(Ottawa) It is up to the Sûreté du Québec to enforce the law in Kanesatake, ministers Marc Miller and Patty Hajdu recalled in a press scrum on Wednesday. Members of the community deplore the “lawless zone” it has become and fear reprisals if they dare to speak openly about an illegal dump with toxic leaks.
“You will ask the Sûreté du Québec, which has jurisdiction in Kanesatake,” replied Crown-Indigenous Relations Minister Marc Miller when asked by a reporter what the federal government was doing.
“They are not necessarily welcome for many reasons that you know very well, he added, referring to the crisis in Oka in 1990. This is an issue that we must work on with the government of Quebec and the authority that Quebec has over the public safety of the people of Kanesatake. »
PHOTO SPENCER COLBY, THE CANADIAN PRESS ARCHIVES
Mark Miller
He also pointed out that “for years, non-Indigenous Quebecers knowingly used the dump illegally. »
A survey of The Press revealed earlier this week that toxic water was flowing from the Recyclage G & R sorting center, located on the Mohawk territory of Kanesatake, near Oka. The center is owned by brothers Robert and Gary Gabriel, who have ties to organized crime.
“Obviously people are scared, scared for their lives, threatened,” said Indigenous Services Minister Patty Hajdu. There are procedures with the province of Quebec to apply the Criminal Code and who is responsible for protecting citizens in the event of criminal offences. »
PHOTO ADRIAN WYLD, THE CANADIAN PRESS ARCHIVES
Patty Hajdu
She plans to discuss the issue with the Quebec Minister responsible for First Nations and Inuit Relations, Ian Lafrenière, in the coming days.
Regarding the environmental problem posed by this illegal dump, Minister Hajdu said she works closely with the community and has spoken on several occasions with the grand chief of the band council, Victor Bonspille.
“The land that is contaminated is private property and there are no legal instruments allowing Indigenous Services Canada to act unilaterally,” she said. It must therefore be a solution developed with community leaders. Of course, we’ve come up with a number of different approaches, and we’re waiting to hear which one is most appropriate for community leaders. »
She did not want to indicate what were the possible solutions proposed by her department.
Ottawa has a budget envelope of 1.16 billion over four years to secure and clean up similar sites, as part of its Action Plan for contaminated sites. However, the Recyclage G & R sorting center does not appear anywhere in the “inventory of contaminated sites” of the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat, which is responsible for this program.
An internal letter from the Kanesatake Band Council that The Press obtained, dated March 2022, argues that the provincial and federal departments of the environment have “repeatedly advised Council [de bande] that the only way to [ces ministères] to commit resources to clean up the site is that ‘private interests’ in those lands be removed”. In other words, that “the rights of Gary and Robert Gabriel to these lands must be terminated”.
New Democrat MP Alexandre Boulerice is calling for a review by the House of Commons Standing Committee on Indigenous and Northern Affairs to shed light on the matter. A parliamentary committee has the power to summon witnesses it deems relevant to appear.
With Tristan Péloquin and Joël-Denis Bellavance