Canadian PM to meet First Nations over protests Over the past few weeks, blockades of roads, rail lines and bridges by members of the country's First Nations have caused havoc in cities across Canada. Flash mobs and solidarity events organised by social networking sites have also sprung up as far away as New Zealand. The Aboriginal rights movement "Idle No More," has grown in strength since November, after a budget bill, C-45,was passed, affecting Canada's Indian Act and environmental laws. Critics say these changes undermine treaties more than a century old by altering the approval process for leasing Aboriginal lands to outsiders and by removing environmental safeguards for rivers and lakes in Aboriginal territories. Now, with one aboriginal chief is on a liquids-only hunger strike until the PM agrees to amend the bill, Mr Harper has announced he will meet with a delegation of chiefs on Jan 11. The latest standoff began in November with a teach-in in Saskatchewan under the slogan "Idle No More," about Bill C-45. It gathered pace on Dec. 11 when Theresa Spence, 49-year-old chief of the 1,800-strong community of Attawapiskat in northern Ontario, began fasting to press her demand for a meeting with Mr Harper. Camped on an island in the Ottawa River in sub-zero temperatures, Ms Spence has so far fasted for 27 days. She was thrust into a media spotlight in 2011 when she declared a state of emergency in Attawapiskat over the state of indigenous housing and sanitation. A UN investigator, James Anaya, arrived and issued a report expressing "deep concern" that despite Canada's fine human rights record, "Aboriginal communities face vastly higher poverty rates, and poorer health, education (and) employment rates as compared to non-Aboriginal people."