What if the shootout that occurred between the Mohawk warriors and Quebec police rallied Native Americans all over Canada to rise up in an armed insurgency against the Canadian government?
What if the Oka Crisis escalated into a full blown nationwide Native American armed insurgency?
- Thread starter OjibweNerd
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- canada oka oka crisis what if
Short answer: nothing good....
Longer answer: Depends on how it looks like. If a full scale armed uprising...well First Nations in Canada are geographically dispersed, more or less isolated from eachother, dependent on the government for housing, food, fuel, and in some cases water on the reserves where the majority live in the 90's. And through the status system the government has a handy dandy guide to literally every single status first nation person in Canada.
So FN populations near population centres are essentially violent riots for a few days in larger cities and a few weeks in smaller ones before local law enforcement/vigilantes swamp the FN with numbers and gain control. Any deaths of FN are ignored by the justice system/police. Areas like Northern Quebec have a bit of negotiating power since they also happen to intersect with Quebecs hydro dams and their isolation makes them difficult to deal with but I can't imagine any federal politician in Canada is going to be in a negotiating mood. Canadians at the best of times are not very sympathetic to FN when there is ANY inconvenience to them. An armed uprising will destroy/drive underground any support FN have among the non-FN population.
So 6 months to a year after it starts FN leaders are dead/in jail/in hiding, Reserves are under occupation, FN are completely ostracized by society at large, and the federal government is getting ready to repeal any part of the constitution that has anything to do with FN nationhood stripping them of any ceded land/rights that have been granted. Canada's international reputation has hit the gutter on account of the near ethnic cleansing in parts of the country and the economy has and continues to take a hit due to periodic blockades and sabotage along isolated sections of highway and railways. So....nothing good
Longer answer: Depends on how it looks like. If a full scale armed uprising...well First Nations in Canada are geographically dispersed, more or less isolated from eachother, dependent on the government for housing, food, fuel, and in some cases water on the reserves where the majority live in the 90's. And through the status system the government has a handy dandy guide to literally every single status first nation person in Canada.
So FN populations near population centres are essentially violent riots for a few days in larger cities and a few weeks in smaller ones before local law enforcement/vigilantes swamp the FN with numbers and gain control. Any deaths of FN are ignored by the justice system/police. Areas like Northern Quebec have a bit of negotiating power since they also happen to intersect with Quebecs hydro dams and their isolation makes them difficult to deal with but I can't imagine any federal politician in Canada is going to be in a negotiating mood. Canadians at the best of times are not very sympathetic to FN when there is ANY inconvenience to them. An armed uprising will destroy/drive underground any support FN have among the non-FN population.
So 6 months to a year after it starts FN leaders are dead/in jail/in hiding, Reserves are under occupation, FN are completely ostracized by society at large, and the federal government is getting ready to repeal any part of the constitution that has anything to do with FN nationhood stripping them of any ceded land/rights that have been granted. Canada's international reputation has hit the gutter on account of the near ethnic cleansing in parts of the country and the economy has and continues to take a hit due to periodic blockades and sabotage along isolated sections of highway and railways. So....nothing good
How does this happen? It was possible to have a worst oka crisis, it was not possible to have a general native uprising.
During the Oka Crisis, I was working in an apolitical milieu with a lot of First Nations people, and one of the guys I had gotten to know came up to me early on in the crisis and said with a friendly chuckle "We are gonna knock you guys the hell out of this place!" Or words to that effect.
But seriously, that was probably about as deep as most support for the Mohawks got. I believe the Warriors were somewhat atypical of Canadian FNs, in that they had fairly extensive connection with American Mohawks(and many of them had served as US Marines). So they might have felt a bit more independence from Canada than would FNs elsewhere in the country.
And on the question of independence, the brute fact of the matter is that a huge percentage of First Nations people and communities are dependent upon government "generosity" for their very survival, and for all the populist bluster that sometimes takes hold, their leadership recognizes this fact, and would be unlikely to support a movement that regards First Nations territory as basically a foreign country.
But seriously, that was probably about as deep as most support for the Mohawks got. I believe the Warriors were somewhat atypical of Canadian FNs, in that they had fairly extensive connection with American Mohawks(and many of them had served as US Marines). So they might have felt a bit more independence from Canada than would FNs elsewhere in the country.
And on the question of independence, the brute fact of the matter is that a huge percentage of First Nations people and communities are dependent upon government "generosity" for their very survival, and for all the populist bluster that sometimes takes hold, their leadership recognizes this fact, and would be unlikely to support a movement that regards First Nations territory as basically a foreign country.
Quebec separatist Jacuqes Parizeau on getting rid of the Mohawk Nation
It's typical of Parizeau to describe his own plans in such openly cynical terms. He basically admits that he wanted to cede Mohawk territory to Canada so that Quebec wouldn't have to deal with the headache of policing them.
It's typical of Parizeau to describe his own plans in such openly cynical terms. He basically admits that he wanted to cede Mohawk territory to Canada so that Quebec wouldn't have to deal with the headache of policing them.