Robinson Superior First Nations provided settlement offer from Canada over annuities owed
CTV
Details haven’t been made public yet about the settlement offer presented on Friday by Canada to the 12 First Nations in the Robinson Superior Treaty Territory.
Details haven’t been made public yet about the settlement offer presented on Friday by Canada to the 12 First Nations in the Robinson Superior Treaty Territory.
It’s connected to a Supreme Court ruling from this summer where the Crown was found to have breached its duty to adjust annuity payments to First Nations sharing their land.
The Robinson-Superior and Robinson-Huron treaties were negotiated between the First Nations people living around Lake Superior and Lake Huron and the Crown in 1850. They were promised annual payments in exchange for the right to extract resources from their land. That amount was supposed to increase over time, but in 1875 was capped at $4 per person.
The court ruling from July 2024 found the Ontario and Canadian governments had a mandatory obligation to raise that amount.
The legal battle for fair payments has been ongoing for more than 20 years. The First Nations of Robinson Superior started in 1999, while their Robinson Huron counterparts began in 2012.
First Nations under the Robinson Huron Treaty settled their case in 2023 for $10 billion, with half coming from Ontario and half coming from Canada.
