Excavation amid former Montreal hospital grave search allowed to continue, judge rules

A Quebec Superior Court judge has ruled drilling and excavation work at the site of a former hospital in Montreal can continue. 

The Kanien’kehá:ka elders, known as the Mohawk Mothers, were attempting to stop drilling and excavation on the former site of Royal Victoria Hospital, where they believe unmarked graves. 

The Mothers have said they have uncovered the possibility of graves, following interviews with survivors of mind-control experiments that took place in the 1950s and 1960s at a psychiatric institute affiliated with the hospital.

The government of Canada is named in a 2019 class-action lawsuit application that alleges the state funded the MK-ULTRA program, under which abusive psychological experiments were conducted on vulnerable patients at the site.

The Mothers told the court that the archeological survey of the area under construction is not being handled according to an agreement reached in April between them and the developers.

They accused McGill University and Quebec’s infrastructure agency of failing to live up to an agreement on how the search for bodies at the site would be conducted.

But the judge rejected their claims on Friday. He said they did not prove the work could disrupt any unmarked graves, and other concerns they raised will be addressed at a separate hearing in October.

McGill University aims to expand its downtown campus onto the site. The university has said a panel of experts concluded burials were not possible in the area. 

The university and infrastructure agency told the court that the Mothers’ request should be dismissed.

The Mohawk Mothers filed a civil suit in March 2022, and last October they obtained an injunction ordering a pause on excavation work on the university-expansion project with a judge ruling the renovations would cause irreparable harm.

After several mediation sessions, the Mothers and McGill reached a deal on April 6. 

Cultural monitors are permitted on site, and the agreement stipulates that if no graves are immediately found, then excavation work can begin on a rolling basis and in a sensitive manner in case there is an unexpected discovery.