No arrests in seven years of arsons in Kanesatake

For decades, arson has been a weapon with which to intimidate and silence in Kanesatake. Yet there are no arrests on record for any criminal fire in the past seven years.

This year has seen a dramatic spike in suspected property arsons, with the Oka fire chief recently suggesting to The Eastern Door that there may be a “war” going on in the cannabis market. 

Despite the increase, the Surete du Quebec (SQ) is not investigating a suspicious fire that burned the Planet 344 dispensary on August 7, less than a month after its grand opening. They say this is because the victim did not file a complaint. Two other suspected arsons this year also saw no cooperation.

To understand the scope of the current situation, The Eastern Door requested statistics from the SQ that would show the number of suspicious fires in Kanesatake each year since the torching of former Mohawk Council of Kanesatake grand chief James Gabriel’s home in January 2004.

However, the retention period of documents for this type of incident is only seven years, making statistics predating 2018 unreliable.

The SQ reported seven suspected property arsons this year up to July 14; any subsequent fires have not yet been processed.

But police spokesperson Catherine Bernard said the two suspicious blazes on August 7 are expected to be compiled as criminal fires. The second fire that day was a suspected arson of a home on Kanesatake Mohawk territory in Oka village that had already been set ablaze earlier this year. Police classified these as Oka fires, so they would not show up in stats for Kanesatake before or after July 14.

This makes a minimum of 10 suspected criminal fires on Kanesatake territory this year alone.

There have been at least 15 such blazes since 2018. While there are zero arrests on record for any arson since then, detentions that did not lead to charges may not be documented in the statistics, according to Bernard.

The blaze that destroyed Planet 344 continues to be viewed by the SQ as a suspected criminal fire, Bernard said, even as Green Room owner Gary Gabriel took to TikTok to criticize The Eastern Door’s reporting in last week’s issue, saying his sister’s store burned due to faulty wiring.

Planet 344 has still not returned requests for comment by Facebook Messenger and email that were sent the day of the blaze. A read receipt shows the request was seen within hours.

One witness who spoke with The Eastern Door reported smelling gas near the site the morning of the fire.

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This article was originally published in print on August 16 in issue 33.33 of The Eastern Door.