Lafrenière pans land claim statement
The Globe & Mail has a piece (linked here from the Web Archive, here is the media link) in which Ian Lafrenière, everyone’s favourite police spokesman turned very pale minister for indigenous affairs in the Legault government, says the Canadiens’ land acknowledgement statement “may be a mistake”: he dredges up the red herring argument that Montreal may not technically belong to the Mohawk people, so mentioning them is unwise.
Some people seem determined to pin this whole thing down to which first nation “owned” Montreal before Champlain, when it’s the wrong question. No, North America did not have European-style land titles before Europeans came, isn’t that a surprise, but it does not mean the land was terra nullius, free for the taking.
In any case, the wording is fine, thanking the “Kanien’keha:ka, also known as the Mohawk Nation, for their hospitality on this traditional and unceded territory where we are gathered today.” Nothing is said about ownership.
But Lafrenière has never been known for his subtlety of thought.
DeWolf 11:38 on 2021-10-21 Permalink
Right-wing nationalists are obsessed with proving that the Indigenous people who exist today are definitely not the same as the people who were here when Jacques Cartier arrived, because those people magically disappeared off the face of the earth, leaving the entire St. Lawrence valley empty and ready to be claimed by the French.
These types seem to harbour a particular hatred for the Mohawks. Maybe it’s because they were historically associated with the British? Or maybe it’s because of the Oka crisis. Either way, it’s a particularly nasty kind of denialism.
walkerp 12:43 on 2021-10-21 Permalink
Classic consnerdative tactics here. “This single element is not 100% accurate therefore the entire premise is false.” Precisely why with fascists the only solution is to punch them.
qatzelok 12:43 on 2021-10-21 Permalink
Anishnabé (aka Algonquin) and St. Lawrence Iroquians (now extinct) were the usual occupants of the space that is now Montréal. The Mohawks were welcomed into Québec by Jesuits as refugees or converts in the Modern Era (post 1600s).
I find it sad that even land acknowledgements here are unresearched and, thus, empty tokenism. It’s like the elite here don’t even care about “getting it right,” as long as it sounds good to voters or customers.
qatzelok 12:43 on 2021-10-21 Permalink
**Anichinabé**
Kate 12:55 on 2021-10-21 Permalink
qatzelok, does it matter? This whole continent “belonged” to a group of cultures who were living on it at the time and the acknowledgment simply gives a nod to that. The land was not ceded by any of them, the Europeans just sashayed in and claimed it, and now we’re finally admitting it. That’s all it is. Splitting hairs misses the point.
steph 13:06 on 2021-10-21 Permalink
Why does the government care what a private organisation (le CH) acknowledges?
Ian Lafrenière is no friend of the indigenous people. He’s like Human Resources for the government – HR is not there to be your friend, it’s there to protect the company.
Kate 13:26 on 2021-10-21 Permalink
Well put, steph.
dwgs 13:57 on 2021-10-21 Permalink
Also, qatzelok, Anishnaabe doesn’t refer to the Algonquin but rather a large group of nations who belong to the Algonquian language group. It’s most commonly used to refer to Ojibwe (Chippewa in the US) but includes peoples from most regions around the Great Lakes.
Tim S. 15:11 on 2021-10-21 Permalink
I would argue that getting it right does matter precisely because we might one day take these claims seriously.
Kate 18:08 on 2021-10-21 Permalink
Tim S., as I understand it, it isn’t clear who, if anyone, had a persistent claim to the island of Montreal before the French showed up. Again, your idea that there’s any meaning to “getting it right” presupposes a European framework of land ownership. I’m not claiming that the first nations were noble savages, and they may have fought over access to good land or fishing spots or anything else, who knows. But indigenous people used the river for transport, which means the archipelago would have been known and occupied, even if not permanently and not all the time, by more than one nation.
Tim S. 18:44 on 2021-10-21 Permalink
Kate: exactly. And badly phrased land acknowledgements (I have no opinion about the Bell Centre one) just impose our European notions, fixed at an single point in time.
Meezly 09:27 on 2021-10-22 Permalink
The Mohawk Council of Kahnawake called it for what it was, a pathetic attempt to politicize a genuine reconciliatory action. When the CAQ aims low, they aim high.
MarcG 12:08 on 2021-10-22 Permalink
Book recommendation: Indigenous Writes: A Guide to First Nations, Métis, & Inuit Issues in Canada By Chelsea Vowel