Supreme Court considering $2-million dispute between Kanesatake and Quebec lawyer

Former Mohawk Council of Kanesatake grand chief Serge Otsi Simon speaks at a press conference in Ottawa on Tuesday, Feb. 18, 2020. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick

Canada’s top court is currently weighing a $2-million dispute that has embroiled a Quebec lawyer and a Montreal-area Mohawk community for more than two decades.

The Supreme Court’s decision in the case, which may be handed down this fall, could effectively cancel a debt owed to the lawyer by the Mohawk Council of Kanesatake since 2004.

Alternatively, the court could rule that the lawyer’s bill still stands, though the council says it has little hope of paying off a debt that’s now worth roughly three times its original amount.

“If this stands, basically the First Nation could be in perpetual debt, like forever,” said Serge Simon, former grand chief of Kanesatake. “I don’t even want to imagine what happens if we lose.”

The origins of the dispute date back to 2001, when the band council hired Louis-Victor Sylvestre to help it fight a planned niobium mine in Oka, Que. Sylvestre did work for the band between 2001 and 2003, including representing the council during a 32-day tribunal hearing. The mine project never materialized.

Sylvestre charged the band $536,000 for his work. Five experts retained to help with the case charged an additional $162,000. Simon claimed the council had expected a much smaller bill, and was unable to pay what Sylvestre asked.

Kanesatake has never paid the bill. With interest, the total owed to Sylvestre and the other experts is now around $2 million.

Nicholas Dodd, a lawyer for the band council, said Sylvestre was “not being well-supervised” at the time, because his work took place during “a time of real chaos in Kanesatake.”

Sylvestre declined to speak publicly about the case, citing the ongoing legal proceedings.

Kanesatake is also currently mired in a governance crisis after an election scheduled for August was cancelled at the last minute. Simon is among five incumbent chiefs who are asking the Federal Court to declare that they remain in office until a new election can be held.

The Mohawk community, which had been at the centre of the 1990 Oka Crisis, experienced some political turmoil in the early 2000s, around the time Sylvestre’s bill came due. Serious financial problems led the federal government to place the band council under third-party management in 2003.

In January 2004, a botched raid by a First Nations police force resulted in the force being trapped in the Kanesatake police station for several days by angry community members, and the house of then-grand chief James Gabriel being burned to the ground. The community has been without its own police force ever since.

Amid this upheaval, Sylvestre obtained a default judgment in Quebec Superior Court in October 2004 ordering the council to pay what they owed him. The band did not show up in court to offer a defence.

In January 2005, the council’s third-party manager tried to settle the band’s debts by offering about 25 cents on the dollar to its creditors. Sylvestre and the other experts declined the offer.

Dodd said the band’s annual budget is around $10 million to $12 million, but most of that comes from government funding streams tied to particular expenses, like housing or education. He said the likelihood of the council being able to pay down its debt to Sylvestre is “next to none.”

Under Quebec law, Sylvestre had 10 years to try to reclaim the money before his rights were extinguished. Since 2004, he has attempted a series of seizures of the band council’s property to collect on the debt, which have had the effect of restarting the clock and preserving his right to the money for a further 10 years.

In 2007, Sylvestre seized firearms belonging to the Mohawk council and vehicles that had belonged to the police force. He also seized office equipment from the band council, later releasing it in exchange for a 2008 band council resolution acknowledging the amount owed and calling on the federal government to pay off the debt. That has not happened.

In 2016, he attempted to seize the council’s bank account at an on-reserve bank in nearby Kahnawake, Que., as well as any tax refunds owed to the council by the federal and provincial revenue agencies. Those seizures were later annulled in court, but an unsuccessful attempt to seize property at the band office was not.

The unsuccessful seizure from 2016 is now at the heart of a legal dispute that has made its way to the country’s highest court. The band council argues it was never told a seizure of its property had been attempted, and the episode shouldn’t be allowed to restart the clock.

But two lower court decisions have sided with Sylvestre, finding the 2016 attempt was enough to keep the claim alive. The Supreme Court heard the case in March.

If the top court sides with the band council, it would mean the 10-year window has now elapsed and Kanesatake is free of the debt. If it upholds the lower court rulings, Sylvestre would have until November 2026 to try to collect his money or restart the clock for another decade.

Simon said he sympathizes with Sylvestre’s position, and the work he did more than 20 years ago did help the community. But he said a perpetual debt could send Kanesatake into “a really deep hole.”

“It’s a matter of principle for him now,” he said. “He really doesn’t care how it affects this community.”

Dodd said legal scholars are of the view that band councils cannot declare bankruptcy or seek protection from creditors, meaning the issue is unlikely to be resolved if the Supreme Court rules in Sylvestre’s favour.

“The council is really out of options. It can’t pay the claim and it can’t declare bankruptcy, so it’s really stuck,” he said. “And the amount just keeps piling higher and higher every year.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published on Sept. 22, 2025.