Crees involved in the forestry court action were stunned at the news that the lead plaintiff, Mario Lord, was arrested on drug charges by the Sûreté du Québec in Chibougamau.
Lord was arrested on June 30 just outside Chibougamau and later charged with possession of 40 grams of hash, violation of probation and driving without a valid license, according to the SQ. The vehicle he was driving was seized. The case will be heard Nov. 11.
The probation violation goes back to an earlier brush with the law, according to the SQ. In 1997, Lord’s firearms were seized and he was barred from handling a gun for 10 years after he was charged with pointing a gun at someone and uttering death threats, said the SQ.
Two weeks after his latest arrest, Lord was speaking on behalf of Crees at the Montreal press conference held in Montreal on July 15 to announce the launching of the $600-million forestry lawsuit.
Lord, a youthful Waswanipi tallyman, spoke with passion about how he could no longer hunt because forestry companies had wiped out the trees of his trapline.
Lord couldn’t be reached for a comment on the charges. But Cree officials were surprised by the news.
“That’s news to me,” said one chief. “It’s the first time I was aware of it,” said another chief. “It’s hard to say if it would affect the case. Probably a good lawyer could discredit the case.”
We couldn’t reach Chief John Kitchen of Waswanipi for his comment, nor Romeo Saganash, who is acting as Kitchen’s replacement while the chief is on a two-month sick leave.
Another plaintiff in the forestry case was frustrated and wondered if the case wasn’t deliberately sabotaged by whoever chose Lord to be the lead plaintiff.
He said anybody else would have been a better choice to be the lead plaintiff. “We’ve got too much to lose.”
As the lead plaintiff, Lord’s name comes
first among all the Cree plaintiffs in the case, a list that includes dozens of tallymen and hunters, several chiefs, the Grand Chief, the five bands affected by logging and the Grand Council of the Crees.
Jean-Sebastien Clément, one of the lawyers on the case, said his office heard “rumours” about the charges some time ago, but “it wasn’t confirmed.”
The rumours apparently weren’t passed on to officials at the Grand Council of the Crees, who didn’t know of the charges until informed by The Nation.
Grand Chief Matthew Coon Come wasn’t available to discuss the situation because of the sudden passing away of lawyer Bill Grodlnsky, who worked for the Crees for two decades.
Lawyer James O’Reilly, the lead counsel on the case, said Lord told some Cree officials shortly before the case was
launched he had “certain problems,” though it’s not clear if he went into details.
Lord said he wanted to overcome the problems and work to help his people, according to O’Reilly.
O’Reilly said he sees no reason to take Lord’s name off the case. “Under the law anyone is presumed innocent until proven guilty,” he said. “Who doesn’t have some kind of story or history? You’ve got a lot of skeletons in a lot of closets. There have been a lot of incidents where a lot of Indians got in trouble with the law.
“That’s irrelevant and potentially discriminatory. If someone’s property is attacked, It doesn’t matter whose property it Is. Even the Mafia is still allowed to protect its property,” O’Reilly said.
“It could be tough (if opposing lawyers bring up the charges),” he conceded, “but wecould object, saying It has nothing to do with forestry. (The alleged drug possession)could be part of the personal trauma (caused by logging). It’s not fatal.”
