Kitiganik/Rapid Lake, Algonquin Territory - An Algonquin man was hospitalized Tuesday morning after Quebec police shot him in the chest with a tear-gas canister. On Monday, Oct. 6, the Conservative government and Quebec used riot police, tear gas, and 'pain compliance' techniques to end a peaceful blockade erected by Algonquin families from Barriere Lake, rather than negotiate, as requested by the community.
A disabled teenage girl was also treated with oxygen in the local Health Clinic. Twenty-two children under eight and two babies were caught in the tear gas shot by the police.
The blockade on Highway 117 in Northern Quebec began at
6:00am Monday, with nearly a hundred community members of all ages and their supporters
promising to remain until Canada's Conservative government and Quebec honoured
signed agreements and Barriere Lake's leadership customs. Around 4 pm, nearly
sixty Quebec officers and riot police encircled families after a meal and
without warning launched tear gas canisters, one of which hit a child in the
chest. 
'Our demands are reasonable,' said Norman Matchewan, a
spokesperson who was racially slurred by Minister Lawrence Cannon's assistant
earlier in the election. 'We're only asking for the government to uphold the agreements
they've signed and to stop illegally interfering in our customary governance.
The message we've received today is that Stephen Harper and Jean Charest are
unwilling to even play by their rules.'
'We will not tolerate these brutal violations of our rights,' added Matchewan.
'Forestry operations will not be allowed on our Trilateral agreement territory,
and we will be doing more non-violent direct action.'
Nine people, including an elderly women, a pregnant woman, and two minors, were
roughly arrested. While a line of police obscured the view of human rights
observers from Christian Peacemaker Teams, officers used severe 'pain
compliance' techniques on protestors who had secured themselves to concrete-filled
barrels, twisting arms, dislocating jaws, leaving them with bruised faces and
trouble swallowing.
'In this election alone, the Conservatives have labelled us
alcoholics and vilified our community's majority as 'dissidents,' said Michel
Thusky, another community spokesperson, referring to an op-ed published by Minister
Lawrence Cannon in regional newspapers. 'Now they and Quebec have chosen
violence over meeting their most basic obligations to our community. 'Pain
compliance' is the perfect description of the Conservative government's
aboriginal policies.'
Barriere Lake community members had promised to maintain the
blockade until the Government of Canada honoured the 1991 Trilateral agreement,
a landmark sustainable development and resource co-management agreement praised
by the United Nations and the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples. To end
federal interference in their leadership customs, they wanted the Government of
Canada to appoint observers to witness a leadership reselection according to
their codified customary selection code, respect its outcome, and then cease
interfering in their internal governance. 
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