Kahsennenhawe Sky-Deer Met With Premiere Legault Today
Written by Jeremy Zafran on 16 August 2022
The Mohawk Council of Kahnawà:ke’s Ohén:ton Í:iente ne Ratitsénhaienhs Kahsennenhawe Sky-Deer and Ietsénhaienhs Tonya Perron met with Quebec Premier François Legault this afternoon in Quebec City. This is the first meeting with Legault since he was elected in 2018. It has been noted that the long delay in scheduling this meeting has been a cause for concern, as meetings between Quebec’s premiers and Kahnawà:ke’s grand chiefs have been held as a matter of routine for many years. Sky deer says the meeting was fruitful:
“Late Grand Chief Joe Norton didn’t get an opportunity, we went through challenges and with his untimely passing. Nonetheless, here we are and after everything that we went through after Bill96 and expressing publicly our frustration and anger, it was important for us to have this face-to-face for me to lay out some of what I feel is important if this relationship is going to move forward. So, overall it went really well.”
Sky-Deer says the premier is willing to work with the mohawk community:
“We got into discussing the issues, language and culture, Bill96, our outstanding hospital agreement the framework relationship moving forward, yeah, a number of things and what basically came out of it was commitment. I think that’s what we came here for that this government is willing to work directly with us as the Mohawk Community of Kahnàwake. He mentioned about ‘nations’ and I said, ‘look’ we’re not speaking on behalf of the Mohawk Nation here, we’re speaking as Kahnàwake, but it would be nice if we could get our sister communities to come from that space and advocate for the issues that are important to all of us.”
There has been added urgency to meet due to Kahnawà:ke’s strong concerns over Quebec’s Bill 96 language legislation. The meeting took place at Mr. Legault’s office from 1 to 2 pm. An online forum will be set-up next week according to Sky-Deer by the Government.
