Mohawks protest development in Oka
Say planned housing is encroaching on pine forest at heart of 1990 crisis
Exactly 27 years and one day after the outbreak of the Oka Crisis, Mohawks gathered Wednesday to halt a residential development they say is encroaching on their sacred pine forest.
A few dozen trees have already been cleared to make way for hydro lines that will power the neighbourhood and more have been marked for destruction.
It was the expansion of a golf course into the pines that triggered the 1990 standoff between the Mohawk Warriors and Canadian Forces. And while the municipality of Oka and the Kanesatake Mohawk Council signed a deal to prevent development in the forest, it would appear this housing development is testing the limits of that agreement.
“See all this land? This is Kanesatake. It doesn’t belong to Oka, it belongs to the (Mohawk) people of Kanesatake,” said Ellen Gabriel, during a tense exchange with Oka Mayor Pascal Quevillon. “We’re not going to allow you to build any more homes on our land.”
Gabriel and a few dozen residents from the Mohawk community were protesting at the construction site when Quevillon approached them to talk.
The housing project sits on the border of the pine forest that separates Kanesatake from Oka. The land, known as the Commons, is where the Mohawks used to gather berries and firewood and hunt deer. Gabriel says she rode horses in the area when she was a child.
Quevillon insists the development is hardly news. He says it has been planned since 2003 and Kanesatake’s band council has been consulted about the project.
“The only thing that’s changed here is the land developer installed sewage aqueducts,” Quevillon said. “The hydro line was installed, so some trees were cleared. But there’s no, no, no plan to expand this plot into the pines. I’ll be the first to protect them.”
Kanesatake Grand Chief Serge Simon says the scale of the destruction violates the terms of his agreement with Quevillon not to develop the pines.
“(Quevillon) is acting in bad faith, it’s plain and simple,” Simon told the Montreal Gazette. “We were never consulted about this. Maybe an older council was back in 2003, but not us. We have a legal right to be consulted here.”
Grégoire Gollin, the developer, said his project will not expand into the pines.
“There never will be development in the pines,” Gollin said. “It’s a commitment I’ve made and I intend on keeping that commitment. It’s a place that will remain sacred. As it should.”
The chief believes the new construction may also violate Kanesatake’s land claim and has reached out to his lawyer as well as the federal negotiator in charge of the file.
Gabriel spoke with federal Indigenous Affairs Minister Carolyn Bennett about the project last year, but she says her pleas fell on deaf ears.
“We’re not allowing any more development to continue,” Gabriel said.
“Twenty-seven years ago they didn’t listen to us, they never settled the problem ... If Prime Minister Trudeau truly believes his most important relationship is with Indigenous people, he has to intervene. Because this is not going to go away.”