Latest news with #OkaCrisis
Montreal Gazette
12 hours ago
- Politics
- Montreal Gazette
Libman: Wait a minute — where did the time go?
I was blown away last weekend by reports that it's been 35 years since the 1990 Oka Crisis, the standoff that dominated our news cycle that summer. It's also hard to believe last Sunday marked the 40th anniversary of the Live Aid benefit concert for famine relief. The passage of time is something that I have been thinking about more and more of late, trying to make sense of it all. One can be sitting in a waiting room or stuck in traffic agonizing over how long every minute seems to take. On a long trip, moving from A to B, you can only wait patiently, like staring at an hourglass until your destination. Yet, oddly enough, when you look back in time, everything seems accelerated. I graduated from McGill 40 years ago this summer. It seems impossible that it's been that long as I remember so vividly many memories and specifics from those days. How daunting it is to project the same time frame — which doesn't seem so long ago — into the future and realize I'll be (hopefully!) over 100 years old, for heaven's sake. The sense of aging first hit me when I started to realize that police officers, or professional hockey players, say, could be younger than me — and later, even judges and the like. There are teachers I remember from high school who seemed like old men, yet were younger than I am now. When I became involved in politics and elected to the National Assembly in 1989, I was in my 20s without any political experience. Some commentators were condescending, with one in particular — my predecessor on this Opinion page actually — often gleefully referring to me as 'little Bobby.' (That wouldn't get past my editor today!) But by the time I ran for Stephen Harper's Conservatives in 2015, I was described as the older, experienced politician. For much of my work life, whether in provincial or municipal politics, the private sector or in the community, I always seemed to be the young guy. Then suddenly, I'm not sure when, there's that hinge moment where I am now seen as the vieux routier around the office. When looking in the rear-view mirror (or a regular mirror, for that matter) it's hard not to wonder how and when did this sneak up on you. We somehow end up on this Earth and before we know it, we have less time left than the time we've already spent. It's a crapshoot, of course, as none of us can know how long we will have. We can strive to be healthy and increase the odds of a longer life, but sadly we can't anticipate illness or other accidental circumstances beyond our control. Our time here is finite, and then our departure is infinite. It makes you question why we take certain things to heart and fight among ourselves about politics, for example. Forced language laws, immigration rules, constitutional debates and so on rarely alter social realities in significant ways. With the passage of time, societies evolve naturally. Attempts at social engineering breed conflict and diminish valuable individual relationships and quality of life as so much energy is sucked out of us. A few years ago, I attended an event of former MNAs and sat for dinner with some Parti Québécois hardliners who were very combative back then and used to make my skin crawl. Many of them are now elderly and frail. No one can escape Father Time. We talked about those exhausting debates and how many of the same battles are still being fought today. Given where we were now — discussing families, health and the passage of time — much of it seemed so insignificant in the larger scheme of things. Time is a precious resource that we too often take for granted. It's time we start using it more wisely. Robert Libman is an architect and planning consultant who has served as Equality Party leader and MNA, mayor of Côte-St-Luc and a member of the Montreal executive committee.
CTV News
6 days ago
- General
- CTV News
‘Bring people together': pow-wow in Kahnawake marks 35 years since Oka Crisis
Thirty-five years after the start of the Oka Crisis, the Kahnawake Pow Wow aims to build bridges between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people. Allison Deer attends the pow-wow in Kahnawake every year. 'It's an opportunity for us to bring people together, to share culture,' the elder says, adding that she makes sure to bring her family along, including her granddaughter. As sounds of the drums filled the air on Saturday, dancers moved with the rhythm for a celebration of Indigenous culture. But on Deer's mind, it takes her back 35 years to the Oka Crisis when on July 11, 1990, the Sûreté du Québec and Mohawks of Kanesatake and Kahnawake met at barricades following plans to build a golf course on land known as the Pines. There was a 78-day standoff between police, the military and the Mohawk community. Deer, who was 29 at the time, says she knew what she had to do. 'Drop what you're doing. We are going to that front line,' she recalled. Her granddaughter, Iakotonhnhetshera':ion Marquis, feels proud of her. 'I've grown up my whole life hearing stories about it, hearing experiences,' Marquis said. Elder Joe Deom was a spokesperson during the crisis. 'It's important that our people know about the history and understand that we can't allow this to happen again,' Deom said. The pow-wow is a way to build bridges between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people and Deer says 'we can always remember to bring people together, not divide.' And for the young ones who might not fully understand its significance, the pow-wow is a chance to learn about their traditions.
