Criminal Charges Sought in Illegal Dumping Scheme

Most defendants so far have been small players or victims themselves, but investigators say they’re pursuing criminal charges against construction companies.

By Christopher Curtis

It wasn’t a band of career criminals that got busted when the hammer came down on Kanien’kehá:ka (Mohawk) territory last month.

There are 17 people and two companies facing sanctions for their role in the illegal dumping scheme that destroyed swaths of Kanesatake over the past four years. But most appear to be minor players or are themselves the victims of fraud, according to sources close to the investigation.

At least half of the group can’t afford a lawyer and some of the elderly defendants do not speak French and can’t sort through the mounds of evidence handed over to them by the crown prosecutor’s office. One woman requested the court provide her with an interpreter, but, because this is a civil case and not a criminal one, the court refused.

Quebec’s crown prosecutor hauled them before a judge in October, accusing the lot of violating environmental laws that range from willfully accepting contaminated soil on their properties to dumping truckloads of gravel directly into fish habitats. The soil came from construction sites in the greater Montreal area and samples taken by Quebec conservation officers found hydrocarbons seeping into the Lake of Two Mountains.

Among the suspects, one woman is 83 and living on a limited income. Sources say one of her younger relatives deceived her into accepting contaminated soil.

Others told The Rover they were presented with fake truck manifests, falsely asserting that the soil dumped on their land was clean. None of those rounded up by authorities last month included companies like GTM or Nexus Construction, a Laval-based firm that appears to have saved a fortune on disposal fees by breaking the law and dumping on Mohawk territory.

There are — to be sure — some dangerous men involved in the scheme. At least one of the defendants has ties to organized crime, according to Mohawk, police and cannabis industry sources. But they are in the minority among defendants.  

None of the defendants would speak on the record for fear of jeopardizing their court case.

Meanwhile, The Rover has learned that Quebec conservation officers are pursuing Nexus for violations of the Fisheries Act — a federal offense that could carry a prison sentence for those convicted. But given that those charges are criminal, the threshold of evidence required is higher and that could take months of digging and might end with an out-of-court settlement and a fine.

As the case moves through Quebec’s court system, this is a look into what’s at stake, who’s involved and what the potential fallout looks like on Mohawk territory. 

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One of at least a dozen illegal dumpsites in Kanesatake. PHOTO: Peter McCabe

Though some version of this scheme has been going on for decades, it ramped up over the past two years as Nexus appeared to use the territory as their primary dump site. 

Normally, companies moving soil off any construction site have to register it in a provincial database and dispose of it in a provincially-mandated recycling centre.

But given that it can cost over $1,000 a truckload, companies find ways to circumvent the law by dumping on Indigenous territory and paying off a few locals to look the other way. 

Quebec’s Environment Ministry estimates that upwards of 900,000 tonnes of contaminated soil are disposed of illegally in the province every year. One government consultant told The Rover that might be a lowball figure. A lack of on-the-ground enforcement and a culture of grift on the fringes of Quebec’s construction industry are huge contributing factors.

It isn’t uncommon, according to multiple sources in Kanesatake, for outside construction companies to deceive locals into accepting contaminated soil on their land. 

“Most of the people in court were put into a situation where they didn’t realize what they were getting into,” said Victor Bonspille, Grand Chief of the Mohawk Council of Kanesatake. “They were lied to by the trucking companies, shown fraudulent documents. It’s wrong the way Quebec is going about it. Before this was all done, I had explained to the provincial government that many of these people were manipulated. 

“Some didn’t even know it was happening, it was being done to them by family members without their knowledge.”

Bonspille came under fire last month when The Eastern Door reported that one of the 17 tracts of land where dumping occurred belonged to his late mother. But because Kanesatake’s land registry wasn’t updated since her death and because Bonspille never addressed the matter publicly, it was unclear who owns the land today.

The Grand Chief did not respond to The Eastern Door’s multiple requests for comments but now says the land is owned by his brother Barry. One police source confirmed Barry’s ownership of the land in a text message to The Rover. That land was expanded into the lake and is now the site of a cannabis dispensary called Golden Star Oka.

Some of the areas where contaminated soil was found are now parking lots or pot shops. That shoreline was home to spawning pools and a gathering area for thousands of migratory geese in the spring and fall. Now, that ecosystem is dead under the weight of thousands of truckloads of soil, gravel and asphalt. Those caught contaminating it could face up to $1 million in fines, according to Quebec’s Environment Ministry.

