Oka Crisis Essay

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The Oka Crisis of 1990 can be considered a defining moment in Canadian history. During an 11-week stand off, Canada watched as Mohawk Warriors fought for the right to autonomy over sacred burial and hunting grounds. The people of Oka had agreed to allow the Provincial government to expand a 9-hole golf course to an 18-hole golf course on the Kanesatake sacred land. The situation escalated when the Aboriginal Peoples created barricades around “The Pines” to keep police and construction crews out. During one of the protests, a police officer was shot and tensions began to rise. During the 78-day stand-off, tear gas was employed by the authorities, and Mohawk Warriors were stoned. The Oka Crisis of 1990 was shortly after the Meech Lake Accord …show more content…

However, it is important to remember that there was a certain level of disrespect given to Aboriginal Peoples by the Canadian Government in the pre-confederation era. Outlined within the Indian Act of 1876, Aboriginal Peoples were restricted to the Reserves that the Indian Act (drafted and enforced by the Canadian Government) had created, they could not file land claims without the Government’s consent, and First Nations peoples were forbidden from “expressing their identities through governance and culture.” (https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/indian-act/) While many amendments were made to the Indian Act before 1990, the Oka Crisis shows the underlying issue between the Government and Indigenous relationship.

The Canadian Government purchased land in Gibson, Ontario, and attempted to force “Mohawk people of Oka to move” (http://www.cbc.ca/firsthand/features/oka-timeline-an-unresolved-land-claim-hundreds-of-years-in-the-making) in 1881 – only a third of the Mohawk people left at this time. In 1886, the Mohawks restored avalanche-stricken land that would later become an important area of contestation knows as The …show more content…

In 1959, a 9-hole golf course was constructed on a portion of the Kanesatake’s land without their consent. In 1975, the Mohawk people filed a land claim that would give them ownership to “lands along the St-Lawrence River, the Ottawa River and the Lake-Of-Two-Mountains. The claim was rejected on the bases that the Mohawks had not possessed the land continuously since time immemorial, and that any Aboriginal title had been extinguished.” (http://www.cbc.ca/firsthand/features/oka-timeline-an-unresolved-land-claim-hundreds-of-years-in-the-making) They tried to file a land claim again in 1977, but it as was rejected as well. In 1989, the plan for the expansion of the golf course on the Kanesatake peoples sacred hunting and burial land was announced. In July of the same year, “Several provincial and federal government representatives ask[ed] the Municipality of Oka to reconsider the development plans.” ((http://www.cbc.ca/firsthand/features/oka-timeline-an-unresolved-land-claim-hundreds-of-years-in-the-making) The Mayor of Oka agreed to halt construction, but approved of the

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