Photo by Krysten McCumber, Brant News
A sign posted by the Mohawk Workers outside Kanata Village in Brantford.
J.P. Antonacci
BRANT NEWS
Brantford city council voted on Monday to stop paying for heat, hydro and water service at Kanata Village, a city-owned property at 440 Mohawk St. currently occupied by a group known as the Mohawk Workers.
Since 2007 – when the Mohawk Workers first occupied the site – the city has paid almost $50,000 for utilities at the former native education and cultural centre. Council’s decision opens the door for utility companies to cut off service for non-payment.
The building has no sprinkler system, which means water can be cut off without issue, said Dwayne Armstrong, Brantford’s chief fire prevention officer. But as long as Kanata Village is occupied, exit signs and emergency lighting must remain illuminated to adhere to the Ontario Fire Code.
Whether the city as property owners or the Mohawk Workers as occupants take legal responsibility for keeping the exit signs lit would be the decision of the fire chief, Armstrong said.
The issue was before city council after being raised by Coun. Richard Carpenter at committee of the whole last week.
“If any one of our taxpayers can’t pay their hydro or water bills, we have no hesitation in cutting them off,” Carpenter said. “It’s time this council stood up…and stopped paying the bills of illegal occupiers.”
The city has already suffered financial loss and missed development opportunities because of land claims occupations, said Coun. Dan McCreary. He said the Mohawk Workers rejected the chance to work out a payment plan with the city.
“We simply can’t afford to pay the way for these people and we can’t afford trespass on our property,” McCreary said.
A delegation from the Mohawk Workers told council that their group is not trespassing because Kanata Village is situated on land which it says belongs to Mohawk Nation according to the Haldimand Proclamation.
“Impostors and other unauthorized parties have persisted in engaging in unauthorized dealings pertaining to our people and our territorial homeland for many years,” said spokesperson Jason Bowman. “Indeed, these belligerent acts continue to plague our people to this day.”
The Mohawk Nation has the right to “assert and maintain” its territorial integrity, Bowman said, which means being granted a role in decision-making.
“Your objectionable policy of willingly and knowingly excluding known chiefs and the Mohawk Workers from negotiations, decisions and such relevant matters must cease,” Bowman said.
When asked by Carpenter if that meant the Mohawk Workers wished to be consulted on every decision of council, Bowman replied: “Pertaining to territory within the Haldimand Tract, you’d better believe it.”
The Mohawk Workers have sent the city an invoice for $250 billion, plus interest, seeking compensation for what they claim is unlawful use of Mohawk territory.
“I think we can pay our bills if Brantford pays theirs,” said spokesperson Bill Squire.
Mayor Chris Friel said the Mohawk Workers have no formal connection to either the Six Nations Confederacy council or Six Nations elected band council and are not a part of land claims negotiations.
The mayor laughed off the Mohawk Workers’ invoice.
“I think that some of this (presentation) is bordering on ridiculous,” Friel told councillors after Bowman and Squire had left council chambers. “I really would have preferred not to have this done through council.”
Friel said he would rather have had utility companies take the lead on resolving the issue of non-payment.
“There were lots of people delaying on this for many years, which caused the money not to be paid (by the Mohawk Workers),” said Coun. David Neumann, who attempted to defer the issue until staff provided background information and looked into the legality of cutting off services to a city-owned building.
Neumann’s motion was defeated on a tie.
Bowman and Squire say that the city has been less than responsive to overtures from the Mohawk Workers to resolve the issue.
“They don’t want to hear from the people involved because they don’t like what they’re going to hear,” Squire said.
As I have pointed out before, Quebec Governor Haldimand bought a huge tract of land, including land along the Grand River, for the Crown from the Ojibwa Mississauga Indians on May 22, 1784.
After buying that land for the Crown, Governor Haldimand issued an announcement on October 25, 1784 inviting the Mohawks and others of the Six Nations Iroquois from New York to enter, occupy and use the Crown’s land along the Grand River.
Haldimand’s announcement was not a treaty and not a deed. It was a license for Six Nations people to occupy, not own, land along the Grand River and courts have said so.
In 1793, Governor Simcoe offered the Six Nations a letter patent (a deed) to land along the Grand River but Mohawk leader Joseph Brant and the Six Nations chiefs did like its conditions. They did not accept or take hold of the 1793 Simcoe Patent (deed) so that land along the Grand River remained the Crown’s land.
When the land remained the Crown’s land, the Mohawk Workers, the Mohawks and the Six Nations should not be able to claim land they did not own and that belonged to the Crown.
However, if Bill Squires and the Mohawk Workers are convinced the Mohawks own the Kanata land, they should take their case along with all pertinents documents to court to prove it.
The City of Brantford says it owns the Kanata land and reports have said the government gave the City a patent, a deed, to the Kanata land in the 1800s. The Ontario government says it stands by it land titles system so Brantford also has a legitimate claim to the Kanata land.
If the Mohawk Workers won’t take their claim to court, the City of Brantford should take the pertinent documents and its claim to court to get a ruling.
That would force the Mohawk Workers to provide their evidence for scrutiny if they want to support their claim.
If the court were to find that the City of Brantford legally owned the land, it would settle that issue and provide the City with the ammunition it would need to justify evicting unwanted occupiers from the City’s property.
Alternatively, the City could have the Mohawk Workers evicted from the Kanata land and let them challenge the eviction in court.
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I noticed a typro. I should have said – In 1793, Governor Simcoe offered the Six Nations a letter patent (a deed) to land along the Grand River but Mohawk leader Joseph Brant and the Six Nations chiefs DIDN’T like its conditions. I typed did when I should have typed didn’t.