CTV News
12-07-2025
- Politics
- CTV News
Ceremony marks 35 years since start of the Oka Crisis
A ceremony was held at Place du Canada in Montreal to mark the start of the Oka Crisis — a 78-day standoff between police and a Mohawk community.
Hamilton Spectator
11-07-2025
- Politics
- Hamilton Spectator
Thirty-five years later, the fight continues
In spring 1990, Wanda Gabriel, then a young mother on the verge of turning 30, began building a home in Kanesatake, having moved back that January to reconnect herself and her children with their roots. Months later, she would find the house's scaffolding crawling with soldiers, resting from reconnaissance in the forest, looking for Mohawk Warriors. 'I think the soldiers thought the woods were full of Warriors,' said Gabriel. It was not unlike the first time she left the community for groceries after the start of the Siege of Kanehsatake, what is known in perfunctory textbook entries and mainstream media as the Oka Crisis. 'The police had put up barricades all around us. I was going to get food. The first barricade, there were four SQ (Surete du Quebec) officers with guns pointing at me and my four kids: 'Get out of the car. Where are the Warriors? We're looking for Warriors.' They stripped the car,' she said. 'I didn't take my kids out many times after that.' That was just a day or two after the morning of July 11, when the SQ raided and fired on Kanien'kehá:ka land defenders who were enforcing a barricade on a dirt road in the Pines to prevent the expansion of the nine-hole Oka Golf Club into sacred Mohawk territory, including the Pine Hill Cemetery. Events rapidly escalated through the early morning. SQ corporal Marcel Lemay was killed in the confrontation. Soon, members of sister community Kahnawake had blocked the Mercier Bridge connecting Montreal and the South Shore. Kanesatake dug in, the government's actions on July 11 plunging the community into a 78-day standoff against the city of Oka, the province of Quebec, the country of Canada, and all their combined muscle. 'It's something that should never have happened. That's all I can say,' said Ellen Katsi'tsakwas Gabriel, Wanda's cousin, who served as spokesperson during the Siege and was present on that morning. 'The police were cowards. They showed that. They ran away. They tried to kill us. It (tear gas) turned back on them, which to me should be a sign that maybe you're not doing something right. I think it was a difficult day for a lot of people.' The episode is a testament to the arrogance of colonial forces, accustomed for centuries to wantonly stealing and occupying Kanesatake Mohawk Territory - land thefts that still remain unresolved to this day. The Siege of Kanehsatake remains fresh in the minds of many Kanehsata'kehró:non, the trauma it wrought creeping into all manner of divisions and conflicts. In past months and years, just a fraction of unsolved, even uninvestigated arsons, have been documented in The Eastern Door; gunfire is not uncommon; environmental destruction on a shocking scale has been left to fester at G&R Recycling, ostensibly because of political friction, and even then the government is slothful to intervene when the Lake of Two Mountains becomes a dumping ground. For many, it sends the message that Kanesatake is on its own, leaving the community ripe for those who seek to prey on division. Scores of Kanehsata'kehró:non will privately confide they don't feel safe in their own community because of these forces and the members who are complicit. As the community gathers today to commemorate that chapter's 35th anniversary, many worry that the Pines so many sacrificed so much to protect are under threat not just by outside forces, but from within, with a never-ending expansion of cannabis stores razing sacred pine trees in a community starved for land – entrepreneurs getting ever bolder in their transformation of Kanesatake into a playground for outsiders who have no respect for its history, culture, or territory. But it's Canada's enduring grip on stolen Kanesatake lands that furnish this reality. 'This is the divide-and-conquer strategy that all settler colonialists do,' said Ellen. 'They failed to deal with the land dispute because they have lawyers working for the band council that screw it up. The government does not want us to succeed. The government wants us to implode. There's no difference from the colonizers of 500 years ago to the colonizers of today. They're just more slick at erasing our people, erasing our history.' This settler colonial mentality, Ellen said, attempts to relegate events like 1990 to a footnote, barely worth learning about. 