MONTREAL — Canada’s top court is currently weighing a $2-million dispute that has embroiled a Quebec lawyer and a Montreal-area Mohawk community for more than two decades.

The Supreme Court’s decision in the case, which may be handed down this fall, could effectively cancel a debt owed to the lawyer by the Mohawk Council of Kanesatake since 2004.

Alternatively, the court could rule that the lawyer’s bill still stands, though the council says it has little hope of paying off a debt that’s now worth roughly three times its original amount.

“If this stands, basically the First Nation could be in perpetual debt, like forever,” said Serge Simon, former grand chief of Kanesatake. “I don’t even want to imagine what happens if we lose.”

The origins of the dispute date back to 2001, when the ba

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