Land Deal with Ontario’s Ojibway Still in Contention after 164 Years – Mining Life
First Nations signatories of one of Canada’s founding treaties are set to start a landmark court action Tuesday against the federal and provincial governments on what they say is a failure to live up to terms of a deal made more than 150 years ago.
Nearly two dozen First Nations fall under the Robinson Huron Treaty of 1850, a vast territory encompassing 92,463 square kilometres in the middle of Ontario stretching from Sudbury to the shores of Lakes Superior and Huron and points north.
In exchange for use of those lands by the crown, indigenous people were told they would be paid $2 a year with regular increases as profits from the land grew, said Mike Restoule, chairperson of the Robinson Huron Treaty Trust Fund.
But there has been only one annuity increase of $2 in 1874 and nothing since, even though the area contains vast mining, forestry and land resources that corporations and the government have profited from for decades, said Restoule.
