No services in sight

Looking to renew your band card? As you know by now, the days of heading down to the White House by the hospital are over.

But hey, Montreal’s not so far away, right? If you can time your trip for that magical moment when traffic’s moving, that is.

But wait. There is no Montreal office after all, at least not yet.

Yes, it’s true. The consolation that an office would open in the city, hardly a salve at all next to the convenience of getting services here in town, has not come to pass. And rumours that you can get the help you need at the nearby Service Canada outlet in Chateauguay – sorry to say, but it’s not true.

Worry not. All you have to do is hop in your car, if you have one, and drive three hours to Quebec City. The hardest thing you’ll have to do is find parking - and take a day off work. And buy like $80 in gas.

No car? That’s a little tougher, but where there’s a will there’s a way.

Simply catch the 98 to Angrignon and take the Metro to Gare Centrale - by now it’s been over an hour, and the Guy Favreau Complex, where a new Indigenous Services Canada office is promised, is a 10-minute walk from there. But that regional office, which is supposed to pick up where the shuttered Kahnawake office left off, still has no opening date.

But where were we? Oh right, you’ll need a VIA Rail ticket. Hopefully the clerk can speak English. If you’re lucky, that’ll set you back about 50 bucks – each way – not to mention three-and-a-half-hours, if you can avoid delays.

A scenic stroll from Gare du Palais in Quebec City and you’re there, ready to take a number. Easy!

Well, not at all, but that is what you are now asked to do if you need to access Indigenous Services in person. Which is to say, it’s no longer possible to easily renew your band card or obtain other services you need.

That’s bad enough for most, but for elders and people with mobility issues, it’s even worse, and while there were plenty of mixed feelings about the federal government having a shop right here on the territory, its services were a part of life, and the convenience it offered was something people could take for granted. To say nothing of the exit of estates management services in 2021, which also made life harder for folks.

It’s bad enough that the Kahnawake office skipped town in favour of Montreal, but for a planned office at Guy Favreau not to be ready, let alone have an opening date, when it has been common knowledge for more than a year that ISC is leaving?

Well, we wish we could say we’re surprised, but we’re not, because you can’t count on the government for much, except to take a long time to do anything.

ISC’s recent exit from town has been common knowledge for over a year, when The Eastern Door first broke the news that staff had been alerted to the coming change, yet here we are.

But it brings back to mind some of our concerns at the time, namely the lack of transparency and action around the whole thing. Even when the writing was on the wall last February, when they were faced with the facts, the Mohawk Council of Kahnawake (MCK) outright refused to acknowledge the reality that ISC was planning a move.

While nobody knows what would have happened if the office had had a building in a state of good repair, instead of a dilapidated building where workers couldn’t even go upstairs (and which will now be a library building that, despite repairs, is apparently not strong enough to count on to store a collection of books), perhaps Indigenous Services would still be here.

But MCK did not have the foresight to plan for another building, and whatever they did once ISC announced its intention to move, it obviously wasn’t enough.

As we’ve pointed out before, that may well be due to the aforementioned mixed feelings, a starve-them-out strategy. It’s not comfortable to have a federal office here, but again, it’s the elders and those with mobility issues who suffer when services that are still needed are harder to get.

Whatever the reason, we don’t know for sure, because the Council that should have been informing the community - even consulting the community, to see what Kahnawake’s true feelings on the situation are, which could have directed their response - chose to shut its mouth and let the office move to Montreal.

Except the office is not in Montreal - so it goes when it is left to the government to do its thing unchallenged.

Even now, there is disagreement on Council. Will it welcome an ISC employee to work out of MCK offices? Occasional kiosks, maybe? Maybe.

Will it hire someone to take over the services Kahnawake more recently lost? The council table debated hiring an Indian registry administrator after elders were upset to see the office go, but it seems there is no consensus, because at least some Council chiefs object to doing Canada’s job for them.

That’s understandable. Membership is a thorny issue, and Kahnawake has taken strides to take this power back from the federal government, which really has no business in this or a lot of other things.

But at the end of the day, it’s community members who suffer, especially the most vulnerable ones, when Council is less than straightforward. They deserve better than silence, delay, and indecision.

TED Staff