Katsi’tsakwas Ellen Gabriel recalls her eye-opening experience at the Japanese consulate in Montreal, discovering the extensive reach of Canadian intelligence services. This revelation came two years after her role as the Kanien’kehá:ka spokesperson during the 1990 Oka Crisis, a 78-day armed standoff at Kanehsatà:ke and Kahnawà:ke in Quebec.
In 1992, Gabriel intended to attend an Indigenous conference in Japan using a Haudenosaunee Confederacy-issued passport but faced visa issues. During a meeting to address this, a Japanese official presented her with a thick dossier compiled by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), expressing concerns about her potentially embarrassing Canada.
Indigenous activists have long accepted state surveillance as part of asserting their sovereignty. Recently declassified documents confirm CSIS conducted investigations labeled as “Native extremism” targeting Indigenous activists nationwide from 1988 to 1999, with escalated surveillance post-Oka Crisis.
CSIS’s language in these documents has been criticized as delegitimizing Indigenous rights and being colonial and racist in nature. Despite facing obstacles, Gabriel eventually traveled to Japan using a Canadian passport but encountered further scrutiny upon arrival.
Looking back to 1988, Bob Bartel, a worker with the Mennonite Central Committee, was contacted by a CSIS member regarding his involvement with the Innu Nation’s peaceful protests against NATO flights over their hunting grounds in Labrador. This encounter marked the beginning of CSIS’s surveillance into “Native extremism.”
CSIS’s activities concerning Indigenous groups were scrutinized by the Security Intelligence Review Committee, highlighting concerns over the broad net cast by CSIS in its investigations. The surveillance extended to various Indigenous land disputes and activism across Canada, with CSIS justifying its actions under the guise of national security threats.
Despite ongoing investigations and surveillance, critics argue that CSIS’s portrayal of Indigenous activism as terrorism is unjustified. The intensified surveillance post-1991 saw CSIS expanding its scope and intrusive tactics, targeting groups like the Mohawk Warrior Society.
The investigations continued beyond the 1990s, focusing on major land disputes such as Ipperwash and Gustafsen Lake. CSIS maintained interest in the Mohawk Warrior Society as a potential threat, with the Liberal government directing CSIS to investigate Indigenous activism as part of “sensitive domestic issues.”
In conclusion, CSIS’s surveillance program evolved into a counter-terrorism project monitoring legitimate Indigenous political grievances, prompting criticism from Indigenous activists like Gabriel. Despite efforts to access her file, she faced CSIS’s standard response of neither confirming nor denying its existence.