Asked if his brother’s land presents a conflict of interest, Bonspille was adamant it does not.

“We don’t talk business and I haven’t given any (privileged) information to my brother,” Bonspille said. “I was one of the people who pushed for authorities to stop the dumping, to take soil samples and investigate the people involved. Why would I do that if I was in on this (scheme)?”

Bonspille has been forceful in his opposition to illegal dumping in Kanesatake, imploring the federal government to take action during his testimony at the Senate’s Standing Committee on the Environment late last year. He’s worked with mayors and residents in neighbouring towns like Oka and St-Placide, and with his Member of Parliament to get soil testing done in Kanesatake. 

But during a hearing last month where Quebec sought an injunction to prevent the 17 landowners from receiving more soil, Bonspille spoke out against the Crown, arguing the province doesn’t have jurisdiction over Mohawk land.

“I want the dumping to stop but I also don’t want Quebec to set a precedent where they decide what goes on in our territory,” Bonspille said. “My argument is about the precedent this sends and my concern is that it’ll just be a few Mohawks punished instead of the outsiders who use our land as a dump site.”

As is often the case in small Indigenous communities, family ties add a layer of complexity to politics, business and crime. The community of about 2,000 people sits on a narrow patch of land along Lake of Two Mountains and last names like Gabriel, Bonspille, Nicholas and Simon are so common they have streets named after them.

In the case of the dumping investigation, these ties further complicate an investigation that spans provincial, federal and Indigenous jurisdictions. Many of those swept up in the court case were likely duped by a family member, according to police sources and defendants who spoke to The Rover.

The closest thing many of these Mohawk defendants have to a lawyer is Sonya Gagnier, a former Kanesatake council chief who works as a paralegal at Services Parajudiciaires autochtones du Québec. The night before the first injunction hearing, Gagnier was on the phone with a defence attorney, taking notes about how to mount a legal defence against these allegations.

Two things from the court files jumped out at her.

By the police’s own admission, they’ve known about the illegal dumping for at least a year and taken no direct action to prevent it. Then there was the sheer volume of highly technical legal documents given to the defendants.

“These documents are all in French and extremely complicated to grasp, even for a native speaker,” Gagnier said. “Many of us on the territory were sent to federal day school and educated in English. We didn’t choose the language of our colonizers. We’ve asked for the services of an interpreter but we won’t be getting any because, under civil law, there’s no legal obligation for Quebec to provide them.

“These people will not get a chance at a fair trial and that’s supposed to be the bedrock of our judicial system.”

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A Nexus truck dumping soil into the Lake of Two Mountains in June 2024. PHOTO: Peter McCabe

Of the 17 people facing charges in the scheme, Robert Gabriel appears to be among those most directly involved in the dumping. 

Gabriel allegedly dumped gravel directly into a fish spawning pool to build a dispensary on it. Though he doesn’t appear to own any land along the shoreline, he’s leasing a plot from former council chief Gary Carbonelle, who did not respond to The Rover’s request for comment.

Alongside his brother Gary, Robert ran a recycling centre that was shut down after its contents began spilling over into neighbouring farms. The centre — called G&R Recycling — had its permit revoked in 2020 after The Rover, The Eastern Door and La Presse reported on the extent of the damage.

During our investigation into G&R, sources said they were visited at their homes by Gary or his associates and told not to speak to outsiders about the dump. Though his name appears nowhere in the most recent scheme, Gary is a major player in the cannabis trade and fiercely protective of his business interests.

Three sources in the Mohawk cannabis industry say Gary has business ties to High Times, the dispensary and bar built over truckloads of gravel on Carbonelle’s property.

Gary, 58, has done time for a pair of armed assault convictions, uttering threats and aggravated assault, all stemming from separate incidents. Gary also participated in a 2004 riot that ended with chief James Gabriel’s house being burned down. 

Most recently, in 2021, Gary hosted a party at his dispensary that ended with the murder of street gang leader Arsène Mompoint. Witnesses at the time told The Rover that Gary was sitting next to the gang leader, sharing a hookah pipe, when a masked gunman put three bullets in Mompoint. This happened in broad daylight outside the Green Room, Gary’s dispensary.

Throughout this investigation, one of the Mohawk whistleblowers who took The Rover on a tour of contaminated sites said he keeps a shotgun under the dashboard of his truck. 

