Author: Jeremy Zafran

There is planned, controlled Blasting coming this Friday at the Multi-Purpose Building Site. The Public Safety Division of the Mohawk Council of Kahnawà:ke saying that the blasting will occur tomorrow, Friday, September 27^th and again on Monday, September 30^th. Following all safety measures, the work will be performed by Enterprises QMD Inc. and The National. A rock blast cover will be used to suppress debris and noise, a warning sound will be issued prior to blasting, and seismographs will be in place to monitor vibrations. Additionally, fencing has been installed around the site. You are asked to avoid the work zone at all costs.

A KSCS promotional item is being recalled by the organization. Recently, KSCS handed out miniature fans to clients in the community and it turns out they are a fire hazard. A few of the promotional fans have reportedly caught on fire and KSCS is urging anyone in possession of the fans to discontinue usage, immediately.

The Mohawk Council of Kahnawà:ke is increasing the number of community meetings. They announced this morning that instead of being held quarterly, the meetings will become monthly beginning in January.  They will be held on the last Wednesday of each month, from 6pm-9pm. Ohenton Í:rate ne Ratsisahiens Cody Diabo saying: “Over the past year or so we’ve taken note that quarterly meetings are insufficient to cover all the agenda items. Oftentimes the meetings run long, and we still haven’t managed to discuss everything we intended to.”  As for the Fall Community Meeting, that is scheduled for Wednesday, November 20^th.

A pizza restaurant undergoing renovations on Crescent Street in Montreal is at the center of a local controversy. Resident Kaniet White disclosed photos on social media today that he took of construction materials that had been dumped on Seaway Road. K1037 News has been in contact with the contractor in question, Prevost Construction and according to its owner, Sacha Grenon, the materials are mostly from his jobsite. There is a law on the books, ‘The Sanitary Conditions Law’ that is applicable in this situation’s context as it pertains to demolition waste management. Robyn Montour is the General Manager of Public Safety Operations:

“We do have a Kahnawàke Sanitary Conditions Law and within that law it states that no person shall deposit, or essentially dump anything, within the territory without proper written authorization by the Mohawk Council of Kahnawake. If we do find that people are illegally dumping within the community they can be charged, they can be ordered to clean-up the mess.”

Montour says this case is not isolated:

“We have been dealing with a a few cases of this nature, the PK’s follow-up, we have inspectors here who follow-up with the case and we always try to make sure that the areas get cleaned-up. Sometimes it’s difficult, sometimes we don’t know who dumped it, because they might be coming at all hours of the night or whatever it may be, so that’s always a challenge. In the cases where we can find out, they’re either charged or ordered to clean it up.”

For his part, Grenon claiming that he had sent his employee to get the materials weighed, paid for and dumped at the Kahnawa:ke town dump. He is looking into how this load of debris ended up on Seaway Road. In the interim, he has hired a contractor from Kahnawake company to remove the debris from the territory. He’ll remove other debris found there that might not be his according to the photos. Grenon says that has spoken to the Kahnawake Peacekeepers to clarify the situation.

The MCK has approved the demolition of the Skawenni:io Tsi Iewennahnotáhkhwa Kahnawà:ke Library building at this past Monday’s Council Meeting. In July, there were visual indications that the building was once again shifting. After further inspection, staff that were working on-site were instructed to immediately vacate the building, which has since been closed to the public. What has been confirmed is that the building is sinking, with areas of the exterior foundation and some interior column footings having shifted as much as one (1) inch compared to elevations recorded in the Spring of this year. The original portion of the building was built in the early 1900’s with at least two additions that were made to the structure that are believed to have been more recently constructed without the services of a licensed Architect or an Engineer.

The Kahnawà:ke Environment Protection Office (KEPO) is  looking to engage the community in discussions about the St. Lawrence River. KEPO is seeking to plan for the future of the river by consulting about invaluable local knowledge. Benjamin Green Stacey is the Director of KEPO:

“Historical and contemporary, we want to understand how people are interacting with the river now, but also how people interacted with the river in the past and sort of bridging that gap, in terms of understandings of  the way things were, the way things are and the way things should be in the future: the way we want to see things in the future.”

