Tyendinaga candidate for chief says approach to land claims must shift

Stacia Loft is originally from the Tyndinaga Territory and is set complete her law degree in April of this year. Photo by Max Reid, QNet News

By Max Reid

BELLEVILLE – The council elections for the Mohawks of the Bay of Quinte are fast approaching with polls opening in a little over a month and one councillor is hoping that making a run for chief might help shift priorities within the Tyendinaga community.

Stacia Loft is a councillor in the territory running to unseat R. Donald Maracle as chief. She is currently completing her law degree at Queen’s University and believes that her legal training may provide unique perspectives that will help guide the community forward.

One such perspective is her desire to see her community act with more autonomy when interacting with Canadian government bodies, especially when issues like land claims are at hand.

“When we’re talking about the existence and the concept of a nation-to-nation relationship, then we need to start acting like we are a nation in those kinds of conversations.”

Managing relationships with Canadian government bodies is “not even the priority…it’s about the relationships that we have here. It’s about the expertise that we have here. All of our answers are here. Our answers aren’t out there. It’s never worked for us out there.”

Loft sees the confidentiality of land claim negotiations as “problematic”.

“It really shouldn’t be up to one person to be the negotiator and that’s been the case,” she said.

She says when it comes to speaking with the government about land claims, “they need to come here.”

She emphasized that being chief “is not about control”, but rather Loft would like to see her influence as chief be used to guide progress that accounts for the good of the entire community.

“As a community, we’ve kind of been at a standstill for a little bit,” she said, which she in part attributes to slow-moving bureaucracy within the government that prevents negotiations from happening meaningfully or in a timely manner.

She said she believes changes in how land claim negotiations are carried out have “made things more difficult and less efficient” in co-operating with the government through this process.