First Nations in northern Ont. seek over $100B to honour treaty promise
CTV
A legal battle playing out in a northern Ontario courtroom this month has seen an alliance of First Nations argue they are owed upwards of $100 billion for the Crown's failure to honour a 173-year-old treaty promise, while the federal and provincial governments claim they are either owed far less, or nothing at all.
A legal battle playing out in a northern Ontario courtroom this month has seen an alliance of First Nations argue they are owed upwards of $100 billion for the Crown's failure to honour a 173-year-old treaty promise, while the federal and provincial governments claim they are either owed far less, or nothing at all.
The case being heard in Thunder Bay, Ont., could have historic implications for First Nations representing roughly 15,000 Anishinaabe people along the northern shores of Lake Superior and is being closely followed by legal observers.
At the centre of the trial – which is currently hearing closing arguments – is what the First Nations argue is a broken treaty promise that has resulted in a generations-long sentence to poverty while non-Indigenous communities thrived from the territory's resource wealth.
"This case is about righting wrongs and, finally, the government adhering to the treaties that were in place, and the First Nations getting what they're owed," Chief Marcus Hardy of the Red Rock First Nation, one of the Nations behind the claim, said in an interview.
Anishinaabe leaders signed two treaties in 1850 covering territory along the northern shores of Lake Superior and Lake Huron, stretching from what's now Thunder Bay south toward Parry Sound, Ont.
As part of those agreements – known as the Robinson-Superior and Robinson-Huron treaties – the Crown promised an annuity to the Anishinaabe and included a unique clause to increase the annual payment as resource revenue permitted.
That annuity was first set at around $1.60 per capita, and has only been increased once, to $4 in 1875. Now, the First Nations argue they are owed billions.
