Cheryl Cornacchia, Canwest News Service
Posted National, February 16, 2010
MONTREAL -- Alvin Delisle personally delivered eviction notices to non-natives in the Montreal-area reserve of Kahnawake back in 1988, the last time non-natives were evicted from the Mohawk community.
But on Monday Mr. Delisle, a former band council member who is now in a relationship with a non-native woman, had a different take on the controversial policy.
In his room at a Montreal hospital where he is awaiting heart surgery, he condemned the present Mohawk band council and its decision to issues eviction notices to 25 non-natives living in Kahnawake.
He said they should have learned from the mistakes of the past, including his own.
"It's inhumane -- hell, it's racist," said the 66-year-old Mr. Delisle, the first Kahnawake Mohawk to speak out publicly about receiving an eviction notice. "Are you supposed to ask someone when you meet them what race and nationality they are and not associate with them just in case you may fall in love and want to be together?"
Mr. Delisle said he is hoping the whole eviction controversy will simply die down.
He said his involvement with the 1988 evictions was misguided, hurtful and, ultimately, unsuccessful.
Many of the non-natives who left, quietly drifted back into the community to live with their Mohawk partners.
"I regretted what I did," said Mr. Delisle, who sat on the Mohawk band council from 1987-91.
"There have always been mixed marriages in Kahnawake, going back to the 1920s and 1930s."
Breaking up families, he said, is not the best policy. "We're all mixed blood."
He spoke openly but said others have avoided publicity for fear of reprisals.
As of Monday, only three non-natives have left the Mohawk community on their own accord -- and band council officials have not yet made public their eviction plans.
Only one couple responded on Monday to the second warnings that were sent out on Friday.
Delisle said his girlfriend Pauline was given an eviction notice on Feb. 2 when she opened the door of his Kahnawake home and immediately felt threatened.
Although she has an apartment off the reserve and owns part of a family farm just outside Ormstown, Que., where the couple met at the Royal Canadian Legion 10 years ago, she often stays with him. And now that he is in hospital, he said, she is there alone sometimes taking care of their dogs.
Previous evictions on the troubled reserve have resulted in violence. In 1973, cars were burned, windows broken and non-natives were forcibly ejected from their homes when they failed to leave the community. Quebec provincial police were called in.
No one knows what to expect this time but, Mr. Delisle said, he and his partner have decided to wait.
He said they also have no plans to make their case before the Mohawk band council as to why she should be allowed to stay in the community.
"We are not going to beg," said Mr. Delisle.
"She is not a permanent resident and never has been," he added. "She comes to my house at my request."