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MNN. Nov. 10, 2021. [thahoketoteh of MNN] This is the full motion filed by the kanistenrsera mohawk mothers in the Federal Court of Canada on Nov. 9, 2021 and served on the four parties.  In addition to our b rief we have filed a motion of application to the Federal Court of Canada T-1696-21.  The Affidavit of Service has been served to all parties. 

Federal Court Motion

THE FOLLOWING ARE EXCEPTS OF THE KANISTENERA’S CONCERNS:

Federal Court Number: T-1696-21 Responders are societe quebecoise des infrastructures; mcgill university office of the principle and vice-chancellor; mairie d’ordinissement de ville marie; stantic inc. 

This is a precedent for all turtle island cases. This will be addressed today at 7.10 pm EST. for ten minutes by Zoom between the two parties and a video will be available to the public. We are meeting today with the Commissioners of the project to inform them officially that they do not have our permission to construct their project on our unceded kenienkehaka land they must immediately leave and investigate the grounds for unmarked graves and burial sites.  

The kanistensera have filed a Notice of Motion in the Federal Court of Canada to impede the projected demolition, construction, transformation of buildings, and the repurposing of the surrounding on the site of the Allan Memorial Institute, Ravenscrag gardens, and Royal Victoria Hospital [allotments 1 341 184, 1 341 185, 1 341 182 and 1 354 912 proposed by the City of Montreal on file no. 1217400001.  

The kanistensera seek an order to stop the renovation plans until a thorough investigation of the grounds is carried out for searching unmarked graves of individuals unlawfully experimented upon; and until an injunction is issued to stop all construction. 

IN THE FEDERAL COURT

Between: The kanien’kehá:ka kanistensera (Mohawk mothers) kahentinetha, kawenaa, karennatha and karakwine.

Applicants

And

SOCIÉTÉ QUÉBÉCOISE DES INFRASTRUCTURES, MCGILL UNIVERSITY OFFICE OF THE PRINCIPLE & VICE CHANCELLOR, MAIRIE D’ARRONDISSEMENT DE VILLE-MARIE, and STANTEC INC.

Respondents

APPLICANT’S WRITTEN REPRESENTATIONS

1. The kaianerehkó:wa, great law of peace, is the original constitution of the onkwehonweh, the original rotinonhshonni (Iroquois) people. Section 35 of the Constitution Act, 1982, recognizes and affirms existing aboriginal rights, e.g. the kaianerehkó:wa and teiohateh, two row wampum, as traditional legal frameworks for unceded rotinoshionni (Iroquois) territories. The kaianerehkó:wa and teiohateh, apply in this case and every other case in this territory.

2. According to Wampum 44 of the kaianerehkó:wa, the precolonial constitution of the rotino’shonni iroquois confederacy, every original indigenous woman is a caretaker of the land on behalf of the future generations: kononkwe ne konwatsirineh ne kanakerasera. ne enkotiyatakwehnyyokeh ne onwentsa. ronnonkwe tahnon ne konnonkwe ne enhatihsereh tsiniyakotaroten ne ronwatihnistenha, “The lineal descent of the people of the Five Nations shall run in the female line. Women shall be considered the progenitors of the Nation. They shall own the land, and the soil. Men and women shall follow the status of their mothers” (see Appendix 1).

3. Given their status as the progenitors of all life on onowarekeh (turtle island) since the beginning of life on earth and as the original owners of the land following Indigenous law, the kahnistensera must give permission for anything to be done to their traditional unceded homeland.

4. It is with this understanding that we original peoples seek the assistance of the Canadian judicial system in the peaceable resolution of preventing a miscarriage of justice on our land and resolve this dispute between us and your subjects.  Nothing can be done on any part of turtle island without the permission of its sovereign indigenous people, as stated in Section 35 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. This court is bound by the Charter of Rights and must affirm the concerns found in section 35.

5. File no. 1217400001 of the City of Montreal provides for the demolition, construction, transformation of buildings, and the repurposing of the surrounding on the site of the Allan Memorial Institute, Ravenscrag gardens, and Royal Victoria Hospital (allotments 1 341 184, 1 341 185, 1 341 182, and 1 354 912). See Appendix 2.

6. The Société Québécoise des Infrastructures has allowed McGill university to plan a repurposing project for the site of the Royal Victoria Hospital, in a plan called “The New Vic”.

7. The Société Québécoise des Infrastructures Allan Memorial Institute has commissioned Stantec inc. to explore and plan demolition, construction and landscaping work on the site of the Allan Memorial Institute and the Ravenscrag gardens.

8. The respondents have illegally bought and sold stolen Indigenous property.

9. As the caretakers of thequenondah (two mountains beside each other/mount royal), we thus demand the immediate suspension of all reconstruction plans for the Royal Victoria Hospital and Allan Memorial Institute sites on the campus of McGill University, for the following reasons: the site is unceded kanien’kehá:ka territory; the site contains archaeological remains from the original precolonial Iroquoian village; the grounds of the Allan Memorial Institute must be investigated for potential unmarked graves of atrocities committed during the MK-Ultra program, between 1954 and 1963 by the CIA and Canada.

10. The kanien’kehá:ka land on which the Royal Victoria Hospital and Allan Memorial Institute sites are located are said to have first been transferred by the Sulpicians to private owner Pierre Raimbault as “concession 637” in 1708. No information has been provided to us attesting to the Sulpicians having acquired the said land from the rotino’shonni:onwe iroquoian peoples who have lived on this land since time immemorial. Jacques Cartier first encountered our rotino’shonni:onwe ancestors in 1535 and indicated that the village of “Hochelaga” was located at thequenondah (mount royal). Given our people’s practice of safeguarding the environment by moving our villages regularly throughout our territories, the village had been temporarily left to natural regeneration when Samuel de Champlain came back to the site, in 1603. When our people returned, they saw a group of strangers had moved onto our site and learned that they called the settlement “Ville Marie”. Unable to use the land to meet regularly with indigenous peoples from all directions of turtle island, our people renamed the location tionni’tio’tià:kon, “the place where the people separated”. As no proper land deed or certificate of cession of this land has ever been shown to us, the site is considered unceded kanien’kehá:ka land, as publicly acknowledged both by McGill University and the City of Montreal.

