National Post (National Edition)
Land at centre of Oka crisis surrendered, 29 years later
QUEBEC DEVELOPER CALLS ‘ECOLOGICAL GIFT’ A ‘CONTRIBUTION TO RECONCILIATION’ WITH MOHAWKS
In 1989, the mayor of Oka, Que., announced plans to build 60 condominiums and expand a golf course from nine to 18 holes. The next summer protesters dragged a fishing hut onto the proposed expansion site and erected a banner, reading, “Do you know that this is Mohawk land?”
Soon, Mohawks from Ontario and New York knew it; protesters on Parliament Hill knew it, and Canada was rattled by blockades, hunger strikes and, in Oka, gunfire.
It has been 29 years since the Oka Crisis, the 78-day conflict between defenders of the piece of land and provincial police and the Canadian Army, which resulted in the death of police officer Cpl. Marcel Lemay.
Then Premier Robert Bourassa called in the army and there were tense face-to-face confrontations between natives and soldiers.
They eventually reached a deal to end the barricade and cancel the expansion of the golf course. Still, the 60 hectares of treed land known as the Pines were not returned to the local council, the Mohawk Council of Kanesatake.
Although Ottawa confirmed the status of the land as Mohawk with what’s called the Kanesatake Interim Land Base Governance Act, there was no organized handover. Instead, the community was left with a no-man’s-land — neither native reserve nor municipal park.
On Thursday, the 29th anniversary of the start of the standoff, Quebec developer Gregoire Gollin said he acted in the “spirit of reconciliation” and signed an agreement to return the pine forest to the council.
“This is my contribution to reconciliation,” Gollin said in a phone interview Thursday. He said the forest could not be developed and has heritage value for the Mohawks. “It was planted by their ancestors,” he said.
Gollin has owned the land for 15 years, and after two years of discussions with the local council, he said he plans to cede it to the council as an ecological gift.
He also said he is considering selling another 150 hectares to the federal government to transfer to the community. Nearly half of the 150 hectares is adjacent to land owned by Kanesatake.
“I gotta give my hat off to Mr. Gollin for trying in his own way what is reconciliation,” said Ellen Gabriel, a Mohawk activist and artist, but, she said, “there are strings attached for this socalled ecological gift.”
Two years ago, Gabriel was part of protests against a residential housing development spearheaded by Gollin, which allegedly encroached on sacred Kanesatake pine forest.
“We’ve lost more land in the last 29 years than gained,” said Gabriel.
According to the ecological gifts program website, owners who donate the property get tax benefits while recipients make sure the biodiversity and environmental heritage of the property are conserved in perpetuity. The program is subject to an assessment process.
“I was in position to have a dialogue with the Mohawks of Kanesatake and we accomplished an agreement,” Gollin said, adding it will now go to Kanesatake residents for consultation.
Gabriel noted the local Mohawk council hasn’ t shared details of the land donation agreement with the community.
Calls to the Kanesatake Mohawk Council weren’t returned on Thursday.
Local newspaper The Eastern Door, which first reported on the offer several weeks ago, quoted Kanesatake Grand Chief Serge Simon then as saying the matter would be brought to the community once details were finalized.
Today, the village of Oka is still struggling with poverty and bitterness.
A Mohawk Warrior flag flutters where the conflict began. Every July 11, a holiday in Oka, locals play lacrosse, a game invented by natives.
But beyond that show of pride, this is now a vulgar strip of one-storey wood shacks selling tobacco products smuggled across the border from factories on a Mohawk reserve in upstate New York.
Many non-natives have left. Between 1991 and 2007, they sold their houses to the federal government. But like the land by the original golf course, there has never been a formal transfer of the properties — more than 175 houses — to the Mohawks.