Uploaded December 2017 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
For centuries, Europeans have run the North American tobacco trade; today the First Nations people are taking it back. But is the tobacco trade a road to independence or criminality for Native people?
Tobacco is a multi-billion-dollar industry, and the Mohawk nation owns 50% of the trade in Eastern Canada. With a history of trade in tobacco that predates the Canada-U.S. border, the Mohawks see their involvement in the trade as a long-overdue means to renewed economic self-sufficiency. Canadian federal and provincial governments see it otherwise.
Smoke Traders unabashedly tells the First Nations side of the “tobacco wars” story from the factory workers to the so-called “smugglers.” Jane Dickson-Gilmour, Professor of Law, University of Ottawa, comments on the social justice aspect of the ongoing turf wars between Aboriginal rights and governments. Passions light up in this debate over illegal trade and First Nations sovereignty and entrepreneurship.
For centuries, Europeans have run the North American tobacco trade; today the First Nations people are taking it back. But is the tobacco trade a road to independence or criminality for Native people?
Tobacco is a multi-billion-dollar industry, and the Mohawk nation owns 50% of the trade in Eastern Canada. With a history of trade in tobacco that predates the Canada-U.S. border, the Mohawks see their involvement in the trade as a long-overdue means to renewed economic self-sufficiency. Canadian federal and provincial governments see it otherwise.
Smoke Traders unabashedly tells the First Nations side of the “tobacco wars” story from the factory workers to the so-called “smugglers.” Jane Dickson-Gilmour, Professor of Law, University of Ottawa, comments on the social justice aspect of the ongoing turf wars between Aboriginal rights and governments. Passions light up in this debate over illegal trade and First Nations sovereignty and entrepreneurship.
