Mohawk Mothers announce injunction motion
Supporters, many of whom are current McGill University students, carried signs, flags, and orange ribbons. Eve Cable The Eastern Door
The Mohawk Mothers, also known as the Kanien’kehá:ka Kahnistensera, say they will be filing an interlocutory motion with Quebec’s Superior Court in the coming weeks, the latest move in a years-long court battle concerning excavation work at the sites of the former Royal Victoria Hospital and the Allan Memorial Institute.
The Mothers and their supporters gathered on Tuesday morning, the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, addressing the media before Montreal’s Every Child Matters march.
A group of more than 50 people attended the event, wearing orange and occupying the grass in front of the Allan Memorial Institute, where the illegal psychiatric experiments were undertaken on human subjects in the 1950s and 1960s.
Those experiments include a US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) mind control project known as MK-Ultra, and at least one survivor of the facility, Lana Ponting, has given sworn affidavits in court testifying that she believes Indigenous victims were killed and buried at the site.
The Mohawk Mothers addressed the media and supporters at the site of the Allan Memorial Institute, which formerly housed illegal human experiments. Eve Cable The Eastern Door
That site and the neighbouring site of the former Royal Victoria Hospital are part of the New Vic Project, led by McGill University and the Societe quebecoise des infrastructures (SQI). The project, which was recently renamed “The Sustainability Park” will serve as a teaching and learning site for multi-disciplinary researchers.
The Mothers have long claimed that both the Allan Memorial Institute site and the Royal Victoria Hospital site could include the unmarked graves of Indigenous people, a claim that they say is backed up by findings from an S4 Subterra Grey Probe, a type of soil analysis designed to detect potential burials, as well as alerts from human remains detection dogs.
The SQI and McGill University have remained steadfast, however, that no evidence of human remains has been found, and have continued to move forward with the project.
“No study nor analysis conducted to date suggests a plausible risk of human remains on the site of McGill’s project. Should human remains be detected, McGill would act with the utmost respect, stop work immediately and abide by the Settlement Agreement signed in 2023,” a spokesperson for the university told The Eastern Door in an emailed statement.
The Mothers refute McGill’s claims.
“Now is the time for this denialism to stop forever, or else reconciliation will never take place,” said Kahentinetha, one of the Mothers.
She and the rest of the group said they couldn’t provide many details at this point about what their interlocutory injunction request will contain, but they said they intend to file it within the next few weeks.
“Throughout this legal saga that’s been lasting four years now, we’ve seen McGill and the SQI constantly flooding us with paperwork, hurdles, and hoops to exhaust us and make us drop the ball, but they do not know Mohawk women,” Kahentinetha said. “I’m now in my 86th year on Earth, and one thing I can tell you is that we’ll never stop. Creation is built into us, and our children of the past, present, and future generations will be protected forever, at all costs.”
Philippe Blouin, an archaeologist who has worked with the Mothers throughout their time in court, said the injunction will concern zones of interest at the Allan Memorial site.
“Very simply, the Mohawk Mothers will be asking for their rights under the settlement agreement and under UNDRIP (United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples), and under all the provisions that do exist to protect their rights within the Canadian court system,” he said.
Kwetiio, another member of the Mothers, thanked those that had come out to support, calling on them to have conversations about their situation with their peers.
“I depend on you, I depend on you as humans to do the right thing and have that conversation with people. You see orange everywhere today, but people really don’t understand,” she said.
“That’s one thing that you could do that would help the Kahnistensera and Onkwehón:we people on this land.”
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The SQI did not respond to The Eastern Door’s request for comment in time for our publishing deadline.
