Passengers on Via Rail’s main line between Toronto and Montreal are being bused around the site of a First Nations blockade in eastern Ontario.
Via Rail says the blockade near the town of Napanee is affecting trains on Toronto-to-Montreal and Toronto-to-Ottawa routes in both directions.
The blockade began on Saturday. Four trains were forced to stop near the Ontario towns of Belleville and Kingston, and three others were cancelled because of the blockade.
CN police then issued a stop order for all trains going through the area, forcing Via Rail to cancel its service and use buses to get passengers through until further notice.
Ontario provincial police moved in shortly after the protest began and arrested four people. One was released without charges.
The Mohawk protesters are seeking to draw attention to aboriginal demands for a federal inquiry into the death and disappearance of hundreds of indigenous women since the 1980s.
Demonstrators had vowed on Friday to step up protests after a parliamentary report into missing and murdered indigenous women rejected calls for a full public inquiry.
The rejection resulted in a firestorm of criticism from opposition critics, First Nation leaders and human rights groups.
Cases of missing and murdered aboriginal women in Canada date back to the 1960s. There has been no official count of the number of victims. Officially, there have been at least 600 with likely hundreds more unreported victims.
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