[IPSM] Radio Documentary: The Long Hot Summer

[stef at tao.ca]

The Long Hot Summer:
Radio Documentary

The Current
CBC Radio 99.1FM

Listen to the documentary at:
http://www.cbc.ca/thecurrent/2008/200803/20080326.html

In June 2007, thousands of native Canadians turned out for the national
Aboriginal Day of Action, a day of peaceful protest designed to educate
non-native Canadians about the issues that plague native communities.
Despite concerns of violence, the day came and went more or less
peacefully. Those in power -- native and non-native -- congratulated each
other on how well it all went and concluded that the predicted "long, hot
summer" of aboriginal discontent had been skillfully, peacefully and -- in
the most Canadian of ways -- quietly averted.

But that very nearly wasn't the case. And the day came closer than most
people realize to ending with a violent confrontation. On the day of
action, we heard about Shawn Brant, a native from the Tyendenaga Mohawk
Territory near Desoronto, Ontario. And he and a group of other Mohawk
warriors had blockaded parts of the Trans-Canada Highway and the CN Rail
line.

While everything looked peaceful from the outside, the Ontario Provincial
Police (OPP) had brought in heavily armed units to where Shawn Brant and
other Mohawk Warriors had blockaded Highway 401, the CN Rail line and
Highway 2. A group from the community -- including a woman named Mandy
Smart -- had gone off to meet with OPP Commissioner Julian Fantino to try
to hold off any possible raid because they believed there were children
behind the barricades.

The group says Commissioner Fantino warned them that if the barricades
weren't taken down by 6 a.m., the OPP would go in with everything they
had, whether or not there were women and children. They also say that
Commissioner Fantino vowed to do everything in his power to ruin Shawn
Brant if the lines weren't taken down.

Freelance broadcaster Susanna Kelley investigated what happened that
night, and how close it came to going off the rails. She joined us in
Toronto.


Listen to the documentary at:
http://www.cbc.ca/thecurrent/2008/200803/20080326.html