By Jorge Barrera
APTN National News
OTTAWA — An Akwesasne woman had reason to fear “retaliation” from the Canada Border Services Agency in response to her human rights complaint alleging border agents targeted her because she is Mohawk, according the chair of the Human Rights Tribunal hearing the case.
Tribunal chair Rejean Belanger made the comments during a closed door Dec. 18, 2009, meeting with lawyers for the Canada Border Services Agency and Teiohontathe Fallon Davis, the Akwesasne resident who has accused the border agency of targeting her because she is Mohawk. The comments were recorded in notes taken by CBSA lawyer Susan Keenan who included them in an affidavit filed Friday to support a CBSA motion seeking Belanger’s removal because of his alleged bias against the agency.
“The tribunal member (Belanger) said that the complainant (Davis) had a valid concern about retaliation from the CBSA,” sates Keenan’s affidavit. “The member (Belanger) replied…and stated that there is ‘something going on here,’ that there are ‘problems,’ that ‘we know this’ and that he believed there might well be retaliation against her (Davis).”
Belanger also said during the meeting that he believed former CBSA employee Helene Oakes who testified that “CBSA had retaliated against her in relation to her support of the complainant (Davis).”
Davis filed the human rights complaint against the CBSA after her black SUV was searched on Nov. 18, 2005. Davis claimed officers targeted her because she was Mohawk and that they hurled race-laced invective against her.
Davis and the Human Rights Commission have until April 2 to respond CBSA’s motion to remove Belanger. It remains unclear when the tribunal will make its decision.
The Canada-U.S. border crossing in Akwesasne on Cornwall Island has consistently been the source of friction between local residents and border guards.
The border post, which sits on an island on the St. Lawrence River, about 120 kilometres east of Montreal, was shuttered by the border agency on May 31. The agency closed the post afterAkwesasne residents said they would not allow armed guards on the site.
A makeshift border post has since been set up in Cornwall, Ont., at the foot of the bridge leading to Cornwall Island.
Akwesasne straddles the Ontario-Quebec-New York State borders.
Oakes’ appearance at the tribunal features prominently in Keenan’s six-page affidavit. During another closed door meeting on Dec. 16, 2009,Belanger accused CBSA lawyer Sean Gaudet of “engaging in conduct that amounted to harassment in his cross-examination of the complainant’s witnesses, including Ms.Oakes,” the affidavit states.
Belanger told Gaudet, “‘To look at it from the perspective of the people at the back of the room,’ and that he was ‘pouring oil on the fire’ by the manner of hisquestining of witnesses,'” the affidavit states.
Keenan states that Belanger accused Gaudet of repeating questions about “the blitz,” or the targeting of vehicles, during his cross-examination of Oakes. Gaudet, however, said he had not asked any questions about the blitz and was backed during the hearing by Canadian Human Rights Commission lawyer Brian Smith.
Oakes’ involvement in the Canadian Human Rights Commission investigation that triggered the tribunal is also being contested by CBSA in a Federal Court of Appeal case. CBSA launched the appeal last fall after losing an attempt in Federal Court to quash the tribunal hearing.
Oakes, who was working the day Davis was stopped, told commission investigator Girish Parekh that she quit the agency after nine years because “she was disgusted with the manner in which the indigenous people have been treated…at the border.”
CBSA claims Oakes has no credibility, but that her conversation with the commission investigator changed the original conclusion of the investigation which, according to an early draft filed in court, recommended the complaint be dismissed.
“However, after speaking with Helen Oakes, the investigator altered key findings,” states CBSA in the Federal Court of Appeal filing.
Davis claims she was subjected to a barrage of insults from border agents after they ordered her to go into a lane for commercial vehicle inspections as she crossed the border into Canada driving a black SUV.
Davis claimed one of the officers said, “We are searching your truck for anything and everything, we will find you guilty of something,” according to the report. Another officer reportedly told her, “You know what our society thinks about you people?”
A mobile x-ray unit was used to screen Davis’ vehicle. Davis claimed that “exposure to three shots of radiation” forced her to abort the child she was carrying at the time, according to an affidavit filed by Davis.
The CBSA denied that any of its officers made the alleged statements or that Davis was targeted because she is Mohawk.