Stacey says they will collaborate with The River Institute and the Mohawk Council of Akwesasne, in order to extend research on the health of the St. Lawrence River from Kingston to Lake St. Francis, encompassing areas further downstream

There is an evening pop-up kiosk at Tota Ma’s from 6-8pm for people to come and view the 2 possible scenarios for the projected greenspace east of the tunnel. Maris Jacobs is a project coordinator with PlanIt Consulting:

“At this point we’ve collected quite a bit of data already and feedback throughout the summer about people’s preferences and what we really want to know is what direction are we going: ‘Scenario 1’ or ‘Scenario 2.’ Scenario 1 is heavy on reforestation and greening; Scenario 2 has a lot of that as well, but it also includes a little more recreation: a pathway, some seeding, a little bit more geared towards the user.”

One of the scenarios is a recreation path:

“We’re trying to gauge if people want to go that direction or if they want to just stay in a greening path and/or is is a mix of both. We’re trying to gather enough opinions so that the next phase that we go into after this is to meet with the ‘Working Group’ again, present this new data and they’re going to work on that again to narrow it down to one single scenario based on the feedback.”

They will be hosting some online sessions next week. Following that, they will bring all of the feedback collected back to the Working Group.

The Canadian Football League will be recognizing the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation. According to the CFL website: “The league consulted with local Indigenous communities to plan Orange Shirt Day initiatives and game day commemorations to help Canadians better understand the nation’s tragic past, and to help plot a course forward based on awareness, education and action.” For a second straight year the Montreal Alouettes will be hosting a Flag Football Youth clinic in Kahnawake today. It will be held at 5 pm (today, Monday) at the Sports Complex field.  It involves: skills and drills. Flag football games and Autographs and photos. Mark Weightman is the President and CEO of the Montreal Alouettes. This is the second year of the clinic:

“What I really love about this collaboration is once again, this is all about awareness and learning. Learning about a culture that we know far too little about.  Everything in the design of the logo has a representation: 3 feathers represents the traditional headdress of the Mohawk community and they have 3 feathers in theirs. The dreamcatcher overarching scene represents the fact that it’s essential to represent all Indigenous peoples of the Province of Quebec.”

The Als will change Montreal to Tio’tiá:ke and have an Indigenous designed logo by Finnley Montour saying the logo needed to represent everyone:

“My first thought was that it needs to representative of all Indigenous people in Quebec and not just the Kanien’kehá:ka and for me that was something that I took very seriously. I wanted to make sure that I was going to do a good job representing everyone. That’s why I came up with the ‘overarching idea’ of turning the logo into a dreamcatcher, that kind of overarching symbol for Indigenous culture.”

They will also wear Orange Jerseys in the warm up ahead of their game Saturday in Toronto.

A week after a residence was searched on South bend Road, the Kahnawake Peacekeepers released information today on the events that unfolded on September 14^th, 2024. According to the PK’s, a search took place at the residence and 2 vehicles later at the station, the results included the discovery of: 7 grams of suspected cocaine packaged for trafficking in seven 1-gram baggies, 10 Cialis pills, $1910 Canadian dollars, $159 U.S. dollars and a small amount of cannabis.

A 33-year-old local male was detained and later released with a court date set for November 13^th, 2024.

Charges pending include: CDSA trafficking and possession for the purpose of trafficking.

The Mercier Bridge will be down to 1 lane in either direction starting from tonight (Friday) at 10:00 pm until tomorrow, Saturday, at 11 a.m. The Airlie entrance will be closed during the same time frame.

Meanwhile, the  Île-aux-Tourtes bridge will be completely closed in both directions all weekend. The closure begins at 11:59 tonight (Friday) until 5 am Monday. This closure is required to install a new configuration of lanes on Highway 40, which will allow reconstruction of the slabs and continuation of work on the drainage system. Maintenance work will also be carried out on the bridge.