Rick Schultz Phd., professor political science, McGill University THE OKA CRISIS, A MIRROR OF THE SOUL is one of the most important - and readable - political memoirs to be published."
This book should be required reading for students of crisis management, public policy and aboriginal issues in contemporary Canada. click here to buy the book
When John Ciaccia left politics two years ago, he was already at work on a book about a single, searing episode that he saw as the defining moment of his quarter century in the National Assembly.
"Oka," he was saying in his Beaconsfield back yard the other day, as a light summer breeze came off Lac St. Louis. "Oka changed my life. Nothing was quite the same after that."
For Ciaccia, it was nothing less than a crisis of the soul. He spent the last decade thinking about it, three years sweating it out over his word processor, and many months in a frustrating quest for a publisher, before bringing his book out this week on the 10th anniversary of the Oka crisis.
It began with the bungled Quebec police raid at the Oka barricades, and the fatal shooting of a police officer. It led to a summer-long standoff at Kanesatake and Kahnawake, and the blockade of the Mercier Bridge.
It ended up with the army being called in, and a crisis of legitimacy involving Ottawa, Quebec and the country's aboriginal peoples.
All of this because of a town's attempt to expand a local golf course through a wooded stand of pine trees that was an ancient Mohawk burial ground.
Oka had a bit of everything, from a police force that behaved like the Keystone Cops, to a gang of smugglers, the Warriors, passing themselves off as liberators of their people. In their frustration at the blocked Mercier Bridge, white folks behaved like white trash.
Ciaccia, as Quebec's native affairs minister, was at the centre of the crisis, torn between his role in the government and his evident sympathy for the Mohawks.
Two Toronto publishers first accepted Ciaccia's manuscript, only to reject it later on. "Doug Gibson of McClelland and Stewart accepted it at first, but later told me it was rejected by his board as being too local."
Then Stoddart accepted Ciaccia's manuscript, and even assigned an editor, only to pull out for unspecified reasons.
Already committed to launch the French-language edition on the crisis anniversary date of July 11, Ciaccia finally decided to publish the book himself.
"Maren Publications," he said, "stands for my son, Mark, and my grandsons Eric and Nicholas."
As an author, Ciaccia has spent much of the week on the phone doing radio interviews. As a publisher, he's spent the rest of the week on the phone, doing fulfilment with bookstores. And in his rush to get the book out, he was unable to catch an unfortunate number of typos, dropped words and minor factual errors.
Ciaccia can afford to be self-published. He made his money as a real-estate lawyer, before joining the federal public service as assistant deputy minister of Indian affairs, which led him in 1973 to the Quebec legislature, where he remained for the next 25 years.
Ciaccia's book is flawed but important, for the same reason. As an actor in the Oka drama, he was too close to it for an impartial reconstruction of events; yet the narrative is compelling, a tick- tock of a summer of sorrow.
The book also has the qualities of its faults. It's full of deeper meanings, lurking in the shadows of the Pines. At times, Ciaccia is almost gothic in his gloominess. But that's the point, he is baring his soul, with all of the searching and self-doubt that politicians are never supposed to display in office.
The worst moment at Oka may have occurred when Ciaccia, federal Indian Affairs Minister Tom Siddon, and a mediator, Judge Alan Gold, were set up for a signing ceremony where they sat at a table in front of masked, gun-toting Warriors.
To all appearances, the legislative and judicial branches of government were held hostage by a criminal element.
After that, it was inevitable that Premier Robert Bourassa would ask for the army to be sent in, if only to restore the legitimacy of government.
"I had no problem with the army being brought in," Ciaccia says. "They did a very good job. But I wanted a signed settlement rather than a victory for the army."
A signed settlement was how Ciaccia first made his mark in politics as the government negotiator in the James Bay Agreement of 1975, a landmark accord between Quebec and the Cree of James Bay. Not only did it give the Cree $150 million cash, it enabled a new commercial infrastructure which gave them control of their lives.
