The Grand Chief of the Southern Chiefs Organization says legal challenges to a bill which clamps down on protesting around “critical infrastructure” are almost inevitable.
“We have to challenge it at every aspect,” Grand Chief Jerry Daniels told 680 CJOB Tuesday, one day after Bill 57 was revealed at the Manitoba legislature.
“The province and the federal government have been stacking the deck against First Nations for a long, long time.”
The bill allows for the owner or operator of certain infrastructure to be able to apply for a court order to create a temporary protection zone.
If a person were to go into the area, or block others from accessing the zone, they could be fined $5,000 or jailed for up to 30 days. For every day a person doesn’t comply, the fine could be imposed again.
“It’s an intimidation tactic,” said Daniels, who believes the government is relying on the legislation rather than meaningfully engaging with First Nations on infrastructure projects to begin with.
“(First Nations) have been characterized as cumbersome to investments, but that’s not the case. The fact of the matter is First Nations have been excluded from the responsibility of being a real partner in infrastructure, and we can be a partner, but our governments have been largely not looked at or treated as such.”
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Justice Minister Cameron Friesen, meanwhile, says the bill strike a “good balance” between peoples’ right to peacefully assemble and express themselves, while also keeping goods moving.
“Nothing here disenfranchises you,” Minister Friesen said Monday.
“As a matter of fact, those rights you have to gather and to protest or to be present and have your voices heard, those rights are enshrined in this bill.”
Friesen said the government was aware of previous demonstrations in other parts of Canada which have shut down major infrastructure, but the bill isn’t a response to any one event.
“We believe it’s not so much a response to any one thing as it is just good policy coming at the right time.”
— With files from The Canadian Press.
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