Canadian border guards will never return to their posts in Akwesasne Mohawk Territory, whether or not they’re allowed to carry handguns, the president of the guards’ union said Thursday.
The guards have been off the job, and the Canadian border station on Mohawk land near Cornwall closed, since just before midnight May 31. The agency shut the border amid concerns for the guards’ safety and fears of a confrontation with Mohawk Warriors over the government’s controversial plan to arm the border guards on June 1.
Ron Moran, president of the Customs and Immigration Union, said the Canada customs office should be permanently moved off the island to the foot of the Seaway International Bridge in Cornwall proper, and it should never have been erected on Akwesasne Mohawk Territory in the first place.
“(The location) has been the source of all of the historical tensions that have existed between that community and the service, and it is certainly the source of the conflict that is going on now,” he said.
Moran says moving the border to Cornwall will not only resolve the current dispute, it would also stem the flow of contraband cigarettes from the island, which Moran described as “the epicentre of smuggling in North America.”
The bridge is the least-used border crossing in the country, according to Transport Canada, but it is notorious for being the main trafficking route for smuggling illegal cigarettes.
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Updates:
8:15 am EDT, July 10th, 2009 — Gunter: Say no to Mohawkistan
Who can blame the CBSA for refusing to return? They would not be protected by rule of law, it’s all politics from start to finish. The Feds (all parties) simply do not have the courage to enforce Canada’s laws equally. Until they find the courage and it’s doubtful they ever will, all of Canada will continue to suffer. Drugs, firearms, illegal aliens and anything else that will turn a profit for organized crime will flow in to our country unabated.
Put a JTF2 unit in there as border guards.
John A Macdonald must be flipping in his grave. He solved the Northwest Rebellion in short order and strung up Louis Riel. Of course the revisionists have rewritten the past and now we have schools and provincial holidays named after Canada’s first terrorist.
Agreed.
One man’s terrorist …