Windsor mayor vows to 'reflect' on his language after criticism of phrase used to refer to protesters

WARNING: This story contains content some readers may find distressing.

Windsor's mayor says he'll "reflect on his language" after being criticized for referring to holdout protesters in the city as the "last of the Mohicans."

Drew Dilkens made the comment in an interview with CTV News on Sunday, after being asked why it was taking police so long to clear protesters from the area of the Ambassador Bridge, access to which was blocked for several days last week by anti-vaccine mandate protests, and whether there was a risk of more blockades.

"It is very, very frustrating and I understand police have a difficult job to do," Dilkens said. "There have been calls of bomb threats. You have people who are here sort of the last of the Mohicans ... these are people who are saying they're willing to die for the cause."

The usage of the term sparked criticism from the University of Windsor's Racialized Academics and Advocates Centering Equity and Solidarity (RAACES).

"While your reference to the remaining protesters in the Ambassador Bridge occupation, "people willing to die for the cause" was a thinly-veiled dog-whistle to nationalistic rallying-cries dating back to at least the Second World War, the anti-Indigenous statements are clear and explicit," the group stated in a letter to the mayor's office.

The letter calls The Last of the Mohicans — James Fenimore Cooper's 1826 novel — a "racist and culturally inaccurate romanticization of the Algonquin-speaking Muhheconneok people's 18th century resistance to white colonial conquest of their lands and genocide of Indigenous peoples."

In a response emailed to CBC News, Dilkens said his comment was not meant as a reference to Indigenous peoples.

Rather, he stated, "as of Sunday morning, the remainder of protesters on site illegally occupying the Ambassador Bridge were the few, final remaining individuals who held exceptionally hardened beliefs related to the demonstration activity."

"It could otherwise have been restated 'last persons standing,'" the statement reads. "I acknowledge that this particular turn of phrase could have offended some, and I will reflect on my choice of words, going forward."

In an interview with CBC News, RAACES member and UWindsor English and gender studies professor Richard Chin said the comparison Dilkens made was "inept" and "deeply insulting to Indigenous peoples."

"He's not educated enough in Indigenous issues or else he would never make that comment," he said. "So my concern is that these leaders of our communities are not educated in ways that they need to be as we move forward.

"I feel a huge community conversation needs to happen."

Gord Grisenthwaite, a professor of Indigenous literature at UWindsor and member of Nlaka'pamux First Nation in British Columbia, said he hopes this is an "educational moment" for Dilkens.