Tom Siddon, cabinet minister during Oka crisis, dies at 84: family

Prime Minister Kim Campbell sits with Defence Minister Tom Siddon during a family photo of her new cabinet at Rideau Hall in Ottawa on Friday, June 25, 1993. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Frank Gunn

Tom Siddon, who served as a cabinet minister under Prime Minister Brian Mulroney during the Oka crisis and later helped to establish Nunavut, has died at 84.

His daughter, Katie Siddon Karn, confirmed his death Sunday in a post on social media.

She says her father, originally from Alberta, “stumbled” into politics in the 1970s and was known for building bridges and finding consensus.

Siddon Karn says one of her dad’s proudest accomplishments was working to secure the Nunavut Land Settlement Agreement that — quite literally — put Nunavut on the map.

Siddon was Canada’s minister of Indian Affairs during the July 1990 Oka crisis, which arose from a protest to stop a golf course from expanding onto ancestral Mohawk land northwest of Montreal.

While Siddon told The Canadian Press in 2015 the 78-day standoff played a key role in addressing the thorny issue of land claims, a federal report later described Oka as an avoidable tragedy.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 29, 2026.

Aaron Sousa, The Canadian Press