11. Only the kanien’kehá:ka’onwe, the “people forever of the flint”, can make decisions on the use of our land, in accordance with the kaianerehkó:wa (great peace), our ancestral constitution which supersedes colonial legislation following 8 according to Section 35 of the Constitution Act, 1982. As unceded kanien’kehá:ka territory, the valid legal frameworks on thequenondah are the kaianerehkó:wa, accompanied by the two historical agreements between the rotinoshionni confederacy and the British Crown: the teiohateh (two row wampum) and the silver covenant chain (Appendix 3).

12. McGill campus on thequenondah is widely acknowledged as the original site of many of the precolonial iroquoian villages today referred to as “hochelaga”. As stated in Arkeos’ 2016 archeological survey (Appendix 4), the large number of precolonial indigenous burial sites throughout the thequenondah and Royal Victoria Hospital sites demonstrates that the remains of our indigenous ancestors lie beneath its surface. As their heirs, it is our duty to determine how these crucial archeological sites will be treated in any change to the thequenondah site. It is an extreme offence to disturb our ancestors.

13. In addition to archeological remains, the kanien’kehá:ka kahnistensera have been aware of allegations that indigenous and/or non-indigenous children may be buried in the vicinity of the Henry Lewis Morgan pool, and in adjacent grounds of the Ravenscrag gardens of the Allan Memorial Institute. The Henry Lewis Morgan pool was built in 1961 during Dr. Ewen Cameron’s unethical psychiatric experimentations on mind control, carried within the Allan Memorial Institute between 1954 and 1963, and funded by the Canadian government and the CIA’s MK-Ultra project (Appendix 5).

14. An audio taped conversation under oath with 80-year-old Winnipeg resident Lana Ponting (Appendix 6), is one of the few remaining victims of these experiments, has confirmed several aspects of these allegations. Lana Ponting has stressed three points: 1) That indigenous peoples were victims of these experiments, as she remembers seeing at least one indigenous individual receiving intense shock treatment in the Allan Memorial Institute during her stay, in April 1958; 2) That underaged children were victims of these experiments, as Lana Ponting witnessed many minor individuals in the building, and as she was herself 16 years old at the time. It is also public knowledge that several MK-Ultra sub-projects included psychiatric experiments on unwitting children (Sub-projects 102, 103, 177, and 122, see Appendix 7); 3) That the rumour that the experiments’ victims were buried in the Ravenscrag gardens surrounding the Allan Memorial Institute was already in circulation amongst its patients as early as 1958. Notably, Lana Ponting recalls that suspicious activities were conducted outside the building at night. Lana Ponting has obtained a letter her doctor attesting that she is of sound mind. Lana Ponting and many other family members of psychiatric experiments at McGill University have strong suspicions that unmarked graves, potentially including indigenous children, will be uncovered beneath the grounds of Ravenscrag.

15. The kanien’kehá:ka caretakers of thequenondah take these allegations very seriously. Indigenous children who were kidnapped from their families and put in Residential Schools were legally deemed “wards” of the State of Canada. Given this status, many of these children were used for experiments, including on nutrition and starvation (Appendix 8). It must also be noted that before coming to the Allan Memorial Institute, Dr. Ewen Cameron practiced psychiatry in Brandon, Manitoba, where he likely had access to indigenous patients. Another important 9 fact bolstering our suspicions is that underage Duplessis Orphans, who had a similar status as indigenous children in Residential Schools (e.g. “wards of the State”), were subjected to extreme psychiatric torture experiments in psychiatric wards. Many died and were interred in unmarked graves, including numerous human remains found in the pigsty near St-Jean-de-Dieu hospital, in Montreal (Appendix 9). Electroshock torture was also practiced on children in residential schools, as the revealed by the Ontario Provincial Police’s inquiry on Fort Albany’s St Anne’s Residential School (Appendix 10).

16. A zone potentially containing unmarked graves has been identified (Appendix 11). Before unmarked graves of indigenous children were actually found across Canada, the widely circulated stories of their existence among indigenous peoples were dismissed as rumors.

17. The kanien’kehá:ka kahnistensera, careholders of thequenondah are concerned that the current Royal Victoria Hospital and Allan Memorial Institute rehabilitation project could destroy evidence of the unmarked graves of their siblings, depriving them of proper identification, repatriation and burial. It is McGill University’s responsibility to provide the funds and the expertise necessary for an immediate and thorough kanien’kehá:ka led investigation of the Allan Memorial Institute site, which must be considered a site of crimes against humanity. All files concerning MK-Ultra experiments conducted in McGill University’s psychiatry department must be released without delay and made available to the public without restriction.

18. According to Calls to Action 71 to 76 of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, recovering unmarked graves of Indigenous children is a top priority for the state of Canada to avoid continuously carrying out crimes against humanity.

19. Before any construction can take place, the site must be thoroughly investigated by a kanien’kehá:ka led forensic and archaeological team to confirm the existence of unmarked graves or other evidence of unlawful activity. All of which is respectfully submitted this 8th day of November, 2021 by

_______________________ karakwine _______________________ kahentinetha _______________________ kawenaa _______________________ karennatha 10 APPENDICES Appen

contact: thahoketoteh@hotmail.com