Winnipeg supporters of First Nations protesters in New Brunswick held a potluck gathering at the bell tower on Selkirk Avenue on Friday. While organizers hope the community hears their message of solidarity, others are focusing on the way some protesters have chosen to send that message.
A rush-hour march down Portage Avenue on Thursday slowed traffic as around 150 protesters walked from Main Street to RCMP headquarters. During the Winnipeg demonstration, some participants burned a Canadian flag while others participated in a pipe ceremony.
They were showing their support for First Nations groups in New Brunswick, whose blockade of a natural gas fracking site ended violently when RCMP moved in to break it up.
“We are in support of our relatives on the east coast,” said Michael Champagne, one of the participants in the Winnipeg demonstration.
When police in New Brunswick moved in to break up the protest, Molotov cocktails and tear gas were thrown, six police cars torched, and demonstrators were shot with rubber bullets. Several activists face charges.
In Winnipeg, much of the discussion focused on the way demonstrators chose to send their message. “It's shocking to think somebody would burn a flag, a Canadian flag,” said Taras Melnychuk.
Participants in the Winnipeg demonstration don’t want the actions of a few people to distract from the main message. “It's about living, wanting to live and protecting the water and the land,” said Jo Seenise.
“It was just a symbol of how the government in this country of so-called Canada allows this violence to happen to the indigenous people of this land.”
Others were upset over the actions of some of the demonstrators, one of whom shouted chants such as, “Stop the white man.”
“That's racial, the way he was, and I didn't like that very much,” said Corinne McIvor, who witnessed the march. “Me being aboriginal, it doesn't matter. We're Canadian and we're multicultural. Everybody deserves respect.”
One political science professor says demonstrators walk a fine line between connecting with people and tuning them out.
“If they don't engage in some kind of civil disobedience they think they won't get the attention from the Canadian public, but the risk is that they offend the Canadian public, such that it turns its back on the problem,” said University of Winnipeg professor Allen Mills.
The Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs stands in solidarity, saying, "We applaud the resilience of the people asserting their territorial sovereignty and right to a safe environment."
- With a report by Alesia Fieldberg
