Predatory Pricing leads to the cheapest fuel in Ontario, and hard times for Mohawk businesses

How the economic practices of a former employee of the Auditor General of Canada are harming the private sector in Tyendinaga Mohawk Territory.

Editorial note: Real People’s Media has been approached by several business owners in Tyendinaga Mohawk Territory who have asked us to investigate what’s going on in the community’s economic sector. We interviewed the owners and managers of 12 fuel businesses to figure out what’s happening. Here’s what we learned. 

Tyendinaga Mohawk Territory has what seems to be a thriving fuel, tobacco and cannabis economy. There are 21 fuel stations on the territory, and according to the website GasBuddy.com, seven of the ten lowest priced fuel stations in Ontario are in Tyendinaga Mohawk Territory. With tens of thousands of litres of fuel sold daily, one might believe that there is a thriving and prosperous fuel business sector within the community. However, despite the large amount of fuel being sold, many gas bars are struggling to make a profit from fuel sales. Real People’s Media is aware that at least two gas stations in the community have chosen to lease their gas station to their fuel suppliers. 

There are two main concentrations of gas stations and retail businesses in Tyendinaga, one along Hwy 49 off the 401 exit, and the other connecting Shannonville to Belleville on Hwy 2. One gas station manager Real People’s Media interviewed told us that prices are being purposefully held down on the territory by a certain individual. Although not wanting to go on the record for fear of retribution, the manager said, “it’s really hard to make any money here, the [fuel] margins are so minimal.”

According to another gas station manager, “there was a time on Hwy 49 when I would price the fuel 2-5 cents below what was sold in Napanee and Belleville. But I can’t do that anymore. We don’t need to be 20-30 cents below the rates in town to sell fuel. We used to be able to make a good living at 2-5 cents below the city prices.” 

A gas station owner on Hwy 49 stated, “we need the price of fuel and cigarettes to be raised up in price to benefit the community. This would allow businesses to reinvest in the community, give raises to our employees and to donate to community projects like Headstart and the Lacrosse teams.”

Prices are indeed low. On February 7th, 2025 the rack price – the published price cost for the purchase of bulk fuel at Petro Canada’s distribution centre in Toronto – was $1.287. The average price of fuel sold on Tyendinaga Mohawk Territory that day was $1.25 – 3 cents below rack.

Meanwhile, gas was selling in the nearby towns of Kingston and Belleville for an average price of $1.539. While bulk fuel purchases can reduce the rack price, the fact remains that retail fuel in Tyendinaga is selling for less than it can be purchased in bulk in Toronto, a two hour drive away.

What is predatory pricing?

In writing this article Real People’s Media has learned that predatory pricing tactics are the reason why gas is so cheap and profits are so low in Tyendinaga Mohawk Territory. Predatory pricing is a strategy in which a dominant business lowers its prices to an extreme level – often below cost – to drive competitors out of the market with the intention of raising prices once competition has been eliminated.

Real People’s Media spoke to the owners and managers of 12 of the 21 gas stations in Tyendinaga. Few wished to divulge their names, citing fear of retribution, but all laid the blame for the lack of profitability at the feet of Shawn Brant, owner of Breakaway Fuels and Convenience and former partner in First Nation Gas in Deserento.

According to Andrew Clifford Miracle, a long-standing advocate for Mohawk rights who has battled Brant in a variety of legal contests – the perpetrator of predatory pricing of fuel, tobacco and cannabis on the territory “is Shawn Brant, no question about it.” As to why Brant would be doing this, Miracle speculated that “he’s probably doing it to bring in customers to his store [Breakaway] and his [cannabis] store Medibles.” Miracle added, “Shawn is a real crook, a deceiver and a deceitful individual.” 

