CN Campaign »
Jul 18th, 2009 by admin
Demonstration at CN headquarters in Montreal, October 31, 2008.
The CN campaign is a project of the Tyendinaga Support Committee – Montreal. The group is pressuring CN to drop its lawsuit against three Mohawk activists from Tyendinaga (Jason Maracle, Tara Green, and Shawn Brant) and their families and community (Jane and John Doe, also named in the suit).
CN: Drop your racist lawsuit!
Canadian National Railway (CN) is seeking damages for lost revenue as a result of blockades of CN rail lines by Tyendinaga Mohawks.
Though CN has not yet named the amount of money it will seek in the lawsuit, we understand this threatening process as a blatant form of financial persecution against Jason Maracle, Tara Green and Shawn Brant as well as their families and community (Jane and John Doe, also named in the suit). We also see it as an attack on the struggles of Native peoples to obtain justice in the face of ongoing neo-colonial attacks on their sovereignty and lands. Rail blockades have been used for over a century by Native people as a tactic to fight for their land and for justice.
Statements of defence and counterclaims have been filed against CN by the defendants, which claim that CN pollutes Tyendinaga lands, creates a nuisance wtih the noise of train operations, and scares away game.
Take action!
- Write to CN and tell them to drop their racist lawsuit! A sample letter and contact information is posted here.
- Hold a workshop in your area or for your organization about the lawsuit and campaign.
For workshop materials and more information, contact us at indigenoussolidaritymontreal (at) gmail.com
Background
Tyendinaga is a Mohawk community located on the shore of the Bay of Quinte between Toronto and Montreal, in eastern Ontario. The Mohawk Nation is one of the five original nations of the Iroquois Confederacy.
As part of long-standing struggles for land and self-determination – including unresolved land claims, poverty, suicides and polluted water — members of the Tyendinaga Mohawk community have organized to defend their territory. In particular, several actions, including blockades, have taken place to expedite the slow negotiation process over the Culbertson Tract, a piece of land the government has long acknowledged was taken illegally from the Mohawks. A quarry on the land was reclaimed in March 2007, and Mohawks have maintained a fulltime presence on-site ever since.
On April 20, 2006 Mohawks blockaded the CN main line for 30 hours in solidarity with the land reclamation at Six Nations.
There were two rail blockades in Tyendinaga in 2007. On April 20, three months after setting up barricades outside of the quarry reclamation site, Mohawks blockaded the Via Rail line west of Kingston, Ontario, cutting off rail service to Toronto. Via was required to stop service between Ottawa and Toronto and Montreal and Toronto, and CN obtained an injunction ordering the activists to remove the barricades. On June 29, the Aboriginal Day of Action, the CN line was closed for 24 hours at the same time as Highway 401 and Highway 2 were also blocked.
Contact CN
A sample letter to fax or mail to CN can be found here.
Write to:
E. Hunter Harrison, President and CEO
CN Railway
935 De La Gauchetiere Street West 16th floor
Montreal, QC H3B 2M9
Fax a letter to:
514-399-5985
Robert Noorigan (Vice President) or Janet Drysdale (Investor Relations) from the link: http://www.cn.ca/en/investors-shareholder-contacts.htm
Call in at:
514-399-6450
(you will reach the office of Bryan Tucker, the Senior Manager of Public Affairs and Media Relations)
514-708-6450
(Bryan Tucker’s cell phone)
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