MCA schedules plebiscite

The Mohawk Council of Akwesasne held their quarterly general meeting last Thursday night at the Snye Homemakers building in the District of Tsi Snaihne. One item up for discussion had been whether or not to add an additional change to the proposed amendment of the Akwesasne Election Law; the change is in regard to a candidate’s eligibility to run for office and whether Council should propose changing the requirements so that each candidate must have TWO parents who are registered Members of a First Nation.

“There will have to be a Special General meeting to vote on passing this law,” said MCA Executive Director Sheree Bonaparte when she brought this out to the community. “Many of the changes that are required will make a better law so that there will be less appeals.”

During the process of community consultation one community member in attendance of a focus meeting had made a recommendation that candidate eligibility should require both the mother AND father be a registered member of a First Nation. This was a contentious issue at Council table and the discussion at the General Meeting was to try and gauge from the community what direction should be taken.

This issue of changing the candidate eligibility was a contentious issue with the room split between changing the requirement to, ‘mother and father’ and others wanting to keep it status quo at ‘mother or father’. Bonaparte read a summary of the development of candidate eligibility during the meeting showing how in the first version of the Akwesasne Election Law there was no specification, but once it did stipulate parentage it was always ‘mother or father’.

A. Whose mother OR father is/has been an Enrolled member on the Akwesasne or any other First Nation Membership list

The proponents of option ‘A’, to keep the candidate eligibility as status quo made many arguments. First and foremost was that the children who would be impacted by this decision have no choice in who their parents are. In order to be eligible you have to have membership as per the Membership Code in MCA’s jurisdiction, if someone had gone through the process to obtain their membership then they should be eligible to vote. They also argued that to keep in line with the Nation Building project, MCA should be focusing on building their nation and not taking rights away from their members.

B. Whose mother AND father are/have been an Enrolled member on the Akwesasne or any First Nation Membership list.

The proponents of option ‘B’, to change the candidate eligibility to require both parents be from a First Nations Membership list also argued their points. They referenced their elders who had always supported maintaining their culture through bloodlines. The community needs to remain Mohawk people and to maintain their culture, language and traditions by having two First Nations parents. They argued that there needs to be more emphasis of marrying within the Mohawk or Haudenosaunee nations in order to strengthen and preserve who the community is back to the foundation of the people.

There were many community members who attended this meeting and participated in this discussion to help provide direction to Council on this tough decision. A plebiscite will be held at a Special General Meeting on Dec. 3, the location has yet to be announced. It is important that everyone who is an eligible voter make every effort to participate in this process as it will impact our children for generations to come. If you have any questions about this process, the discussions and history, please contact the Mohawk Council of Akwesasne’s Justice Department in Kana:takon at 613-575-2250. Should you wish to speak to a Council member to share your thoughts on this issue contact the Mohawk Council of Akwesasne at 613-575-2348 to reach your District Chiefs.