Malaise at Maline Island 

Rice Mohawk Steel has been prevented from accessing Maline Island, jeopardizing its contract to service the provincial portion of the Mercier Bridge and posing a critical safety issue for the company’s ironworkers, all of whom are Kanien’kehá:ka.

“It’s been blocked with barricades, jersey barriers, cement blocks with chains,” said Oliver Montour, project manager and site safety supervisor at Rice Mohawk Steel, a local contractor. He compared the situation to a fire exit being sealed off, saying that workers would need the egress – meaning way out – at the island’s Pier 14 if disaster struck the bridge. That exit has been removed, he said.

The blockage has caused major logistical issues for the company, which had been planning to build a base of operations on Maline Island, also known as the North Wall, closer to where most of the work is being done. Instead, it is working from a site on the shore of LaSalle.

“We have to change our whole plan, our whole strategy,” Montour said. “Barges have to bring material across. Men have to walk basically a 15-minute walk to the work site.”

Maline Island, which is community land, has long been used by the Mohawk Bridge Consortium (MBC) to maintain the bridge. The company still holds the contract for the federal portion, which extends to the outer edge of the island, but lost the contract for the provincial side this summer after it submitted a $49 million bid, $13 million more expensive than the one from Rice Mohawk Steel.

MBC had been the only other bidder on the contract, and until then had been the sole bridge contractor for 15 years.

The issue was the subject of an application for an injunction Monday filed by Rice Mohawk Steel and its owner, Burton Rice, against MBC and its owners, Sterling Deer and Amy Rice. The filing also names the Minister of Transport and Sustainable Mobility (MTQ), the Jacques Cartier and Champlain Bridges Incorporated (JCCBI), the attorneys general of Quebec and Canada, and the Mohawk Council of Kahnawake (MCK) as respondents.

A judgment issued Wednesday was not available by deadline, but MCK grand chief Cody Diabo confirmed that the application was denied.

MBC partner Sterling Deer declined to comment on the situation when approached by The Eastern Door.

The application for an injunction had accused MBC of purposely obstructing access to the island to force a breach of contract.

“In fact,” it read, “the delays caused by this obstruction resulted in the receipt of notices of default from the MTQ for failure to meet the contractual work progress deadlines.” Last week, MTQ is said to have contacted the owner of Rice Mohawk Steel to explain that the contract will be revoked if work does not proceed.

As for the occupational safety concerns, these have been echoed beyond just Rice Mohawk Steel management.

“It’s most definitely a safety issue,” said Kahnawake Labour Office director Jeff Morris. “It’s being worked on feverishly at the moment. It’s something KLO, representing the workers, definitely needs to be addressing with all parties involved.”

He suggested issues around liability and easements – meaning right of way – are sticking points that are being discussed. He does not expect there to be an order to stop work in the meantime, which he characterized as a last resort.

MCK grand chief Cody Diabo echoed the KLO’s concerns.

“Unfortunately, I think it took a little bit longer than it should have, but we’re going to rectify the situation,” Diabo said, adding that the MCK asserted in the injunction proceedings that Quebec, which contracted Rice Mohawk Steel through the MTQ, has no right to get involved in what happens on Kahnawake’s territory.

However, he said that although Maline Island is community territory, the MCK is focused only on worker safety and is not getting involved in logistical complaints - that is, the MCK is not going to mandate that Rice Mohawk Steel be allowed to set up a base on the island to fulfill its contract on the provincial side.

“It is an MBC work site, so because of the overlaying contracts, they are occupying the site right now. So it’s not as simple as saying we’re going to make somebody else be able to occupy somebody else’s work site. It’s not about that at all,” said Diabo.

“We are discussing the emergency egress to allow in the event of some type of incident that workers are able to safely exit the bridge on the North Wall,” he said.

In the meantime, workers can only hope nothing goes wrong.

“If there’s a fire on the bridge and you’re on that side, what are you going to do? Jump off the bridge, I guess. There’s no access down,” said Matthew Montour, job steward at the Rice Mohawk Steel site. A stairway that had been there has been removed, he said.

“I wish we could all come to an agreement on this. I have family on that side, I have friends on that side. It’s kind of dividing the community,” he said.

MTQ, which controls the provincial side of the bridge, and JCCBI, which controls the federal side, declined to comment, citing the legal action.

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