The Akwesasne tragedy, which killed eight people, is one of the worst fatal drownings in Quebec history. The drowned were found near the boat of a missing mohawk.
For decades Akwesasne, a Mohawk territory that straddles Quebec, Ontario and New York State has been the hub of smuggling in eastern North America.
“Several boat owners have become rich by letting illegal smugglers use their docks,” a resident of Summerstown, Ontario, told the Journal. “This is where everything happens. Drugs, cigarettes and migrants,” says the owner of a residence on the banks of the St. Lawrence, in Cornwall.
The two did not want to be identified, for fear of reprisals from the criminal groups who control its trafficking, to which should also be added arms trafficking.
Another witness told the Journal that he had notified the authorities several times of these passages at his home. No result. Yet 80 migrants have reportedly been intercepted there since January. How many were able to pass without being intercepted?
Quebec and Ottawa fear the Mohawks
I have dealt several times in the Log in recent years, the incredible laissez-faire attitude of Ottawa and Quebec regarding the illegal activities that have been going on for decades in Akwesasne.
In an open letter in The Journal of Montrealin 2021, Senator and ex-policeman Jean-Guy Dagenais claims that only Justin Trudeau “can tackle Akwesasne’s gun strainer and restore minimum jail sentences for those caught in possession of illegal weapons…regardless of race.”
Powered by Akwesasne, other Mohawk reserves are indeed the main source of illegal firearms circulating in Montreal and Toronto.
Arms trafficking has been going on for decades
US diplomatic dispatches revealed by the 2011 WikiLeaks leak indicate that arms, drugs and other smuggled goods, worth around $1 billion, passed through Akwesasne each year.
Already, in 2004, the American consul in Quebec, Susan Keogh-Fisher, wrote that the governments of Quebec, Canada and the United States were doing everything to avoid upsetting the Mohawks. For her part, the American consul in Montreal, Bernadette Allen, affirmed that it is useless to call on the Mohawk “police” to enforce the law.
Ottawa and Quebec are scared to death of the Mohawks who can block the bridges at Cornwall in Ontario and Honoré-Mercier in Montreal. Everything to avoid a new Oka crisis.
In June 2022, Quebec has just granted $6.2 million to the Mohawk police of Akwesasne in its strategy to fight against armed violence in Montreal. We therefore pay the salaries of 5 Peacekeepers and have provided them with a new boat, all-terrain vehicles and snowmobiles in order to arrest firearms smugglers.
The federal government did the same thing two years ago. The Mohawks claimed that they did not have the means to fight against Aboriginal organized crime. Obviously, it did nothing.
Mohawk police officers from Akwesasne already have a water patrol. They seized how many weapons or other contraband goods destined for Canada? How many smugglers have they arrested?
I predicted that the results for the next five years will be commensurate, despite the millions from Quebec and Ottawa. I suggested that the grant be conditional on performance: we pay according to seizures.
The death of the eight migrants may stem transits to the United States. But I doubt it affects the flow of weapons and drugs in the opposite direction to Canada.
Knowing perfectly for a long time the sieve that constitutes Akwesasne, you wonder why the RCMP, the SQ do not patrol the waters around Akwesasne? Once again, because Ottawa and Quebec are afraid of the Mohawks.