Lawyers representing four South Shore cities will appear in court Monday to try to prevent a historic land transfer from the provincial government to the Kahnawake Mohawk territory.

The cities filed suit four years ago, after the Quebec government signed an agreement to return 500 acres of land that had been appropriated, in 2006, for the construction of Highway 30. Had the transfer gone through, it would have been the first time in the community’s history any government returned land to Kahnawake.

The mayors of Châteauguay, St-Constant, Ste-Catherine and Ste-Isidore said they hadn’t been consulted prior to the deal — which concerns a sliver of farmland that borders their communities.

Kahnawake Chief Joe Norton didn’t mince words ahead of Monday’s court appearance.

“We didn’t start this lawsuit, but I’ll be damned if we aren’t going to have our say in this matter,” he said, in a statement published last week. “This exercise is nothing but a means to prevent us from gaining any type of perceived economic development advantage in the region. As far as we’re concerned, the attack isn’t (the municipalities) versus Quebec. It’s the (municipalities) versus Kahnawake — pure and simple.”

Though the Mohawk band council is not targeted by the lawsuit, Norton said the legal action has been a “huge thorn” in Kahnawake’s side since it has put the land deal on ice for years.

“We have been robbed of several economic development opportunities because the land has not been formally returned to reserve status,” he said. “We have been frustrated because, once again, we acted in good faith while others haven’t.”

When the municipalities filed their motion to block the land transfer in 2013, Châteauguay Mayor Nathalie Simon insisted she was open to meeting with the Mohawks and the government to reach a settlement.

“We fully understand that the Mohawks have been wronged time and time again, but two wrongs don’t make a right,” Simon told the Montreal Gazette. “The simple fact is that we were never consulted and this is land that encroached our four communities.”

Norton tried to pressure Simon into abandoning the suit in 2015, when he called on Kahnwake’s 8,000 residents to boycott businesses in Châteauguay. The tactic, however, proved unsuccessful.

Of the 40,000 acres the Crown ceded to the Mohawks for the creation of Kahnawake in the 18th century, only 13,000 remain. Most of the remaining land is now occupied by South Shore suburbs, privately owned farms, highways and industrial lots.