Marcus Bankuti, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, The Eastern Door

Checkpoint training for Oka residents and others aiming to stymie streams of dump trucks carrying potentially contaminated landfill into Kanesatake went ahead as planned, edging the resident-led group one step closer to enacting roadblocks.

The group is working in collaboration with and in support of Kanehsata’kehró:non whistleblowers who have spent more than a year demanding action on Kanesatake’s environmental and public safety problems.

While mayor Pascal Quevillon has portrayed the proposed action as reckless, the mood on September 8 was cheerful as Oka residents, other Quebecers, and Kanesatake community members came together at Optimist Park to learn how to administer citizen checkpoints, which would stop dump trucks while allowing other vehicles to pass.

“We want to do this by the book,” said Philippe Duhamel, who delivered the training. “We will do it if we must, but we hope we don’t have to do it.”

The group has demanded meetings with ministers, including Quebec minister of public security François Bonnardel, to ask them to elaborate on interventions. Short of that, the group feels residents have no choice but to take matters into their own hands.

Duhamel is president of Eau Secours, an organization that is collaborating with the residents’ group.

“I was asked to come and do this training. I’m sort of an ‘expert,’ but I learned everything by doing – nonviolence, civil disobedience, direct action,” he said.

Duhamel emphasized that if it does come to checkpoints, people will be tasked with specific roles, such as being designated to speak to the drivers, to ensure the action goes smoothly. There would also be observers and a police liaison, he said.

“Frankly, I feel very moved, because I don’t think there’s a higher purpose in life than to defend nature and stand with people who get up and say ‘No, enough. We can’t tolerate this.’ Indifference is not an option when the earth that feeds us, when the water that quenches our thirst is being spoiled.”

The training, which lasted hours, was attended by dozens of people and preceded by a meet and greet between concerned residents of Oka and other municipalities and members of the community in Kanesatake.

“Just seeing everybody together from the Indigenous community, Oka and Kanesatake together, to show how important this is, this is just amazing,” said Oka resident Julia Tremblay-Cloutier, a spokesperson for the group.

Since the training was announced, Quebec’s environment ministry, in partnership with other authorities, finally deployed inspectors to test potentially contaminated soils on the shore of the Lake of Two Mountains. A previous attempt months earlier was called off by the ministry when a soil recipient reportedly got physical with two Mohawk Council of Kanesatake (MCK) chiefs.

“We’ve been sending a message for so many years that going into Kanesatake, you could do anything you want. So right now, I really hope that minister Bonnardel gets our message and he brings people to the table to work on a permanent security plan,” said Tremblay-Cloutier, who emphasized the need to pressure the minister.

“Nobody was moving, and from the moment the citizens came out this summer, things started moving. It tells a lot about how citizens can make things move.”

Pink, one of the anonymous Kanehsata’kehró:non who have unleashed a wave of media attention on the devastating environmental and public safety plights in the community since the release of an open letter last spring, believes the Oka group’s actions have been effective.

“The people who came, I think they’re coming with good intentions,” Pink said. “They’re coming with genuine concern, not just for the people but for the environment, so I’m really happy, and I have faith in them. I don’t have faith in politicians, whether it’s band council or the premier of Quebec or the prime minister of Canada.

“I think they had their chance to do something, and they didn’t, and now they’re buckling under public pressure.”

Pink said the group wants to see consultations and an independent inquiry to get to the bottom of Kanesatake’s problems and for bad actors to be held responsible for threatening the safety of the community, including rooting out government complicity and corruption.

“There are people who do care deeply about the land, care deeply about the health and welfare of the community members, and we want to have a better future than the chaos that we’re seeing in the community,” Pink said.

“I hope that we will have peace one day, because everyone deserves to live in safety and in a healthy environment. And that’s all we want. We just want safety and a healthy environment so we can live and try and recover from hundreds of years of colonization.”

The event was well attended not only by residents but media as well, with several mainstream outlets sending journalists to cover the event, landing the action on major newscasts.

Quevillon made an appearance at the event to express his disagreement to the media that was assembled. In an interview with The Eastern Door, he said he had been in touch with Eau Secours and was disappointed that the event went ahead as planned.

“I told them that we did not agree to use citizens to carry out road checks,” said Quevillon, who has repeatedly expressed safety concerns for residents.

“Despite disagreement on our side, they continued to move forward.”

He has characterized the dumping problem as nearly resolved, even though he acknowledges it has gone on far too long.

“This intervention should have happened several years ago,” he said of the testing coordinated by Quebec’s environment ministry two weeks ago. “We are happy that it is done, but it is much too late.”

Despite Quevillon’s objections, Oka residents said it was important to be present for the event.

“We’ve been here in Oka for 50 years,” said Christian Vermette, who runs a local organic agricultural operation and came out to support Kanehsata’kehró:non and the environment.

“For us, it affects us when we see nature being destroyed,” he said.

According to his partner Danielle Migneault, the pair see the trucks frequently.

“We don’t live in the village, but we live a little higher up, and we see them.”

Quebecers also came from further out to support the movement.

“I think it’s an important cause, the waste that is put there illegally, and above all the protection of our citizens, of our rivers, of all that,” said Sainte Marthe sur le Lac resident Sylvain Cauzeret, who came out after receiving a message about it from an eco-citizen group.

While he was glad to take part, he said he would have preferred if checkpoints were implemented the same day, given the urgency of the issue and because it can be difficult for people to make time to come out.

“When we have people, we have to move,” he said.

Kanesatake community member Tess Lalonde, who is Dakota Sioux, also attended the training, which featured talks and role-playing.

“I’m really interested in seeing what they’re going to come up with, ideas to stop all this,” said Lalonde at the event.

“That’s what I’m hoping to see today is solutions.”

Prior to the training, the group circulated a press release outlining MCK grand chief Victor Bonspille’s approval of the action. “If we are to achieve peace and security, we must work together to stand up to the government that has abandoned us,” he said.

Other MCK chiefs have previously expressed support for the movement in interviews with The Eastern Door.

marcus@easterndoor.com

The Eastern Door

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