Insufficient turnout for vote

An attempt to use the courts to thwart Saturday’s ratification vote for four community laws failed, but with only six percent of eligible voters casting a ballot, the vote was nevertheless nullified.

The referendum on each proposed law received only 174 votes. With 2,724 eligible voters identified, that’s a voter turnout of just over six percent, far fewer than the 20 percent threshold required for the vote to be considered valid. Had that threshold been met, a simple 50 percent plus one would have been the metric for a decision.

The State of Emergency and Emergency Measures Law yielded 35 yes to 139 no votes; the Land Protection Law went 44-130; the Trespass Law 37-137; and the Code of Ethics 46-128.

“I’m disappointed but not surprised,” said MCK chief Brant Etienne, who has consistently been one of the strongest advocates for the laws.

The timing of the vote was controversial, coming just two weeks before the MCK general election. In fact, the timing didn’t help matters, Etienne said, because of limitations on campaigning during the election period.

Ratification votes are not necessary to pass laws under the new Kanesatake Law-Making Process (KLMP), which is so far the only community law on the books. The community approval process requires only one method, which can be a secret ballot vote, but can also be at least three community meetings or a minimum of two workshops held in person or virtually.

Etienne said because these are the first laws, Council opted to use a multipronged approach.

“The KLMP states that one of three consultation methods have to be used. We chose to use all three. The last one bit us in the butt, obviously,” he said. It will now be up to the next Council, he said, but he is concerned the next cohort of MCK chiefs may instead work to remove the KLMP itself.

Since the vote on the four laws failed to meet the threshold, he argued, they were neither affirmed nor rejected. Etienne, who is a candidate for grand chief in the upcoming election, said he is in favour of passing the laws now anyways, but that there is insufficient support on Council to do so.

“I think 94 percent of the population not saying anything doesn’t mean they don’t want it. We hear from people every day saying they’re unhappy with the lawlessness in the community, the lawlessness in the roads, they’re unhappy with the environmental condition of the community, they’re saying they don’t like the way Council runs, they wish they had ethics,” he said, adding that these things have long been said and portraying these laws as the solution.

Kanehsata’kehró:non had the opportunity to vote online using OneFeather or in person, and while there were more who voted in person, more than a third used the digital tool, according to Etienne.

While the Custom Electoral Code, which governs Kanesatake elections, does not refer to online voting, the document is not the basis for ratification votes. These are outlined in the new Kanesatake Law-Making Process, which itself draws on several legal bases, including the Kanesatake Interim Land Governance Act (KILGA).

Online voting was cited in legal actions launched in Federal Court against the Mohawk Council of Kanesatake recently. Most notably, MCK chief candidate Valerie Bonspille launched an application dated July 19, the same day of the in-person ratification vote, seeking an urgent injunction to halt it. Online voting had been open since July 5, two weeks earlier.

Bonspille did not reply to a request for comment on the action.

The first documents for the urgent motion, submitted at 4:08 p.m. on July 18, were submitted under the file number of a previous action launched by MCK chief candidate Amanda Simon, which was filed June 27 and targeted online voting in the general election, which was subsequently cancelled, but which also invoked the KLMP.

Simon’s name thus appears in the rationale cited in Justice Nicholas McHaffie’s order denying Bonspille’s motion, as well as email correspondence filed at Federal Court in which MCK’s lawyer Nicholas Dodd, representing Dionne Schulze, accused rival counsel of sewing procedural confusion with the last-minute filing with the urgent request launched under Simon’s file number.

Asked by The Eastern Door about this, since on July 20 Simon publicly demanded a retraction of the suggestion by Etienne that she had anything to do with the injunction request, Simon provided an email to Dodd dated July 23 from an articling student for law firm Pepper, Villeneuve-Gagné, which represented both Bonspille and Simon. The articling student said they were writing to clarify that the documents filed by the firm under Simon’s file should have been issued in Bonspille’s name with a new file number.

“Furthermore, we wish to confirm that Amanda Simon’s name should not have appeared in the proceedings,” the articling student wrote.

In responding to Bonspille’s application on the ratification vote, which also asserted that the KLMP was illegally adopted, McHaffie noted that the motion was brought with less than 24 hours’ notice and wrote that the “applicant has provided no material or persuasive evidence regarding the urgency of this matter” to justify it.

“The applicant concedes that the process currently being followed complies with the Kanesatake Law-Making Process,” McHaffie wrote. “The foundation for her motion is therefore the lawfulness of the Kanesatake Law-Making Process itself. However, the Kanesatake Law-Making Process was adopted five months ago, in February 2025.”

He also noted that the notice of the ratification vote was distributed in June.

According to McHaffie, counsel for Bonspille argued that she did not learn of the ratification vote until the MCK’s statement of defence was filed on July 14 in the Simon action, which the justice found implausible and unsupported.

He also wrote that the question of urgency aside, the application presented did not satisfy the requirements for an injunction.

“Given the limited nature of the evidence put forward by the applicant and the responding evidence filed, I cannot conclude that the applicant has demonstrated on the record before me a serious issue in respect of the legality of the Kanesatake Law-Making Process, based on the process leading to its adoption,” wrote McHaffie.

Bonspille’s application also presented online voting as unlawful based on KILGA, but McHaffie also dismissed this claim based on what was presented. “Again, on the evidence before me, the applicant has raised no serious issue,” he wrote.

McHaffie wrote that the decision should not be interpreted as weighing in on whether the Federal Court is the proper jurisdictional forum in regard to the KLMP, given the justice’s conclusion that the injunction should not be granted.

Finally, the justice ruled that Bonspille is responsible for paying for MCK’s costs in the amount of $1,000. “I agree entirely with the respondent,” wrote McHaffie, that the applicant should be responsible for the costs given the urgency and “lack of merit of the motion.”

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Marcus Bankuti, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter