by Dan David, Windspeaker Columnist

In mid-January, Kanehsatake exploded in the national consciousness once more. Looking back at the media coverage of the events, familiar patterns emerge.

Major Canadian news organizations immediately pumped up the volume by resurrecting images of the 1990 Oka crisis, masked Mohawk warriors and all. They soon transformed the story into one of criminals versus a crime-fighting chief. Then journalists painted Kanehsatake as a community with never-ending problems, doomed by petty family squabbles. The Montreal Gazette finally declared the story "a small-town drama or farce." Few journalists, including Aboriginal journalists, looked much deeper into the story or deviated from these easy stereotypes.

Aboriginal media just whistling Dixie

MEDIUM RARE

Dan David, Windspeaker Columnist

In mid-January, Kanehsatake exploded in the national consciousness once more. Looking back at the media coverage of the events, familiar patterns emerge.

Major Canadian news organizations immediately pumped up the volume by resurrecting images of the 1990 Oka crisis, masked Mohawk warriors and all. They soon transformed the story into one of criminals versus a crime-fighting chief. Then journalists painted Kanehsatake as a community with never-ending problems, doomed by petty family squabbles. The Montreal Gazette finally declared the story "a small-town drama or farce." Few journalists, including Aboriginal journalists, looked much deeper into the story or deviated from these easy stereotypes.

Kanehsatake Mohawk Territory is dysfunctional. It has a population of about 2,500. It's millions of dollars in debt. It has escalating legal bills in excess of $1 million, thanks to the endless court fights between various factions on band council. It can't afford the $1.5 million it takes to run the community. Services have been cut or cut back drastically.

Teachers worry about jobs. The school is in jeopardy. Parents worry about their children. Families that should have had homes must wait because monies earmarked for housing, education and social services have been diverted to cover the on-going mismanagement at the band office. Yet, reporters didn't ask why this community is in such bad shape or why the federal and provincial governments not only support Chief James Gabriel, but throw more money at him.

The Department of Indian Affairs put Kanehsatake under third-party management late last year. However, this didn't prevent the federal solicitor general from signing a secret deal with Chief Gabriel on Christmas Eve, when offices were closed and no one was watching, worth $900,000 to bring into the community 60 Native cops from across the province to take over from the local police force. Nobody asked what happened to that money since those Native cops were sent packing.

Residents have accused PricewaterhouseCoopers, the third-party manager, of withholding payment on a variety of necessities in the community until Chief Gabriel first approves of the expenditure. People complain that some bills were paid while others were not depending upon which side of the political fence one sat. But journalists weren't interested in pursuing these stories nor were the people at Kanehsatake surprised. They'd seen it all before.

Take that policing deal, for example. For months, they'd heard rumors about it. They'd asked, but "King James," as people began to call him, refused to explain. He operated in secret, even with most of his council. People at Kanehsatake only learned details of the policing deal when an outsider obtained a copy of the agreement from Ottawa.

Ever since taking office, the chief wanted to settle a deal with the federal government over lands it had purchased for the community. In late 1999, he had an agreement-in-principle, negotiated again in secret and never fully disclosed to the community.

So it came as a surprise to many when, in March 2001, then-minister of Indian Affairs Bob Nault introduced the "Kanesatake Interim Land Base Governance Act."

The minister didn't go to the House of Commons with it, where full debate of the act might have taken place. Instead he took it to the Senate, an unusual move for a bill with far-reaching implications for Aboriginal and treaty rights.

Over the next few months, Bill S-24 was rushed through hearings, most held in camera and away from prying eyes. The Senate Aboriginal affairs committee tabled a report, but kept it quiet. On May 15, 2001 the House of Commons passed Bill S-24 on third reading. Some MPs had asked questions, but they didn't have much information to go on. On June 14, Bill S-24 became law.

It took three months, an amazing-almost unheard of-feat!

Ellen Gabriel, one of the few Mohawks to attend those Senate hearings, urged caution about this deal, about her cousin, James Gabriel, and of the consequences the deal had for the people back home.
"Within the band council system." Ellen testified, "there is a group of people that makes unilateral decisions on behalf of the whole community. The whole community does not know what is going on. It only knows what is happening when James Gabriel calls a press conference."

In late 2001, somebody shot at Kanehsatake's police station. In the past, it was "never-will-be" warriors shooting up the place. Something was different this time. It wasn't gang-related. It was politically motivated. It came after Chief Gabriel signed the agreement that transferred $14 million worth of land purchased by the federal government to the control of a private corporation-not the band-called Kanesatake Orihwa'shon:a Development Corporation.

Two band councilors-Pearl Bonspille and John Harding-were listed as directors of this company and involved in the negotiations. Rumors circulated about shady dealings, conflict of interest and corruption. Nothing could be proven; everything was done in secret.

The only band meeting about this deal ended suddenly when one of the leaders of a rival faction in the community assaulted Chief Gabriel. A few months later, Chief Gabriel pushed through, and narrowly won, a referendum to accept the deal despite a massive boycott by band members who demanded more information first. The vote was 239 to 237.

No one had explained to the people of Kanehsatake that Chief Gabriel's deal would turn their lands into "fee simple" ownership, remove tax exemption, require "harmonization" of band by-laws with the town of Oka. Or that the "Kanesatake Interim Land Base Governance Act" was the first step in turning Kanehsatake Mohawk territory into a municipality.

Everyone was asleep at the switch while this was going on, except for people at Kanehsatake. But they couldn't get anyone's attention. Federal Indian Affairs Minister Andy Mitchell and the Quebec government support Chief Gabriel and his faction no matter how serious the situation at Kanehsatake gets or how many lives are affected. They'll overlook serious problems with band officials in order to prop up this system.

Where was the Assembly of First Nations or other Mohawk communities? Phil Fontaine (and Matthew Coon Come before him) and his Quebec lieutenant, Ghislain Picard, won't say or do anything. As an "organization of chiefs," they say they can't interfere in the internal affairs of a band. Better to support a ridiculous chief at the "Laval band office," a hotel near Montreal, than protect the welfare of the people at Kanehsatake.

Joe Norton of Kahnawake spoke up, but only because S-24 also affected lands held jointly between his territory and Kanehsatake at a northern reserve called Doncaster.

True, a mob burned Chief Gabriel's house, threatened his family and his life, drove him into exile. The people responsible for that must be charged and, if found guilty, suffer the consequences. But neither the federal and provincial governments, nor Aboriginal leaders, have acknowledged that the tribe has spoken on numerous other occasions and in more peaceful ways saying they don't trust Chief Gabriel or the band council.

Everyone had, and still has, an excuse for doing nothing-including the Aboriginal media. It isn't difficult to understand why. This was never a story about a chief abusing authority, in love with secrecy, distrustful of his people, responsible for rendering it dysfunctional. Instead, the media was mesmerized by age-old stereotypes that portrayed the Mohawks at Kanehsatake as little more than feuding families unable to run their own lives. The pity is that in doing so, they missed the real story.

Editor's note: Windspeaker columnist Dan David is a Mohawk journalist from Kanehsatake working in Ottawa.