Couchiching rolls out tollbooth on Highway 11

Couchiching First Nation came through with threats of placing a tollbooth on the border of the community on Highway 11 May 21.
Chief Chuck McPherson said he hopes the tollbooth will get the attention of both levels of government so they will come to the negotiating table with Couchiching to work on long-term solutions to the community’s problems with the contaminated soil and the relocation of band members.
“We’re asking for the governments to live up to their obligations,” McPherson said.
He also said that Couchiching has never been compensated or received benefits for the highway that runs through the community.
“The toll is on our property and we’re asking people to pay for the use of our property,” he said.
The tollbooth was expected to be set up around noon May 21, but as a crowd of community members and supporters gathered McPherson arrived without the tollbooth.
He had spent the late morning on the phone with both levels of government who were trying to negotiate a deal with the community to stop the tollbooth from going up.
“They have offered us some cash but we want something that’s on an annual basis, but they don’t want to go there,” he told the crowd of community members who came out to support the action.
“We said a tollbooth was going to go up, and a toll booth is going to go up. It’s the first time we have heard from the federal government.”
Keeping to the promise, late that afternoon a trailer carrying the booth came down the highway with a convoy of community members walking in front of it, who all helped roll the booth off the trailer and into the middle of the road.
The fee for crossing the tollbooth is set at $1 for all vehicles.
Daniel Morrisseau, a Couchiching band member said he spent the previous week handing out pamphlets that explained the contamination of Couchiching lands. The pamphlets also explain why the community was putting up a toll so they can be compensated for contaminated lands on the reserve and to pay for the relocation of the families living on the polluted lands.
“I’m here today… to protect our lands and our children’s rights and the future generations of our people,” Morrisseau said.
In early 2009, while assessing property for development on Couchiching, high levels of dioxins and furans were found in soil samples located near residential dwellings. The area is called Harry’s Road in Couchiching. According to an assessment done on the land, the toxins were a result of improper waste management of the former J.A. Mathieu sawmill site on reserve land, which was leased by Indian Affairs on behalf of the band in the early 1900s.
So far two families have been forced to leave their homes because of the contaminated land, but one has had to move back because of lacking housing opportunities in Couchiching.
“This is our land and we need to make a stand today so our grandchildren don’t have to in 20 years,” Holly Cogger, a Couchiching band member said. “Our fight isn’t with the people of Fort Frances, it’s with the government.”
Although most motorists understood the community’s action to erect the tollbooth, some motorists made racist remarks and refused to pay the toll. As motorists passed through the tollbooth, they were given a letter to mail to the federal government asking them to work with Couchiching on their outstanding issues.
“Over the years we’ve been waiting for the government for all the payments that are supposed to be paid to the First Nation and it seems the only way we can get their attention is to take a stand,” said Couchiching band member Nikki Perreault.
“We’re just saying enough is enough and no more because they just keep taking and taking.
“We’re good, kind-hearted people. It’s just a tollbooth, it’s not a blockade. It’s very peaceful, we’re not hurting anybody,” Perreault said.
The tollbooth initiative seems to have worked. According to Couchiching Coun. Christine Jourdain, federal Minister of Indian and Northern Affairs Chuck Strahl, is planning to visit the community in the coming weeks to discuss ways to resolve the issues.
As of May 25, the tollbooth was still in place.