Roughly a year after the publication of our original letter, nothing has been done to re-establish public safety in the community of Kanehsatà:ke. Organized criminal activity, intimidation, dumping(1), and weapons and drug dealing, all continue unabated. The federal government has doubled down in its refusal to meet community members.
In this context, Minister Patty Hajdu has decided to move ahead with a plan to decontaminate the G&R dump. The plan will be delivered by a firm with no expertise, supervised by a Band Council whose members are under investigation by the SQ's financial crimes unit(2), and occur even as dumping by the G&R site's owners continues in full view of the authorities (3).
The plan will be executed in a context where intimidation continues unchecked(4), making any community consultation impossible. Anyone raising difficult questions about will risk repercutions from those associated with organized crime.
And yet, all of us who will end up paying for Minister Hajdu's plan, deserve answers to many questions:
Over the past year, our group has had the occasion to host productive meetings Québec's Minister Responsible for Relations with the First Nations and the Inuit on multiple occasions. The Province of Québec is lucid about the fact that the dumping in Kanehsatà:ke is the result of lawlessness encouraged in the community by the authorities. This issue of rampant organized criminal activity requires longterm, systemic solutions. And such solutions require the full cooperation of the Federal Government of Canada, and the free prior and informed consent of the Kanien'kehá:ka nation.
In the absence of any exchange with Minister Patty Hajdu's Office, we have no choice but to conclude that this cooperation is being withheld for political reasons and at the expense of our right to safety and our human rights.
We call on every civil society organization, politician, citizen of Canada and Québec, as well as, Indigenous Peoples to denounce the Federal Government's hypocritical policy. A community with no police protection hosting so many violent groups cannot be abandoned to 'resolve its own issues' in the name of Indigenous self-determination, especially when such issues that are rooted in the Canada's colonialism and decades of federal government policy.
Our safety is not a 'problem' to be gotten rid of through public relations. We will not go away. The question for Minister Hajdu is as follows: Would she rather come to the table and discuss with the people of Kanehsatà:ke issues that affect our human rights or have the Liberal Party spend the next general election in Québec defending its dismal record in Kanehsatà:ke?!
Concerned Citizens of Kanesatake {Anonymous}