Chief Ross Montour at the National Assembly: Bill 66
Written by Paul Graif on 23 October 2020
Mohawk Council of Kahnawà:ke Chief Ross Montour officially presented the MCK’s opposition to Bill 66 to the National Assembly in Quebec City late yesterday. The hearing was held before the Quebec Public Finance Committee that is reviewing Bill 66:
“Impact on the community, there was, one of the strongest things for me, the issue of keeping the Mercier Bridge within the project list. Given the history of Kahnawà:ke with expropriations, with losses of our territory and all without consultation. And the point I really wanted to make with them was to continue on in this fashion by leaving that Bill in there is to move us back 50-years.”
Chief Montour provided examples, such as the Seaway. Bill 66 was introduced to stimulate the economy in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic by fast tracking infrastructure development through the shortening of the approval processes and to make it easier to expropriate lands in order to make way for development. Montour says that he presented for 10 minutes and then answered questions for another 25 minutes:
“We were asked, “are there are any court actions that you’re contemplating taking,” and what I said was, accept the road we want to go, we don’t want to go down an adversarial road. We would rather have a real, meaningful nation-to-nation dialogue where we can work together and find a way to move forward which doesn’t diminish one groups rights. But we don’t take anything off the table, either.”
Meanwhile the MCK has a meeting scheduled with the new Quebec Indigenous Affairs Minister, Ian Lafreniere set for next Wednesday.