According to another manager who’s been in the fuel business for two decades, “Shawn doesn’t want anybody else to make money. He wants to control the market. He did this with tobacco, he did this with cannabis, and now he’s doing it with gas.” When asked why he didn’t want to have his name published with his quote, the manager said he feared retaliation from Brant. The manager concluded, “If you are a thorn in Shawn’s side, then all of a sudden [he accuses you of being] a pedophile. Because it doesn’t matter whether you like Shawn or hate him, nobody likes a pedophile. So he will call anybody a pedophile and do that to turn people against them.”

Did pipeline politics result in Brant’s entry into the gas industry?

Before his career as an organizer for the anarchist influenced activist organization, the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty (OCAP), Shawn Brant worked for “a number of years” for the Auditor General of Canada. Real People’s Media has obtained a letter written by Brant on June 14th, 2019 to the then 22 year old Isaiah Miracle for the purposes of dispossessing him from his lease property, from which he operated Smoke n Country and Frontier Fuels; Brant now operates Breakaway Fuels and Convenience and the cannabis shop Medibles from this location. 

In the letter, Brant stated that his work for the Auditor General “involves the investigation and prosecution of individuals who receive government monies that they weren’t entitled [to].” Brant added, “I also investigated and recommended the prosecution of people who avoided paying the monies that were duly owed to the government of Canada.”

By 2020 Brant had fully dropped his left wing pretensions and was co-operating with the Tyendinaga Police, leading attempts to disrupt and disperse the Mohawk warrior led rail embargo held to oppose Canada’s RCMP invasion into Wet’suwet’en territory. 

On February 6th, 2020 a fire was lit in a barrel on the side of the road near the intersection of the CN rail line and Wyman Road in Tyendinaga by a group of Mohawks who were outraged with Canada’s treatment of the Wet’suwet’en. A CN rail officer approached the fire and told the people that CN had stopped the trains. A few minutes later, Shawn Brant arrived and soon after Police Chief Jason Brant arrived. Shawn Brant left and wasn’t seen at the tracks again until the evening of February 12th, when he spent the entire evening trying to convince people to go home and end the rail embargo.

The Canadian economy was greatly disrupted by over 300 solidarity actions with the Wet’suwet’en. Eastern Canada suffered a shortage in propane supplies, fuel distributors had to shift transportation from rail to long-haul trucking, and refiners faced logistical challenges in moving fuel from western production centers to markets in Ontario and Quebec.

Greenergy a multinational fuel supply company that had just completed the building of a fuel farm in Johnstown, Ontario was unable to fill their tanks because of the rail disruption. Greenergy is no small player, as it reported revenues of over $21 billion USD  in 2019.

In January of 2025, Real People’s Media spoke with a fuel broker who sells fuel to businesses in Tyendinaga. This broker stated that during the Mohawk solidarity actions in support of the Wet’suwet’en in 2020, he was contacted by Mark Philips, a Commercial Manager of Wholesale Fuels of Greenergy who asked him who had the “influence” in Tyendinaga to get the rail lines open so as to fill the new Greenergy fuel farm tanks. The name the broker provided to Mark Philips as someone who could potentially help in opening the rail lines was Shawn Brant. 

On February 12th, 2020 Shawn Brant appeared at the tracks at Wyman Rd. and encouraged people to disperse the Mohawk rail embargo and open the CN rail line. Shawn Brant and his cousin Tyendinaga Police Chief Jason Brant then wrote a letter falsely representing the people at the blockades, claiming that the majority of the people were leaving and that the blockade and embargo was ended and that only a small number of individuals were unwilling to leave and that the OPP should come and take them away. On February 15th 2020 Tyendinaga Police Chief Jason Brant came to the edge of the camp and read a poem imploring the people to leave. His plea was rejected and he was sent on his way.

After the document announcing the end of the Mohawk rail embargo prepared by Shawn Brant and Tyendinaga Police Chief Jason Brant had been sent to OPP Police Commissioner Thomas Carrique and the existence of the letter was brought to Kanenhariyo Seth Lefort’s attention by elected Band Council Chief R. Donald Maracle on the morning of February 13th, Kanenhariyo spoke with OPP Police Commissioner Carrique on his way to an 8am meeting at the tracks set up at Shawn Brant’s request. Kanenhariyo found out that the Commissioner was under the impression that the camp was coming down and the protest was over based on a document sent to him by Shawn Brant and Jason Brant. 