Ultimately, the James Bay agreement produced a new generation of leaders, such as Matthew Coon Come, the McGill-educated lawyer and activist who emerged this week as the new grand chief of the Assembly of First Nations.
"Ah, Matthew," Ciaccia said fondly yesterday. "He's come a long way."
Coon Come is a thoroughly new age leader, who can talk in soundbites and visualize photo ops.
Ciaccia happened to be Quebec's minister of international affairs in the early '90s, when Coon Come and some friends paddled a canoe into New York harbour, right past the Statue of Liberty.
Click. It made page one in nearly every major paper on the East Coast, the same regional market where Hydro-Quebec was spending serious money in a public-relations offensive to promote a project opposed by the Cree.
James Bay and Oka have, for better and worse, been seminal events for Quebec and its aboriginal population. More than a privileged witness, Ciaccia was a leading actor in both. There's a good book in that.
- L. Ian MacDonald can be reached at imacdonald@generation.net
Some Photos have been put in an album on the Yahoo site in hi-res where they can be printed (for a small fee)
The speed of loading each is showen for a high speed ISP (Videotron Cable) and 2:00 minutes becomes much skower at 56K baud. Go have a coffee. Of course the second time you load them is from your cashe and faster.
http://photos.yahoo.com/dthebaud
"The 10th anniversary of the Oka Crisis is
fast approaching and this week, the Federal Government has, after 10 years,
settled the matter in a manner which, had it been done in 1990, could have
avoided the entire issue.
Those friends fortunate enough to have had
the opportunity of reading the manuscript of former M.N.A. John Ciaccia's
on the Mohawk crisis and his role as negotiator,
describe it as a fascinating revelation of the real issues and of the inner
soul of the author. In Rick Schultz's opinion, THE OKA CRISIS, A
MIRROR OF THE SOUL is one of the most important - and readable -
political memoirs to be published."
Mon Jul 10 2000 Decade later, some say Oka still unresolved
OKA, QUEBEC - It's been 10 years since the Oka Crisis, when Quebec Provincial Police stormed a Mohawk protest camp that had been set up to try to stop the expansion of a golf course near Montreal.
Me. John Ciaccia
Monday 10 July 2000 My peace move ignored:John Ciaccia ERIC SIBLIN John Ciaccia, who served as Quebec's native affairs
minister during the 1990 Oka crisis, says the harrowing
standoff could have been averted had the federal
government heeded his advice about Mohawk land
claims.
expresses disgust that Ottawa
dragged its feet on his repeated recommendation that
land at the heart of the dispute could easily have been
transferred to Mohawk control.
"The federal government did have the power and the
means to acquire and transfer the golf-course lands to
the Mohawks before July 11," Ciaccia writes. "If this
had been done, there would have been no police raid
and the conflict would have ended before it began." (saved)
A key player in the 1990 Oka crisis is putting most of the blame for the
harrowing stand-off on the federal government.
Former minister says crisis could have been avoided had Ottawa listened to his advice
Former Quebec Native
Affairs Minister John Ciaccia says Oka could have been avoided if Ottawa
had listened to his advice about Mohawk land claims.
Ciaccia
makes the allegations in his book, "The Oka Crisis: A Mirror of the
Soul,'' which is being released Monday.
Ciaccia says Ottawa could
have bought the land at the heart of the dispute and transferred it to
Mohawk control, but federal officials dragged their feet.
Instead there was a 78-day armed stand-off that left one Quebec police
officer dead and transformed Mohawk communities into battlegrounds.
Tuesday marks the 10-year anniversary of the police raid that
triggered the crisis.
Please phone (514) 934-0023 Please e-mail us your interest.
Please Phone 934-0023 for info
Click for our Yahoo Photo Album by David T. Nicholson
John Ciaccia's signs Book at the Launch Album 10 July 2000
; "click to See The crowd at Ciaccia Book on OKA. DTN 193k photo"){kind=small}
 "click to THE OKA Pine Forest")
 "click to view of Ciaccia Book")
Please phone (514) 934-0023
Please e-mail us your interest.