Name/Title
1990 - Operation Salon (July 11-Sept 24 1990) / part of the Canadian Grenadier Guards deployment during the Oka CrisisDescription
1990 - Operation Salon (July 11-Sept 26 1990) / part of the Canadian Grenadier Guards deployment during the Oka Crisis.
The Oka Crisis, also known as the Kanesatake Resistance or the Mohawk Resistance at Kanesatake, was a 78-day standoff (11 July–26 September 1990) between Mohawk protesters, Quebec police, and the Canadian Army. It took place in the community of Kanesatake, which includes a commons area known as “the Pines.” It is near the Town of Oka, on the north shore of Montreal. Related protests and violence occurred in the Kahnawake reserve, to the south of Montreal. The crisis was sparked by the proposed expansion of a golf course and the development of townhouses on disputed land in the Pines that included a Mohawk burial ground.
Operational Salon:
During the 1990 Oka Crisis, under Operation SALON, the Canadian Forces (CF)
deployed 4,500 personnel with a peak of 3,700 soldiers at its height in the function of Aid to the Civil Power to confront heavily armed Mohawk Warriors at Kanesatake (Oka) and Kahnawake, Quebec.
(For context, around 5,100 Canadian military personnel served in the Persian Gulf War, with a peak of about 2,700 in the region at one time. According to military historian Timothy C. Winegard, the armed forces’ operation at Oka was so extensive it used up their entire national stockpile of barbed wire.)
On 20 August, the armed forces’ Operation Salon began. Four thousand soldiers took up positions in and around Kanesatake and Kahnawake, along with armoured military vehicles, helicopters, artillery, police vessels on the Ottawa River, and other equipment. Members of the Royal 22e Regiment (the “Van Doos”) took over from the SQ at the Kahnawake and Kanesatake barricades. They assumed a position only metres from the Mohawk warriors.
The Canadian Grenadier Guards has approximately 27 Soldiers deployed to various locations near Montreal as part of Operation Salon and included detachments who provided security for The Mercier Bridge, as well as assistance in dismantling barricades in Kanesatake. A further multi rotation deployment of no less than two Canadian Grenadier Guards (Gdsm E. Leukert, Gdsm Donald Jeansonne) were sent to provide base security for CFB Goose Bay in Labrador.
https://newsinteractives.cbc.ca/longform/oka-crisis-veterans-on-both-sides-of-the-barricadesCreated By
Lieutenant Michael Hayes-Rivet, retired.Create Date
January 11, 2022Updated By
Lieutenant Michael Hayes-Rivet, retired.Update Date
January 11, 2022