In a meeting with the MBQ Band Council, the audio record of which has been obtained by Real People’s Media, Kanenhariyo summarized his understanding of what had taken place in a discussion with MBQ Chief and Council. According to Kanenhariyo, on the night of February 12th, 2020, “Shawn Brant showed up over there out of nowhere, and actively worked to try to make everybody terrified. [Brant said] that the only way to deal with this is to leave, and that there’s no leadership here, and all kinds of stuff. The people weren’t listening to him.”

In the recording, MBQ Chief R. Donald Maracle described what Shawn had told him. “He [Shawn] said Jason [Tyendinaga Police Chief] had a solution, and so when we got an email from the [OPP] Commissioner, I thought well whatever plan Jason was thinking about, he must have talked. Because we got an email this morning from the Commissioner saying it was all settled. Then the commissioner sent a press release. I said send me the press release, I have to circulate it to the council.” Then Ted suggested we ask you about it to make sure you were all good with it, and then it went out.” Chief R. Donald Maracle then called Kanenhariyo on the morning of the 13th of February to tell him about the existence of the letter.

After the OPP raided and took away people and tents and food on February 24th, 2020 a larger camp was built on Wyman Rd. to continue support to the Wet’suwet’en. Shawn Brant and his business associate Terry Maracle then attempted to incite mob violence against the encampment by lying to a group of community men after getting them intoxicated with alcohol, stating that the rebuilt camp was now full of “sex offenders” and that they needed to protect the community by immediately dispersing the protest.

When the camp next to the tracks finally dispersed a few weeks later as COVID-19 measures came into place, a solitary fire keeper kept a sacred fire going. That was until March 13th, when Shawn Brant and his head of security, former prison guard Jeffery Maracle assaulted the firekeepers, and were then escorted off the scene by War Chief Kanenhariyo who had been called to the scene. 

“Breaking away” from Mohawk Custom and Convention

Construction on a Breakaway Fuels and Convenience store began a few months after the tracks were re-opened at the property that Shawn Brant bullied Isaiah Miracle and his family out of with the assistance of Police Chief Jason Brant. Breakaway gas stations were introduced by Greenergy in 2018 as a new fuel and convenience offer tailored for the Canadian market but the brand was sold to Ontario-based Global Fuels Inc. in 2023.

Since opening his gas station, Shawn Brant has consistently kept fuel prices low on the territory by selling gas below cost. 

On March 5th, 2025, Brant’s most recent economic attack on the Mohawk business community at Tyendinaga began. Seeking to disrupt the sale of alcohol from community retailers who have turned to the sale of alcohol because Brant has destroyed the profit margins of cannabis, tobacco and fuel, Brant has approached other gas station owners and informed them that if they side with him in his campaign to oppose tax free alcohol sales on the territory he will “stop putting gas out for cost.” The sentiment of several entrepreneurs that Real People’s Media spoke to is that if Shawn Brant’s past practice is a guide to future action, he will first seek to stop the sales of licensed and sovereign self-governed alcohol sales, and that if that doesn’t work he will get in and drive the price down to the point that there is no viable profit margin.  

One Mohawk entrepreneur Real People’s Media spoke with told us that Tyendinaga business people in the community have been talking about organizing to put a stop to predatory pricing across industries. He said, “In Akwesasne, the gas station owners meet together every Monday morning to discuss pricing and address any issues that may come up relating to their industry. Mohawk entrepreneurs should come together to govern entrepreneurial behaviour in accordance with our customs and usages regarding the pricing and sales of fuel, tobacco, cannabis, and fish, the main economic industries within the Mohawk community at Tyendinaga.”

Shawn Brant and Mark Philips were asked for comment on this article and did not reply by our press deadline.