordered after police killed a First Nations man named Dudley George in Ipperwash Provincial Park in 1995.
“Ontario turned the page on that today,” Rickford said.
Mamakwa said that isn’t true.
“I would disagree with that fully,” he said. “I seen the video this morning ... the police actually threw the first punch.”
Mamakwa told HuffPost Canada he was talking about a live video posted by the Real Peoples Media Facebook page that shows protesters facing off with police officers.
With about 20 officers behind them, two OPP officers tell the protesters to leave or face arrest.
“We’ve heard that before,” a protester can be heard...
