Caucus meets in Akwesasne

The federal minister of Crown-Indigenous Relations said she would share concerns raised by attendees at this week’s Iroquois Caucus with her parliamentary peers, part of an effort to hear more about the issues affecting communities directly.

The Caucus meeting took place in Akwesasne, with Mohawk Council of Kahnawake (MCK) grand chief Cody Diabo and MCK chief David Diabo in attendance.

The group discussed issues such as land use, emergency management, drug situations in local communities, and membership issues with minister Rebecca Alty, who was appointed minister of Crown-Indigenous Relations earlier this year.

Alty had come to Kahnawake for an introductory meeting back in July, with a stated intention of building a partnership with the community.

“She was glad to hear it, some of it is outside of her ministry and more in line with Indigenous Services Canada rather than Crown-Indigenous Relations, and she pointed that out,” David said. “But she said that for what’s in her wheelhouse, she’ll speak to the appropriate minister.”

Also on the agenda was talk about trade and commerce - at a Caucus meeting in May, member communities signed an agreement to strengthen trade ties, with the goal of forming a “trade alliance” to identify trade opportunities.

David said discussions were had about how to further develop that trade protocol, with ideas shared about how to spread the agreement even further pending meetings with other First Nations communities in the coming months.

The group also met with Constant Awashish, grand chief of the Atikamekw Nation Council, who expressed interest in joining the trade agreement.

“He’s the youngest chief in his community and he talked about how we’re modern now, we have to start thinking forward, and this trade agreement is a good way to do that,” David said.

David and Cody Diabo also updated member communities about the 2026 Kahnawake Harvest Summit - the summit is meant to be passed between communities, the last one having been held in Oneida. However, David said that others at the Caucus had not volunteered to assist with the organizing of the summit, so the decision was made to make the event Kahnawake’s own, instead of being organized by the group as a whole.

The summit will still be passed on to another community for 2027, with Kahnawake’s version currently scheduled to take place in Montreal in March of next year.

“I asked for Caucus representatives to contribute to the agenda and presentations and whatnot, and I got no response, so time’s ticking,” he said. “I gave them a deadline where if they didn’t respond it would become a Kahnawake-specific summit, and that’s what happened.”

Administrative topics were also straightened out - MCK technician Dennis Diabo was in attendance and said he and other technicians presented financial updates and made changes to a number of internal documents, with the view of hiring a new Caucus coordinator in the coming months.

“Hiring the next coordinator is the priority we’re looking at now, because we’ve been without one for a number of months now,” he said.

The date and location of the next meeting is yet to be determined but should happen in the coming months.

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