The Tyendinaga rail blockade in solidarity with the Wet’suwet’en that started Feb. 6 and lasted three weeks shut down the nation, leading to profound economic impacts and attention on the rights of Indigenous people and the Coastal GasLink project.
Many Carleton University students were stranded as reading week approached, struggling to find a way home.
“I had no idea how I was getting home,” said Zoë Astill, a first-year student who lives in Collingwood, Ont. “It was kind of a bit of a panic.”
“It’s about time for Indigenous people to be heard,” said Alexis Odjick, a first-year student from Kitigan Zibi Anishinabeg, a member of the Algonquin First Nation located 140 kilometres north of Ottawa. “People need to understand that there’s a difference between inconvenience and injustice.”
Via Rail said that over the first 12 days of the blockade, 532 passenger trains were cancelled. Roughly $435-million in goods were stranded each day the blockade continued, according to Canadian Manufacturers and Exporters CEO Dennis Darby.
“A lot of people who are not Indigenous are saying how inconvenient it is for us to be doing these rallies,” Odjick added. “Three weeks of inconvenience compared to 500 years of oppression.”
“On Tuesday and Wednesday I’m sort of freaking out,” said Brittney Hoang, a first-year criminology student. “I’m really worried that I’m not going to have a way home for reading week and I don’t exactly want to stay here.”
Astill’s mother ended up driving 450 kilometres to pick her up from Carleton. Hoang ride-shared with a University of Ottawa student to Brampton, then took the GO Train home to Guelph.
“If I wasn’t able to find a rideshare, I would’ve been done for,” said Hoang on the appointments she had scheduled over reading week. “It was kinda stressful . . . trying to figure out everything at the very, very last minute.”
Grace Angelo, a first-year student majoring in psychology and minoring in disability studies, had a train ticket home to Lindsay, Ont., for Feb. 17, and a ticket back on Feb. 23, both of which were cancelled.
“I had to cancel every single one of [my appointments] and I was only able to reschedule one of them,” said Angelo, who said she has multiple health issues. Instead, Angelo took the bus.
“I was worried about my doctor’s appointments . . . but I did support the protests to an extent,” said Angelo. “They had to get the attention of somebody and they got a lot of people’s attention, especially university students.”
“I was just really pissed off that everything was cancelled,” said Astill, who said she wasn’t sure what to think about the protests.
“I do agree with the protests and the way that they’re doing it,” said Hoang. “Obviously it’s a little inconvenient for a lot of the students who were going home for reading week.”
“All of us are technically immigrants to this land,” Hoang continued. “The fact that these people are consistently oppressing indigenous people is just mind-boggling to me.”
“It’s almost like we’re second class citizens in our own traditional territory,” said Odjick. “This needs to be addressed immediately. We’re going to continue to put up railway blockades and rallies until we’re heard, until there’s a permanent solution.”
Featured image by Tim Austen.
