Lovelace Attends CT of Appeal in Gitmo Orange

Lovelace fights for his freedom; Full courtroom expected as native protester seeks release from prison
Posted By Frank Armstrong
Posted 9 hours ago

The courtroom where native protester Bob Lovelace and six members of the Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug First Nation will fight for release from prison today is expected to be filled to the limit now that at least 1,000 protesters have amassed in Toronto to support their cause.

Chris Reid, lawyer for both parties, said more than 1,000 supporters rallied at Queen's Park Monday night to protest the six-month prison sentences the seven were given for blocking access to prospectors.

"There are people sleeping in teepees and in party tents, and there are people sleeping in the stairs [of the legislature]," Reid said. Lovelace, a Queen's University lecturer and former chief of the Ardoch Algonquin First Nation, was sent to a provincial jail in Lindsay for helping to block a uranium prospecting company from entering an exploration site north of Sharbot Lake. He is now on a hunger strike.

The KI-6 were jailed for obstructing an exploration company's access to land near their reserve in northern Ontario.

At Reid's request, they were let out of jail Friday until the appeal ends because Plantinex, the company they were opposing, agreed to temporarily stop drilling. The KI-6, in turn, agreed to obey a judge's order to not obstruct the exploration site while they are free.

Frontenac Ventures, the company looking for uranium north of Kingston, gave no such promise, so Lovelace refused to return the favour and was not allowed out before his appeal.

He will get to attend his hearing today, but he is unhappy to hear he may have to appear in a bright orange prison-issue jump suit, Reid said.

"It's humiliating," he said.

Lindsay jail authorities told Reid that family members should have brought Lovelace some street clothes and that he would have been advised of this when he was first imprisoned Feb. 15.

Reid hopes Osgoode Hall court staff will allow Lovelace to change before he arrives in court, even though it's customary for prisoners to change in jail.

"In some way, it is maybe a good thing rather than sugar coat the reality," Reid said.