'For me, the government just continues its genocidal acts that make them the victim as well, and that we're still the violent ones, instead of the other way around, that they're actually the ones who are the violent ones,' she said. Ellen and Wanda are among the organizers of an anniversary event in Montreal's Place du Canada at 5 p.m. today (Friday), to highlight the larger impacts of the events of 1990, the allies who raised their voice at the time, and to present a list of calls to action, to let everyone know the struggle is not over. 'I think solidarity, demonstrations, pressure government to do the right thing. Those are really important parts of the struggle that Indigenous people face, because the government doesn't listen to us, but they will listen to their constituents,' Ellen said. In Kanesatake, Kawisaiénhne Albany is among the organizers of a march starting at the lacrosse box at 10 a.m. today and finishing there two hours later. 'It's just a remembrance of what took place, what fight we had, and to never forget what happened. To make sure it doesn't happen again, hopefully,' she said. 'For me, personally, it's the same thing, a fight that never stops,' she said. 'It's just a generational thing in my family, where we just stand up because the land is important. That's our duty as women is to protect the land.' Albany counts herself among the Ionkwatehontsénhne women's group that protects a plot of land in the Pines, designated as the Onen'tó:kon Preservation Spot. She has repeatedly spoken out as cannabis store owners have encroached upon it, most recently Big Chiefs - one of the sponsors of a festive July 11 event, geared toward the community's children, also at the lacrosse box. 'One of our things is we're going to emphasize how in '90, they fought really hard, and the whole purpose of the fighting was to keep our land. Now we have people who have these huge stores who, it seems, they never have enough. They want to keep taking.' Albany, just 27 years old, was raised to honour the legacy of 1990. It was something learned at home and in the community, not in Ratihén:te High School, which she attended starting from grade eight. 'It's telling because when you bring up things that have happened in this community going pretty far back, people don't know anything anymore,' she said. A lack of education in the community about the events of 1990 is a concern that was expressed to The Eastern Door by multiple people who lived through the Siege of Kanehsatake. * * * On the morning of July 11, 1990, Marie David got the call that something was happening at the barricade. When she arrived, expecting to see people running around, she found Kanehsata'kehró:non making peanut butter sandwiches for breakfast. 'They were upset that they were met with such violence,' remembers David. 'But they were still committed. 'I don't know what's happening, but we're going to stay. Let them come. They'll take the barricade down and we'll just put it back up again.' 'Of course, that never happened. They came in with the bullets. The dividing line was on the police side - it was chaos, it was tense, it was aggressive. On our side, it was much calmer. Worried about what their intentions were, but not wanting to put them in a position where they had to act. But it still happened.' She remembers coming down Center Road (Ahsennenson) to the Pines, unable to access the main road. 'I had never seen so many community members out. They were there because of what happened, the initial – I don't know if it was tear gas that early in the morning – but there were a lot of community members on this side,' she said. 'Walking through the Pines to the front where we had the barricade, I couldn't see anybody. I was scared to walk through the Pines by myself. I didn't know if there were police snipers out there. 'But once I got to the area where the lacrosse field is, it was like, okay, I felt safer now.' When asked what she remembers about 1990, her first answer was to recall what she called the nicest thing – the way the community came together. In fact, she expressed serenity about some aspects of that summer. She could walk three KM right down the middle of the road to the Pines and feel safe. 