Land claims on your mind?

With the recent federal government announcement of the imminent cleanup and return of the Old Radar Site in St. Remi to Kahnawake – over 160 acres and more than $1 million in cleanup money – it got us to thinking.

First, of course, is how bad of a cleanup is it and will the land be usable afterwards? We will see.

Second, what will the community do with that land, which is surrounded by agricultural activities and mere minutes from town proper? That’s yet to be determined.

We know (and see and hear) that there are plenty of suggestions - from a casino to housing to a business sector, to some unprintable ideas.

It’s nice to have land returned, even if there’s work to be done on it first, but it’s a smidgen of what really needs to be done, to get serious amounts of land back, both near town and further away.

And sure, people will crap on whatever the Mohawk Council of Kahnawake (MCK) does, no matter what they collectively, within that small circle, decide; but it is important to remember that you, as a community member, have a say too.

Look at what happened when people stood up and said no weed stores here, even after the MCK put out a call to create a whole industry of munchies here. They halted it entirely, at least on the retail side, which has proven the most troublesome in our sister community of Kanesatake.

Even if you agreed with weed stores coming here, it showed, really clearly, that the MCK will listen if they are faced with growing opposition, even if they spent years planning and holding meeting.

In this case, strong creative ones to help the collective? Well, that could get you a spot on that piece of land, as yet another step in building the nation back up, but what it will look like is anyone’s guess at this point.

What people don’t want, of course, is the MCK making the decisions unilaterally or creating something that the community feels won’t work.

But the casino issue is an interesting one, because it’s no secret some of them still want it, as does much of the community.

Three times was certainly not a charm as a potential casino here was struck down, never to be called to ballot again, but this is new land, away from the current town boundaries, and, well, you never know what could be up the Council’s sleeve – until they come out and say no, we aren’t doing that, or yes, we are considering it.

They talk about own source revenue; well this could be that gamechanger they’re looking for, that benefits the entire community. If properly monitored, of course.

We couldn’t have predicted, after the years of pot permit planning and everything that went into it (and we also wonder how much money was spent during that time), that the MCK would listen to the people and cave, shelving marijuana selling for the foreseeable future.

We have been writing about land claims for so long and on so many different angles, we can’t forget that little morsels of land Canada cedes back to us means there is plenty other choices of land out there – adjacent to our communities, in the bush, mass private and commercial lands that could be expropriated – that we are not focusing on.

Sure, the Council will say it is working on the Seigneury of Sault St. Louis (SSSL) land claim, but until the results of that process that is now 23 years old is public, we are all left to speculate, ruminate, be impatient and angry, and rightfully so.

What would a good return look like – with currently roughly only 13,000 of the over 30,000 acres of the stolen land occupied by Kahnawa’kehró:non?

Well, how about all of it, at least equal in acreage, and that’s a good start? And that doesn’t even include the financial implications - billions and billions are now owed, but how much will we ever see of that?

Here’s a guess: Not billions.

It’s important to say that that’s not all the land we are owed, as communities, as a nation and as the confederacy. We didn’t just give up Montreal, but it isn’t an official part of the SSSL, so it gets a pass?

Name a street something in Kanien’kéha, get an elder to do an opening and we’re even? That’s a different fight that’s waiting for people to take up and settle in one way or another.

How about looking at ways to add land to reserves individually? Under the Addition to Reserves section within the Indian Act, only a band can. However, challenges in a legal arena might push this question further, to open it up to someone who is an hour or two off-reserve, to add to the land base.

Afterall, that would directly challenge the BS that we must pay tax on any land off-reserve; it would enable people to get land back quicker, without the BS of the MCK dragging us away from it; and it would build up reserve land in a non-linear way, that pen we are all stuck in.

Why would we be required to be connected to or near our current reserve lands for them to be recognized as such? Because the government says so. When do we get a say on our own land?

Well, the return of the 162 acres shows it doesn’t have to be that cut and dried. There’s leeway. And we should exploit that the collective in mind.

We talked about a class action lawsuit last week and what that would look like and maybe it is just a pipedream, but by sitting idly by, no dreams will come true. We will just continue to live within the current land situation that equates to a nightmare.

We now have more power, money, resources, connections, and the will to right the wrongs we have lived with for far too long. We’re richer than ever before, and more educated in their ways, so what’s stopping us?

We don’t have to wait for the MCK to do their jobs. This is on all of us.

Steve Bonspiel, The Eastern Door