Council waives fees for evictions

Fees for filing eviction requests have now been waived in an attempt to encourage more people to apply to oust those they believe to be in violation of the residency law from the community. Initially, eviction requests came at a cost of $30.

“It was approved by the community, because it was necessary just to offset the cost of delivering registered mail,” said Jeremiah Johnson, the Council chief that brought forward the idea to waive the fee. “There were a lot of complaints about it. And I didn’t like the idea myself either, really, so we put it to Council.”

The fees have been waived as of this Monday, following a decision at a Mohawk Council of Kahnawake (MCK) meeting.

“I suggested we nix it for the first year and then see where it goes after that. Council agreed, and we hit it fast,” Johnson said. 

He noted that while the request did previously come at a cost, their policy included refunds for those whose requests were deemed to be founded. Scrapping the fees entirely will now streamline the process, he said.

Community members have been able to file eviction requests against those they don’t feel belong in the community as of April 1. That includes those whose name doesn’t appear on the MCK’s membership list. Those already on the list and those granted residency permits wouldn’t be considered, according to local laws.

“They just felt that perhaps waiving the fees would generate more applications, to give people the chance to make an application without having to worry about the money attached to it,” said Kyle “Sugar” Jacobs, the compliance officer responsible for overseeing the merits of each request. “Some people did complain about the fee. It was, ‘Why do we have to pay for this? We don’t feel that there should be a fee attached to it,’ and so that was a concern.”

The Court of Kahnawake will have the sole jurisdiction to decide who can be evicted.

Not everyone is happy though. Some have reached out to Johnson to say the process should allow for anonymous complaints. 

It’s possible that could change, but the rules would have to go through the Community Decision-Making and Review Process first, he said. The law is expected to go through another review process soon, however, he said. 

“The time we were creating the law, most people were quite adamant that they were brave, they were gung-ho, and they didn’t care, they’ll put their name to any complaint,” Johnson said. “This is the result of community consultations, but that’s what’s nice about our process. Our laws are not written in stone. If there’s something the community feels they can’t live with, it can be changed.”

Victoria Queenie McComber said just the KKR office should be aware of the name of the complainant, not the person or family targeted for eviction.

“This won’t work, the people are mad about it,” the community member said. 

She said she was also surprised to learn a fee was initially attached to the process. That said, she’s relieved to see there’s now a better mechanism in place to get non-Natives out of the territory.

“This is a long time coming, as we all grew up knowing this since we were young, knowing that if you marry out, you leave too,” she said. “We have lots of people who don’t belong here. They get too comfortable being here and not caring about anything or anyone but themselves. This is a reserve for Natives, it’s always been.”

This newest eviction process comes following a 2018 Quebec Superior Court ruling that found the band council’s former one to be in violation of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. That law, known as the “marry out, get out” law, first came into effect in 1981.

[email protected]