McGill will be able to continue its excavation work on the site of the former Royal Victoria Hospital, without conditions, the Court of Appeal ruled Friday. It therefore rejects the request of the Mohawk Mothers to stop, or at least supervise, this work, while they suspect that unmarked graves were dug there illegally in the 1950s and 1960s.
This decision by the Court of Appeal is a new twist in the dispute over excavation on the site of the former Royal Victoria Hospital, which pits the Mohawk Mothers against McGill University and the Société québécoise des infrastructures (SQI).
Several years ago, McGill and the SQI began work to expand the Montreal university’s campus on this site at the heart of the legal battle. However, the Mohawk Mothers, or Kanien’kehà:ka Kahnistensera, opposed it. Last June, they claimed to have new evidence that graves could be on the site, thanks to dogs specially trained to find human remains.
Read the article ““We are talking about living people who have died””
A legal battle with many twists and turns
The Mohawk Mothers therefore took legal action in 2022 to stop this work, in order to avoid the destruction of any graves during the work. The work had been put on hold in October 2022 by decision of the Superior Court, while McGill, the SQI and the Mohawk Mothers reached an agreement.
An initial agreement had been signed between the three parties for the work to take place, but under the supervision of a panel of archaeologists who would issue recommendations. The Mohawk Mothers then filed an emergency motion in the Superior Court in September 2023 to again request that the work be stopped, accusing the other two parties of not having respected this agreement.
PHOTO JOSIE DESMARAIS, LA PRESSE ARCHIVES
In 2022, the Mohawk Mothers took legal action to stop construction on the site of the former Royal Victoria Hospital, in order to avoid the destruction of any graves during the work.
A judgment was rendered by the Superior Court of Quebec on November 20, 2023. In it, Justice Gregory Moore authorized McGill and the SQI to continue the excavation work, under certain conditions. McGill was to reinstate the panel of archaeologists, who had been tasked with developing an archaeological excavation plan before the University terminated their contract in July 2023.
These conditions have since been contested by the SQI and McGill, who went to the Court of Appeal to have them invalidated.
With Louis-Samuel Perron and Tatiana Mulowayi-Pelletier, The Press