'Everybody that stayed in the community during that time remembers it as being a peaceful time, when we were a real community,' she said. 'I miss that. And I wish that the younger generation could experience that. I hear people say it's too dangerous to live here. They can't drive around with their kids because people are speeding down the road.' So much has changed, not just in the last 35 years, but even in the last several. 'Back then, I had so much hope for the community. Now I look around and I see how the Pines have been decimated by these pot shops. So much of the land has been polluted by these pot shops, these business owners who have no regard for the land,' she said, lamenting the lost beauty, life, and medicine in the Pines. For Wanda, 1990 was a transformative experience. She had been the head cook at the Onen'tó:kon Healing Lodge when she was thrust into the position of being one of the liaisons, negotiating for, among other things, the flow of food - she would let the government know that even as the military reported that food delivery was going well, soldiers were in the habit of poking and busting the supplies. On the morning of July 11, she was going to work at the treatment centre. She received a call not to go to work - something was happening in the Pines. By the time she got there, the climax of the confrontation had passed. She was told they had to block the roads. 'Your road up there is open, maybe you should go block it,' someone said. She went home and got her oldest daughter, Melissa, 13 years old at the time, and they blocked the road with their family car. 'If I look back, I was in shock for a couple days. It was hard to make sense of it all.' When the Siege of Kanehsatake was over, Wanda, who had dropped out of high school, decided to pursue counselling and social work, ultimately achieving a master's degree by the time she was 41. 'Having lived that experience, I really wanted to understand how it could happen, why it happened,' she said. She learned from the Onkwehón:we who flocked to Kanesatake, many from other Indigenous communities. The concepts of healing they brought with them had a profound impact on her. She became a student of Indigenous healing, in addition to learning the Western concepts. 'I was walking in two worlds, that's what I felt like,' she said. 'I always feel like a spiritual and emotional bomb went off for us, like a nuclear bomb. That's how I see it. And you know how when a nuclear bomb goes off in a certain area, what it does to the area, how it affects the area. 'I feel that's what happened in Kanesatake. The spirit got so hurt, like collectively. That's what trauma does. If you don't heal the trauma, the pain of that continues to feed. Many people have not had a chance to share their story from that time. Everybody has a piece of the story. A scary story. People were in terror, and they haven't had a chance to share it or say it.' The day Wanda discovered that the Canadian Armed Forces had chosen for their respite the scaffolding of her future home – the one in which she still lives, which still overlooks a swath of green – she was on her way back from the food bank at the Ratihén:te gym. Her fantasy, when the standoff ended, was that Kanehsata'kehró:non would pack themselves into that same high school gymnasium, lock the door, and talk everything out. 'That hasn't happened,' she said. 'That hasn't happened yet.' In the summer of '90, when she saw the soldiers lounging on the steel skeleton that encased her home, those reflections were still ahead of her. Incensed, she turned around and went straight to her mother's house, where she was living. She told her mom and husband about it, asking if those soldiers had permission to be there. They didn't, of course. Wanda didn't want to hear that there was nothing to be done about it. She was too angry. Thirty-five years later, sitting above the lush green landscape behind her backyard, she remembers what she told them when she went back. 'Get the fuck out of here.' marcus@ Marcus Bankuti, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter Error! Sorry, there was an error processing your request. There was a problem with the recaptcha. Please try again. You may unsubscribe at any time. By signing up, you agree to our terms of use and privacy policy . This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google privacy policy and terms of service apply. Want more of the latest from us? Sign up for more at our newsletter page .
