MOHAWK+GRAND RIVER

Gazette No. 57 — Comprehensive Objection to Six Nations Band Council Claims and Actions

Be it known and placed on record: That the Mohawk Nation of Grand River Secretariat hereby files a comprehensive objection to the Six Nations Elected Band Council’s claims and actions within the Grand River corridor and notifies all parties that the Band Council does not represent the Secretariat’s distinct constitutional interests.

I. The Band Council’s Authority Within the Corridor

The Six Nations Elected Band Council has no authority over the Haldimand Proclamation interests of the Mohawk Nation of Grand River as represented by the Secretariat. The Band Council’s authority derives from the Indian Act — an instrument of domestic Canadian law — not from the bilateral Crown-to-Nation covenant of 1784.

II. The Stone Record

William L. Stone recorded in 1838 (from Joseph Brant’s own statements of 1803) that the Haldimand Proclamation grant was “notoriously made for the exclusive benefit of the Mohawk nation” and that the Iroquois Confederacy “had never before been construed as clothing them with any such rights or powers” over Grand River Mohawk affairs (Life of Joseph Brant, vol. II, p. 415, Exhibit A7-A). If the Confederacy had no such authority over the Mohawk Nation’s Grand River interests in 1803, the Six Nations Elected Band Council — a creature of the Indian Act that postdates the Confederacy Council — certainly has none in 2026.

III. The Conflation Answer

This is the Secretariat’s answer to the Crown’s conflation argument in the Burgos letter (Exhibit C70). The Burgos letter directed the Secretariat to the Six Nations litigation as if the Band Council represents the Secretariat’s interests. It does not. This Gazette entry, the Stone record, the 1995 MOA, and Band Council Resolution No. 17 all confirm the institutional distinctness of the Secretariat’s Haldimand Beneficiary Class interests from those of the Six Nations Elected Band Council.