DCHP-2

Oka ((2)) Oka Crisis, Oka crisis, Oka standoff DCHP-2 (July 2016)

• n. — proper noun, Politics, Aboriginal

  place name that has come to refer to the 1990 armed stand-off over land rights between the local Mohawk people, the Sûreté du Québec and the Canadian Army.

  Type: 6. Memorial — In 1990 a conflict arose over the expansion of a golf course on a Mohawk graveyard near the town of Oka. The land had been under dispute since at least 1868. The mayor asked the Quebec provincial police (Sûreté du Québec, see SQ entry) to intervene, which resulted in the death of one officer. A Mohawk elder later died when a boulder tossed off a bridge hit him in the chest. Neither crime has ever been solved. Later, the RCMP and the army were also called in because of escalating violence by local residents in response to the closing of the Mercier Bridge by a related Mohawk group. The stand-off lasted 78 days and has become the subject of many books and films.
  See also COD-2, s.v. "Oka ¹", which describes the municipality of Oka and the 1990 events, without labelling the term Canadian.

  See also: SQ  Idle No More  

  • 1990  [Joe Esteves, president of the university's Student Administrative Council, said natives have the full support of the student body. "If you ask me what's more important - a golf course or land for aboriginal people - I'll say the land is," he said. "Let's avoid any more bloodshed. Canada is a mosiac not a melting pot." Native Canadian Jennifer Fox, president of the school's First Nations Student Society, said natives in Oka are fighting more than a golf course.] 
  • 1990  [Oka Mayor Jean Ouellette called on the police to enforce an injunction to evict the Mohawk protesters, and at dawn the following day, Quebec provincial police, armed with tear gas and automatic weapons, stormed the barricade. The exchange of gunfire that killed 31-year-old Corporal Marcel Lemay touched off the largest Indian uprising in Canada since the Riel Rebellion of 1885.] 
  • 1990  The defeat of Meech Lake was reported in the South African press, but that rated only narrow columns towards the back sections of major newspapers and caused only the mildest interest in readers. And then Oka happened. Suddenly the South African press was talking about Canada. Events at Oka were proof of what South Africans already knew: Canadians are as racist as South Africans. 
  • 1993  NFB's Oka documentary wins praise (Kanehsatake: 270 Years of Resistance) 
  • 1995  Behiels said Indian communities, which tend to be small and lack cohesion, simply do not have the political clout to push through such a concept. Hence the growing appeal of direct action like Oka. 
  • 2000  She worked at the Winnipeg Free Press, then at the Montreal Daily News and at City Beat, the TV show about streets of Montreal. When Oka happened, "we were both there," she says, "but we didn't know each other. We were going along the same path." 
  • 2003  It was the latest incident in the continuing governance problems in the Mohawk community that was at the heart of the 1990 Oka standoff. In July 1990, a dispute over a golf course on the reserve triggered a standoff with armed Mohawk militants. One police officer was killed during the dispute. 
  • 2005  In a two-page letter sent to all Ramara residents, Duffy said Stinson Henry told him at a private meeting that the band hopes to sidestep provincial control and operate the casino under a federal licence by 2012. Duffy said he asked her if that could lead to another Oka, and quotes her as responding: "Whatever it takes." 
  • 2013  Well Liberal leader Bob Rae has a long history of working with First Nations during his political career and before he got back into federal politics. He joins me for his view of the stakes at play as Native leaders are divided over the merits of the meeting. Bob Rae, you were a mediator with the Burning Church protest. You were premier when Oka happened. Is there any way you see a mediation process that could work to make this resolved? 
  • 2015  What has changed during the past 25 years? What hasn't? And why has there not been another Oka despite repeated warnings about indigenous unrest across the country? 
  • 2016  You have brought along some of the top Aboriginal leaders from BC. And I wish we had time to have them on. We should have had them on. But tell me what the concerns and how strongly against this project they are. Someone told me we were heading for a number of Oka-like obstructions if this goes ahead.