Court of Appeal reverses order on McGill excavation at former hospital

The Quebec Court of Appeal reverseda lower court decisionon Friday thatrequiredMcGill University to comply with an agreement reached with Indigenous women to continue excavation work at the site of theold Royal Victoria Hospital in Montreal under certain conditions.

In its decision, theCourt of Appealwrote that the judge "misapprehended the scope of his power to make safeguard orders."

"The order he issued is not enforceable," theCourt of Appealwrote. "Under the guise of a case-management measure, he decided the parties' rights under the Agreement and appropriated the power to supervise the application of the Agreement without a genuine debate on the merits."

The conditions were part of a dealreached in November with the Mohawk Mothers a group ofKanien'keh:ka women that outlinedthe search for possible unmarked graves at the site.

The agreementcame after the Mohawk Mothers,also known as the Kanien'keh:ka Kahnistensera, launched a civil suit in March 2023, seeking to halt the development. The group arguedthere may be unmarked Indigenous graves that risked being excavated at the site, as well as archeological remains from a pre-colonial Iroquoian settlement.

The site also includes the Allan Memorial Institute, whereCIA-funded mind-control experimentswere conducted in the 1950s and 1960s.

Prior to the deal, theMohawk Mothers had argued thatthe university and the Socit qubcoise des infrastructuresfailed to properly involve a panel of archeologists appointed to oversee the search for possible unmarked graves at the former hospital thesite of a future downtown campus expansion.