Two non-Natives have started serving jail terms for their part in a blockade against Hydro-Quebec’s SM-3 project last summer.
Montrealer Christopher Larnder and Colin Donahue, of Vermont, started serving three-month jail terms at Bordeaux provincial prison on Feb. 20.
Seventeen Innu are scheduled to go to jail on March 6. Seven other non-Natives also face three-month prison terms.
The sentences are all for violating a 30-year Hydro injunction prohibiting protest against SM-3. Those arrested were told to pay a $1,000 fine or face three months in jail. All opted not to pay the fine.
Two dozen protesters gathered at Bordeaux prison as Larnder and Donahue went in. “I find it dirty. Hydro-Quebec has the power to put people in jail, even journalists,” said an Innu filmmaker who addressed the demonstrators.
She noted that construction unions mounted a blockade of their own in the area at around the same time, but “nobody’s in jail for that.” Before Christmas, the Mani-Utenam Innu First Nation sent every resident of the two Innu communities near the SM-3 site a cheque for $100 as compensation for the hydro-project. The money was sent back by 103 Innu, who put this message on the cheques: “Our land is not for sale.”