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Mr.Horsnell:
I agree with your recommended course of action regarding the squatters who are occupying the Kanata property(the city either filing a court application to obtain a declaration that the city is the legitimate owner of the property or the city requests Brantford Police to evict the trespassing squatters/illegal protestors). The deficiency in your analysis is the implicit assumption that our municipal leadership are willing to state clearly their opposition to the occupation and be willing to stand up for the rights of property owners/taxpayers in the City of Brantford. I suppose Friel is still working on that strategy he announced during his mayoral campaign that he would be able to solve the problem by simply “sitting down and talking to the protestors”. I guess that hasn’t worked very well for him. I suspect we are going to have to wait for the next election before we have a Mayor who will truly stand up for and take care of the people who elect him.
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Bill Squire and the Mohawk Worker activists who are occupying the Kanata site in Brantford keep saying that land and the land along the Grand River is Mohawk land according to the October 25, 1784 Haldimand announcement, which the Mohawk Worker activists and other Six Nations people keep calling a proclamation, a treaty and a deed.
That is interesting because there are Mohawk people living in various territories or on various reserves in Ontario, Quebec and New York State U.S.A. There are the Mohawks on the Kahnawake and Kanesatake reserves in Quebec. There are Mohawks on the Akwesasne reserve which covers land in Quebec, Ontario and New York State. There are Mohawks living on the Tyendinaga and Wahta reserves in Ontario. There are Mohawks living on the Grand River reserve in Ontario and Mohawk people living outside of reserves.
Are Bill Squire and the Mohawk Workers suggesting that Mohawks from all of the reserves and outside of reserves should control how the Haldimand tract along the Grand River is run? If not, why not when they are all Mohawk and Bill Squire and the Mohawk Workers say the land along the Grand River is Mohawk land?
Or do Bill Squire and the Mohawk Worker activists think the Kanata site land in Brantford and the land on the Haldimand tract along the Grand River only belong to certain Mohawks?
And, when Quebec Governor Haldimand, in his October 25, 1784 announcement, said “I do hereby in His Majesty’s name authorize and permit the said Mohawk Nation and such others of the Six Nation Indians as wish to settle in that quarter to take possession of and settle upon the Banks of the River commonly called Ours [Ouse] or Grand River”, don’t Bill Squire and the Mohawk Workers think other Six Nations people should have some say?
And, when Quebec Governor Haldimand set aside land along the Grand River for the “Mohawk Nation and such others of the Six Nations”, what do other Six Nations Indian people think about Bill Squire’s and the Mohawk Workers’ claim that the land along the Grand River belongs only to the Mohawks?
Maybe Cayuga, Onondaga, Oneida, Seneca and Tuscarora Indian people should be protesting against Bill Squire’s and the Mohawk Workers’ claims the land along the Grand River belongs only to Mohawks.
Hot debate. What do you think?
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Sonnyboy, there is no question the Crown paid the Mississauga Indians for land, including land along the Grand River, on May 22, 1784 and there is lots of evidence the October 25, 1784 Haldimand announcement is basically a license of occupation.
King George III of Britain (the Crown) did not sign that document. It was signed only by Haldimand and his secretary R. Mathews and Haldimand in his own words on that document said “Given under my hand and seal at arms, at the Castle of St Lewis at Quebec, this twenty-fifth day of October one thousand seven hundred and eighty-four”. He did not apply the Great Seal of the Province of Quebec.
And, in the 1835 Jackson v. Wilkes court case, a King’s Bench justice said “We have ascertained that there was a great seal in use in the Province of Quebec in 1784, when the instrument of General Haldimand bears date; that grants of land, of which few were made by the British Government before the year 1795, were made by letters patent under the great seal, and that it has been uniformly held in the courts of Lower Canada that grants of the waste lands of the Crown could not be made in any other manner”. The justice also said the October 25, 1784 Haldimand instrument (document, announcement) was no more than a “mere license of occupation”.
Source: Jackson v. Wilkes, 1835; Upper Canada King’s Bench, (O.S. 142).
And, in the Isaac et al v. Davey et al case that was upheld in the Supreme Court of Canada, the judge said he concluded the tract in question meaning the Haldimand tract was “vested in the Crown”.
Source: Isaac et. al v. Davey et. al, 1974, 52 D..L.R, (3d) 150
And there is no question Mohawk leader Joseph Brant and the Six Nations chiefs did not accept the 1793 Simcoe Patent (deed) to land along the Grand River so that land remained the Crown’s land.
And, Section 99 of the 2009 Amicus Report on behalf of the Six Nations to justice Arrell in the Brantford injunction case says “Canadian courts have held that the Haldimand Proclamation and the Simcoe Patent essentially conferred upon the Six Nations personal and usufructuary rights and not a conveyance of land in the English sense”, which means the Six Nations could use the Crown’s land but did not own it.
Source: Amicus Report (Factum), 2009; to Justice Harrison Arrell, Brantford injunction case, Ontario, Section 99, page 39.
And there is no question that when the Six Nations of the Grand River needed money, Mohawk leader Joseph Brant and various groups of Six Nations chiefs, on various occasions, surrendered Six Nations use of various parcels of the Crown’s land along the Grand River back to the Crown for sale until, according to the Holmes Report, the Six Nations eventually ended up with the current reserve south of Brantford, Ontario around 1850.
Source: Report from Joan Holmes & Associates Inc. (Holmes Report), 2009, to Justice Harrison Arrell, Brantford injunction case, pages 14-15.
As I have said many times before, I think the federal government (the big Crown) might owe the Six Nations a lot of money for valid claims but the Six Nations should not be able to claim land that belonged to the Crown.
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