CTV News
26-06-2025
- General
- CTV News
Kahnawake peacekeepers hired in the shadow of the Oka Crisis ready for retirement
Kahnawake's two longest-serving peacekeepers are retiring after 34 years and a wealth of experience and knowledge dating back to the shadow of the 1990 Oka Crisis. (Daniel J. Rowe/CTV News) Two Kahnawake peacekeepers are retiring this weekend after 34 years on the force. Clint Jacobs, 59, and Walter Montour, 56, began their careers a year after the 1990 Oka Crisis when the Kanien'kehá:ka community on Montreal's South Shore was in a different era. 'When I was hired on, and after the crisis, we had to struggle to keep our jurisdiction because there were other police forces that were patrolling the territory, and there was always jurisdictional issues,' said Montour. 'There were times when those same policing organizations would try to contest our jurisdiction, but we're always here.' Walter Montour Kahanwake peacekeeper Walter Montour is the third generation of his family to serve his community. He is retiring after 34 years of service. (Daniel J. Rowe/CTV News) 'It certainly was not a popular job at the time,' said Jacobs. 'Within the community, there were a lot of divisions. We had the Oka Crisis that just occurred a year before, and our council was ... feeling they were going to be losing jurisdiction within the community, within the territory.' Jacobs is the longest-serving Kahnawake peacekeeper, joining in July 1991. Montour was right behind him, getting his badge in October of the same year. The two men felt called to the job. For Montour, it was a family legacy. 'My father before me, and his father before him has been a peacekeeper here in Kahnawake,' he said. 'As long as there's been police in Kahnawake, there's been a Montour on duty here.' Montour's brother, Kenneth, serves on the force and will continue in the family tradition. Montour took his father's advice for the job seriously. Clint Jacobs Clint Jacobs retires as the longest-serving Kahnawake peacekeeper working on the force from July 1991 to June 2025. (Daniel J. Rowe/CTV News) 'When I was hired on, he sat me down and he imparted wisdom to me. He said, 'You know, you're going to be a police officer now. You're going to be wearing a uniform, you represent the Kahnawake Peacekeepers. You're here to protect the community and make it safe,'' he said. For Jacobs, it was about moving home from Pointe-Claire, where he was living and giving back to his community. 'During the Oka crisis, when the blockade started in Kahnawake here, I felt so distant from my own community,' he said. 'If you looked in Pointe-Claire, it was like it didn't affect them one bit. And some people [asked], 'Why do you even want to live there?' You know? 'Why do you want to associate with that there?' And they just didn't quite understand.' A wealth of knowledge and experience follows them as they leave. 'With that many years of service, 34 years, you lose a little bit of the history,' said Chief Peacekeeper Dwayne Zacharie. 'They were here at a time when it was difficult. They went through times where there weren't as many resources as there are that are available now. They kind of weathered the storm over those years, and they've always been good standing members.' Kahnawake Peacekeepers station Kahanwake Peacekeepers station. (Daniel J. Rowe/CTV News) Unlike many police officers, Kahnawake's peacekeepers work and live in the same neighbourhoods as the people they are called on to protect and even arrest at times. 'We know everyone,' said Jacobs. 'I think that gives you a bigger insight about the people you deal with. You also live here, outside of your work, you're interacting with community members. You're part of all the processes in society here. So I think that that has a lot of advantages. It's not just anonymous faces you're working with.' Jacobs added that this familiarity reduces the cynicism some officers fall into. 'To me, Kahnawake is a model of community policing,' said Montour. 'It's because we live where we work, and it'll affect your thinking processes. You're always looking ahead, and I think that's that's the big difference. You have a sense of community.' Both men, as all peacekeepers, function as ambassadors to those outside of the community. Montour recently worked on the multi-force anti-gun trafficking task force with the Montreal police (SPVM), and Jacobs works as a liaison officer with the Superior Court in Longueuil. 'Every peacekeeper, no matter what position they hold, is an ambassador of First Nation policing, and, at the same time, they represent our service and they represent our community,' said Zacharie. Both men are leaving proud of their work. 'What I'm most proud of all these years of service, I would have to say, is again, successfully living my father's legacy, being a peacekeeper on the reserve that we know and love,' said Montour. 'People have come up to me and they said, 'Hey, Clint, I know it was kind of hard, but thanks. Thanks a lot,' he said. 'I can take some gratitude that even though, in the face of it at the time, it's kind of difficult, that extension I gave is kind of reciprocated now, and I think that lasts longer because it's also your reputation.' Jacobs had some advice for young officers entering any police force. 'Try not to get cynical. Really look at why you're doing the job, and always go back to that original desire,' he said. 'Ultimately, it's to help your community.'
