How investigating Indigenous activists became a CSIS priority for at least a decade – CBC

Nov 18, 2025

Previously secret papers detail agency’s ‘Native extremism’ surveillance program between 1988-99

Katsi’tsakwas Ellen Gabriel says she was sitting in the Japanese consulate in Montreal when she started to learn how far Canada’s spies can reach.

It was two years after Gabriel was the Kanien’kehá:ka (Mohawk) spokesperson during the military’s 1990 siege of Kanehsatà:ke and Kahnawà:ke, commonly called the Oka Crisis. That summer, a botched police raid on a small blockade ignited a tense 78-day armed standoff, as activists fought to stop a golf course expansion from desecrating a cemetery at Kanehsatà:ke, near Oka, Que.

In 1992, Gabriel was invited to an Indigenous conference in Japan and planned to travel on a Haudenosaunee Confederacy-issued passport. But she couldn’t get a visa, so she went for a meeting to find out why.

Read More: https://www.cbc.ca/news/indigenous/csis-indigenous-investigations-1990s-9.6979565