Canadian aboriginal groups staged protests across Canada today to bring attention to poverty, health and social problems facing Indians living on and off the country's reserves.
In Ottawa an estimated 1,000 people - many with placards reading "Make First Nations Poverty History" - followed a ceremonial drummer through the capital to an island in the Ottawa River. Ten tents were set up on Parliament Hill.
"We want our people to be treated with dignity and respect. We are looking for the basic necessities of life that come with being Canadian," said Phil Fontaine, national chief of the Assembly of First Nations.
In eastern Ontario, protests shut down the main rail line between Toronto and Montreal and police closed Canada's busiest highway for several hours due to safety concerns.
Organizers of the National Day of Action had urged demonstrators not to put up blockades, but one group lit bonfires and set up a barricade late Thursday near the east-west Highway 401, and on Canadian National Railway's main line between Toronto and Montreal.
Census figures show about 1.3 million Canadians, or about 4.4 percent of the population, have some aboriginal ancestry, including Indian, Metis and Inuit. But an estimated 40 per cent of the native population lives in poverty, compared with 15.7 per cent for the country as a whole.
Aboriginal leaders have criticized Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper's refusal to fund a C$5.1 billion deal signed by the former Liberal government in 2005 to help lift natives out of poverty.
Former Prime Minister Paul Martin, who signed the so-called Kelowna Accord, told a rally in Cornwall, Ontario, that Canada was founded as a partnership between native North American peoples and the first European settlers.
"It is important that Canada has to again be reminded why it was formed," Martin said.
CN Rail said it had obtained a court injunction ordering the demonstrators to reopen the rail line, but complained police were not enforcing the order. The line handles an average of 25 freight and 22 passenger trains daily.
The blockade prompted Via Rail to suspend passenger service on two of its busiest train routes on Friday - Toronto to Montreal and Toronto to Ottawa - disrupting the plans of thousands of travelers at the start of the Canada Day holiday weekend.