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This stark process of taking land and of moving those on the land away is a hallmark of the United States and Canada, two nation-states where settlers stayed. The Kanehsatà:ke and Kahnawà:ke Siege of 1990, or the so-called Oka Crisis, the 78-day armed standoff between Mohawks and several forces of the state, remains one of the clearest manifestations of this process in North America to date. Mohawks were not only "in the way," the put themselves in the way of the extension of a nine-hole golf course that was to not only destroy sacred Pines for white leisure but was also to extend through a Mohawk burial ground.

— When the Pine Needles Fall by Katsi'tsakwas Ellen Gabriel (Page 207)

But the use of force by policing authorities is a symptom of the problem. Police are doing the dirty work of corrupt politicians whose rhetoric upholds corporate greed, they're constantly repeating to themselves that they need to "balance" the so-called rights of all "stakeholders", which is just code for pandering to businesses and corporations while justifying the human rights violations of Indigenous Peoples. It should be understood that Indigenous rights are human rights, that we are more than just stakeholders, we are rights holders. I consider Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's words about reconciliation to be empty, meant to placate Indigenous people and the public. Trudeau says that no relationship is more important to him than Canada's relationship to Indigenous Peoples. But that's not what it feels like to me. His actions, or the lack of actions by his government, prove that little is changing in this country and that reconciliation is simply colonization repackaged.

— When the Pine Needles Fall by Katsi'tsakwas Ellen Gabriel (Page 170 - 171)

The Pines remain a very magical and spiritual part of the environment that I live in and grew up in. That connection to land is just something that you feel inside. And to know that it's being threatened because someone just wants to expand a golf course was frustrating-- that's what was proposed in the late 1980s and early 1990s, you know? What was even more insulting is that the developers were going to dig up our family members, our ancestors in our cemetery, to do it! That was just too much. It was an affront to us as Kanienʼkehá:ka. Our community of Kanehsatà:ke has been fighting these kinds of incursions on our lands for three hundred years now.

— When the Pine Needles Fall by Katsi'tsakwas Ellen Gabriel (Page 9)