Mohawk elders win fight for injunction to stop work at Montreal's Royal Vic hospital

A Quebec Superior Court judge has granted an emergency injunction to stop excavation work on Montreal’s Royal Victoria Hospital site as requested by a group of Mohawk elders.

The group, called the Kanien’kehá:ka kahnistensera (Mohawk Mothers), believes there may be unmarked graves of Indigenous people, including children, on or near the site following CIA-funded brainwashing experiments in the 1950s and 1960s.

They say the site may also house archeological remains from the first pre-colonial Iroquois village.

The Mohawk Mothers filed a civil suit in March demanding the suspension of McGill University’s redevelopment plans for part of the former hospital.

After two days of hearings this week, a judge issued an oral decision Thursday afternoon