Highway Patrol starts Monday

The Kahnawake Peacekeepers will have a new tool at their disposal for traffic mitigation and safety: its new Highway Patrol Division, which will be starting its first patrols in just a few days.

In a previous interview with The Eastern Door in early 2025, it was stated that eight peacekeepers had been selected for this new division, which included training at the Royal Canadian Mounted Police’s (RCMP) academy in Regina, Saskatchewan.

This week, Peacekeepers spokesperson Kyle Zachary did not disclose the number of officers who would be starting with the division on Monday, focusing instead on the benefits to the community and the force itself.

“This is an exciting time for us,” said Zachary.

For the Peacekeepers, this new division will allow other officers to keep doing their jobs inside the community, instead of being pulled away from those duties to handle what happens on Route 207 or Highways 138 and 132..

“They’re going to be issuing tickets. They’re going to be handling traffic collisions, everything that would pull a Peacekeeper away from their general duties,” said Zachary.

“We’re really happy about that.”

Their presence will not be limited to the parts of the day where traffic is at its highest, instead being a continued presence on the major roads in and around the community.

“We know traffic doesn’t stop when rush hour ends. We have 150,000-plus cars a day that come through the territory. All of those cars bring with them the chance to pull a Peacekeeper off of their patrolling duties. So having the highway team eliminates that,” said Zachary.

Not being pulled away from patrols in residential areas inside the community will help improve community safety, Zachary said, as patrols should be more regular and focused on certain areas of town.

The Mohawk Council of Kahnawake (MCK) had committed about $4.5 million to the creation of this division in April 2024, towards the end of the previous council table’s mandate,

“It’s our job at the end of the day to make sure the community feels safe, and that the people who are mandated to do so are financially resourced,” said the MCK’s grand chief Cody Diabo.

“We need to make sure that we can properly address any speeding or traffic-related matters and not take away from the public safety aspect overall. I’m happy to see it come through.”

Diabo said that having been a Peacekeeper himself, when the thought of having such a division was talked about, but could never seriously be put forward, this is a meaningful step for public safety.

“To see this come full circle, I think, is amazing. The Council supports our Peacekeepers and whatever they need, and we’ll continue to do so,” he said.

Council had previously been in talks on the political side to potentially extend the reach of the Peacekeepers to include other roads within the Seigneury of Sault St. Louis land grievance.

“We just didn’t have the resources at the time. But this definitely now opens that up on the political end to say yes, now we’re reasserting ourselves in our territory,” said Diabo.

He expects it to be a smooth transition for the new division starting Monday.

While this is a new division, these Peacekeepers have been on the job for a few months already, including in traffic mitigation efforts during the fall’s construction traffic issues, he explained.

“They’ve been dealing with this the whole time. They’re still Peacekeepers, at the end of the day,” said Diabo.

The big challenge for the new division will be when construction starts up again in the spring, especially as the work on St. Jean Baptiste Boulevard resumes on the boundary with the Kahnawake.

Diabo said they’ll be engaged in talks with Chateauguay to that end, and this new division will help everyone with the challenges ahead.

“There’s going to be a lot more work this summer. They’re going to be resourced better to do a more effective job,” he said.

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