“Even the police are too scared to come up here,” he said. “So it’s no wonder people aren’t coming forward and speaking out. These are their neighbours, people who know where they live and who their family is. It’s only a few families involved. But they’re bullies and if you speak out against them, you’re going to find that out the hard way.”

Defendants Blake and Anna Freeman were early investors in Kanesatake’s cannabis industry, once leasing the old bingo hall and converting it to a grow-op before abandoning the project. The site of the old hall has seen thousands of truckloads of contaminated soil dumped onto the property, with much of that refuse spilling into Lake of Two Mountains. Both stand accused of accepting contaminated soil on their property and doing excavation work too close to the shoreline. 

Meanwhile, Golden Star Oka — the dispensary built on Barry Bonspille’s land — has been targeted by arsonists on several occasions, though none succeeded in shutting the business down. There are dozens of cannabis dispensaries on the territory with most being family-owned and run like a legitimate business.

But some — like Gary’s Green Room — have turned into massive, fortified plazas that serve alcohol, put on concerts that draw thousands of outsiders to the territory and operate slot machine casinos. After the gangland shooting in 2021, Gary was summoned by a group of dispensary owners and berated for putting the community in danger.

There have been repeated attempts, from within the Mohawk cannabis industry, to involve the band council in setting regulations for dispensaries. But under the leadership of then-Grand Chief Serge Simon — who was in office when the first shops emerged six years ago — council took a laissez-faire approach.

As some dispensaries evolved into bars and casinos, residents have complained about outsiders coming onto Mohawk land, getting drunk and crashing their vehicles on their way out of Kanesatake. 

In one early morning incident last summer, a drunk driver barrelled over a ditch and into a steel pole just a few feet from someone’s home. Two weeks ago, another drunk driver slammed into a truck and injured two Mohawk residents of the territory. Both came from outside Mohawk land.

Karonhienhawe Nicholas says her daughter was in the truck that night and had to be hospitalized after the crash. 

“It’s crazy,” she said. “We are at the hands of outsiders coming into our community, doing anything they please.”

The drunk driver, a Chateauguay man, was arrested and police left his pickup truck by the side of the road. Hours later, the truck was smashed and had the words “Enough is Enough” spray painted onto it before being left outside the band council office to send a message about the climate of lawlessness in Kanesatake.

Nicholas took a risk in speaking out, but many say they cannot afford to. Instead, they quietly gather evidence and share it with the press and other trusted outsiders. It’s this trove of photos, documents, testimony and videos that led to police finally getting involved.

“People say, ‘The Mohawks are doing this to themselves!’ but what would you do if this was your community?” one whistleblower said. “The police have known about this forever and even they’re too scared to get involved.”

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Police and Quebec environment officers gathering soil samples in Kanesatake in August 2024. PHOTO: Chris Curtis

It is not the police but rather investigators with Quebec’s wildlife protection agency leading the probe into illegal dumping on Mohawk land.

Until now, their interventions were limited to regulatory infractions under La loi sur la qualité de l’environnement — a provincial law that imposes fines on those caught contaminating land. But critics say this is insufficient.

“It’s a slap on the wrist,” said Daniel Green, an environmental activist and former deputy leader of the federal Green Party. “The structure of the legislation is weak, it isn’t an effective deterrent against polluters. There are countless examples, over the years, of polluters just paying a fine and continuing their dirty work. This needs to be a federal statute, a Fisheries Act prosecution.”

None of the 17 defendants are facing criminal prosecution for their alleged role in the dumping but The Rover has learned that wildlife protection agents are expanding the investigation to include federal charges. Specifically, photo evidence and witness testimony that Nexus Construction committed repeated violations of the Fisheries Act by dumping directly into the Lake of Two Mountains.

This carries with it massive fines and a possible prison sentence.

“Quebec’s environmental protection law, its whole basis, is to protect the environment on which humans depend,” Green said. “The Fisheries Act doesn’t talk about humans, it talks about fish. That is the tool we need to be using here. The fine structure, the fact that you can have a criminal record, that’s leverage.

“These are professional truck drivers, they can’t afford to have a criminal record. Many of them travel to the United States for work as an essential part of their job. A criminal conviction would prevent them from crossing the border and doing their job. It’s the most effective deterrent here.”

On this front, however, the wildlife investigators have their work cut out for them. Given the criminal nature of the Fisheries Act violations, they will have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Nexus and others willfully dumped contaminated soil into the lake.

“There need to be real consequences for the polluters,” Green said. “Not just the equivalent of a parking ticket.”

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