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The issue at stake here is not whether a social or demographic group may decide who qualifies as a member for cultural or religious purposes. It is an argument about how far such decisions may be allowed to override individual rights. The Kahwawake law does not confine itself merely to stipulating that non-Mohawks may not live on the reserve — a premise that would not be countenanced in any non-aboriginal community — but denies the same right to Mohawks themselves, already living on the reserve, for the crime of marrying (and cohabiting with) non-Mohawk.

Whatever the complex web of separate legal arrangements Canada has devised with regard to aboriginal Canadians, this policy ought to be denounced as odious. The Kahnawake Mohawks may well prefer that members of the community marry within the group, as many other minorities do. But like any other majority, they cross the line once they start to coerce individuals into conformity with their preferences. At that point the interests of the courts, and of the larger community around them, are engaged. Canada was founded, in part, to protect individual and minority rights from the depredations of local majorities.

At the very least, it is incumbent upon other Canadians not to stay silent on the matter, whether out of some misplaced fear of being thought intolerant or cultural-relativist confusion. Even if the courts were eventually to rule that it was lawful, it would still be wrong. It is entirely possible for a group to maintain its traditions and culture without such dubious and overbearing measures. The pressure on non-Mohawk spouses — to assimilate into the way of life of the reserve, to raise and educate their children as Mohawks and so on — would be enough, without forcibly evicting them from the community.