Next phase of Restoule Treaty annuity appeal beginning in early June – Law Times
12 May 2021
The second stage of the Restoule v. Canada (Attorney General) appeal, in which a number of Ontario First Nations claim the Crown has not fulfilled its obligation to augment treaty annuity payments, will be heard in the first few days of June.
The subject of the litigation is a clause in both the Robinson-Huron and the Robinson-Superior Treaties, which the First-Nation signatories argue requires the government to raise annuity payments over time. Separate claims were brought regarding each Treaty. The cases were combined and heard together because they deal with similar facts and a similar clause, but they have not been consolidated.
In 2018, Superior Court Justice Patricia Hennessy found the Crown had a mandatory obligation to increase the annuity and had failed to for the last 150 years. Ontario is appealing. Canada is not.
