In an exclusive interview with Radio-Canada, the Grand Chief of the Huron-Wendat Nation Council expressed his sadness and amazement at the words used this week by several Indigenous representatives to describe the events that occurred in the wildlife reserve.
The Chief of the Mashteuiatsh First Nation said that criminal acts of vandalism
had been committed by the Huron-Wendat Nation on land for which members of the Innu community had obtained occupancy permits from their band council.
On Thursday, all the chiefs of the Innu, Atikamekw, Maliseet and Abenaki nations condemned the rampage
of the Huron-Wendat. According to them, Wendake would have thus denied the values of sharing, respect and mutual aid between the First Nations.
These positions stirred the great chef Rémy Vincent.
Words like vandalism, ransacking and destruction have been uttered excessively, and cheerfully taken up by the media, while the actions of the last days can in no way be qualified as such, both in substance and in form.
he said on Friday, admitting to being himself sadness
.
” I do not accept that we are accused of violating our common ancestral values and that people try to teach us a lesson. »
The Grand Chief pleads for the rights of his community to self-determination
and to his self-government when others encroach and hunt on our lands
. The fact of wanting to have a territory and to occupy it is in line with the desire shared by all our peoples to promote the transmission of traditional knowledge.
, he added. The Huron-Wendat Nation, he said, is no exception
to this desire.
We want to remain diplomatic
he insisted, specifying that the two nations are not not in direct confrontation
. Like Innu Chief Gilbert Dominique earlier this week, Rémy Vincent called quiet
. He hopes that the dialogue can resume between brothers and sisters
as quickly as possible.
Historical conflict
The great Wendat chief, however, refuses that the recent events in the Laurentides wildlife reserve obscure the foundations of a conflict that saw four great Wendake chiefs succeed each other without reaching an agreement with the Innu.
We are surprised by the attempt to amplify the divisions between Nations and to grossly simplify a sensitive, complex and very long-standing file.
he said of the political takeover of the incident by some communities.
In the same breath, he recalled that the Huron-Wendat Nation had served a warning to the Innus of Mashteuiatsh in February concerning the targeted lands, having heard that permits had been granted on disputed territories. We made it clear to Chef Dominique […] that, for talks to take place in good faith, he had to respect the uncontested limits of his territory
.
Faced with a response deemed insufficient received from the Innu chief, the Huron-Wendat adopted a declaration of territorial self-determination in April. What is considered vandalism to some is described as restoration to natural state
territory by the Council of the Huron-Wendat Nation.
Territorial overlap
The two aboriginal nations have long claimed occupancy rights over the territory of the Laurentides wildlife reserve, a creation of the Quebec government 126 years ago.
The Huron-Wendat believe that the reserve is an integral part of their ancestral territory, the Nionwentsïo. Their claims are based in particular on the Huron-British treaty of 1760, recognized by the Supreme Court in 1990, and on maps showing the occupation of the places by their ancestors during the last centuries.
According to Grand Chief Rémy Vincent, the Innu Council of Mashteuiatsh knew that by granting authorizations to settle on the Nionwentsïo, it would provoke our Nation
. Especially since the lands in dispute, near Petit lac Jacques-Cartier, are further south, and therefore deeper in the lands claimed by the Huron-Wendat.
The Innu, for their part, maintain that the Laurentides wildlife reserve is located entirely on Nitassinan (our land) and claim ancestral rights there. The community of Mashteuiatsh has produced studies to support its claims.
While they recognize an overlap of their territories, the parties disagree on how to occupy it. The Innu particularly deplore the Huron-Wendat’s demand for exclusivity, while Wendake denounces a denial of their historical presence on these territories.
Not just the wildlife sanctuary
But the conflict between the Innu and the Huron-Wendat concerns much more than the Laurentides wildlife reserve.
In 2004, four Innu communities, including that of Mashteuiatsh, agreed to an overall Agreement-in-Principle with the provincial and federal governments, which included what was called the southwestern portion.
This political agreement is intended as a basis for negotiation with a view to a possible treaty recognizing the territory of the Innu. But the southwestern part has, to date, still no specific status.
This claimed addition to the Innu Nitassinan straddles the Nionwentsïo over a very large area north of the St. Lawrence River, including Quebec City, part of the Laurentides Wildlife Reserve and even Wendake, seat of the Huron-Wendat Nation.
It is with this in mind, in particular, that the Innu claimed the surplus lands of the National Defense of Sainte-Foy, in Quebec, while they were also ogled by the Huron-Wendat.
Quebec and Ottawa criticized
According to Rémy Vincent, this agreement concluded without the participation of the Huron-Wendat nation laid the foundations for the more contemporary version of the dispute.
The Grand Chief also accuses Quebec and Ottawa of having created the problem
by signing the agreement in principle in 2004. Since its signature, Rémy Vincent affirms that the Innu presence is increasingly supported on the territory claimed by his nation, creating the frictions observed today.
The Council of the Huron-Wendat Nation has long denounced the vagueness surrounding these territories. Rémy Vincent’s predecessor, Grand Chief Konrad Sioui, had seized the Federal Court so that the situation could be clarified and lines finally drawn.
Canada must engage without delay in serious and thorough discussions with the applicant [la Nation huronne-wendat] with a view to reconciling as far as possible and in a manner consistent with the honor of the Crown, the differences between the Huron-Wendat Nation and the First Nations of Mashteuiatsh and the Innu of Essipit as to the territory that should be covered [l’entente]
judged De Montigny in December 2014.
The issue is still unresolved almost eight years later.
We are always ready for us to open the books together in order to recall the historical, archaeological, anthropological and legal bases that cement our legitimacy on our territory.
said Rémy Vincent during the interview, inviting the great chef Gilbert Dominique to his table.
The provincial and federal governments must also get to work, he insisted.
Reference-ici.radio-canada.ca