MCK prepared to defend against Canada’s S-3 implementation, abandoning Membership talks with Feds

08/22/2019

The Mohawk Council of Kahnawà:ke (MCK) wishes to inform the community that Canada is moving full speed ahead with implementing the last remaining provision of the S-3 amendments to the Indian Act with removal of the 1951 cut-off from Indian Act registration provisions, as announced on August 15th. This unilateral action will add upwards of 35-65,000 ‘new Indians’ to the Federal Registry for Kahnawà:ke.

The removal of the 1951 cut-off ensures that all descendants of women who lost their rights dating back to 1869 will be entitled to registration.

As a result, one of the first actions to be taken is the abandonment of the Kahnawà:ke/Canada Relations (KCR) Membership Table, where discussions had been on-going for several years for Kahnawà:ke to find solutions to the Federal Membership issue.

“I received a message from John Gordon, the new Indian Registrar, that all decisions on registration must solely be based on the applicable Indian Act,” said Ietsénhaienhs Kahsennenhawe Sky-Deer. “This is being done with NO regard to the work we had done though the KCR Membership Table to come up with a stop-gap measure pilot project that would temporarily, at least, address our strong objection to Canada unilaterally adding ‘Indians’ to the federal Kahnawà:ke ‘band list’ until we could come up with a better solution to this problem.”

“Am I surprised? No,” she added. “It’s been nothing but seemingly good discussion that has resulted in nothing but false hope and promises. We are pulling out of KCR Membership. We will not be wasting one more minute of time with Canada’s team. It is clear that their paternalistic Indian Act will always prevail in their minds. However, we are not Canada’s children and we never have been. We will defend our right to determine who our people are.”
 
We now have to take measures to protect ourselves as a community from this imposition and threat to our Collective Identity. A plan is being developed and will most likely have to be presented to the community at a special meeting in the near future.

The MCK will be asking the all sectors of the community to work cooperatively with us on this. In May 2019, the Grand Council of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy also released a statement opposed to Bill S-3 .