Political priorities unveiled 

Council chiefs have decided their priorities for the next three years in office, following surveys carried out earlier this fall. They include four in total: land, protecting Kahnawake’s jurisdiction, improving quality of life and wellbeing for all Kahnawa’kehró:non, and reinvesting into the community.

“Historically, we’ve only done about three political priorities. This year, with everything going on, we’ve included a fourth,” said Mohawk Council of Kahnawake (MCK) grand chief Cody Diabo.

He called this reveal a “soft launch,” saying a more detailed write up of the four priorities should be made public soon. Diabo also got to talking about the political priorities at a community meeting hosted by the council table earlier this month.

The “land back” priority largely speaks to the longstanding Seigneury of Sault St. Louis land grievance Kahnawake has against the federal government, Diabo said. Talks with Canada over the grievance resumed last year after previously stalling in 2015, when both parties couldn’t reach a resolution.

“We need to push a lot harder, more than ever,” Diabo said, mentioning the growing population on the roughly 13,000-acre area of land, in addition to its ever-growing industrial sector.

“They’ve also allowed the continual development and people moving in on it,” Diabo said of Canada. “It’s really, in my view, a bad faith negotiation overall.”

When it comes to protecting Kahnawake’s jurisdiction, Diabo said much of the focus will be on strengthening the MCK’s existing relationships with the federal and provincial governments. The band council already has a memorandum of understanding signed with Canada, but has yet to finalize an equivalent one with the Legault government, which Diabo hopes will come to fruition this winter.

He said the Council table is also actively looking at how it’ll adapt its approach to working with Canada in the instance a Conservative government is elected in Parliament next year.

Diabo said the priority surrounding the quality of life and wellbeing of Kahnawa’kehró:non directly ties into the one aimed at reinvesting in the community.

“In the last few years, we’ve been generating a lot of our own-source revenue, so now it’s the time to do the work to see how we can reinvest that back into the community to where it’s needed the most,” he said.

Government funding is the leading source of revenue for the community, but its place in the overall amount of revenue coming into the community has shrunk year over year. In the most recent fiscal year, funding from the federal and provincial government took up 72 percent of the community’s revenue, down from 85 percent the prior year.

Tolls on highways in the territory and renegotiated agreements with rail lines and the Seaway corporation are being explored as some potential means to increase the band council’s own-source revenue, he said.

“It’s about improving revenue generation and reinvesting said revenues directly into the community,” Diabo said, mentioning water infrastructure, housing, and public services as some of the areas that need the most attention.

“People have been on wells and septic systems for far too long,” he said.

More funding also needs to go into enhancing public safety, Diabo added, mentioning the growing concerns over non-locals in residential areas.

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