Proposed settlement reached in Robinson Huron Treaty dispute

The governments of Ontario and Canada and the 21 signatory Anishinabek nations of the Robinson and Huron treaties announced at a ceremony on June 17 that they have arrived at a proposed out-of-court settlement in a longstanding dispute over annuities to which members of the signatory nations are collectively and individually entitled under the treaties dating back to 1850.

The treaty lands encompass a vast territory extending inland from the shores of Lake Superior and Lake Huron, including Georgian Bay. You can read about the treaties’ histories here and here. According to the Robinson Huron Treaty Litigation Fund, which represents the 21 Anishinabek nations, “The First Nations claim that under the Robinson Huron Treaty, the collective annuity to the First Nations and beneficiaries should have increased over time as resource revenues within the Treaty territory increased. The annuity increased only once, rising from approximately $1.70 per person to $4 per person in 1875, and hasn’t increased since.”

The Anishinabek nations were successful in the first two stages of their litigation in establishing that annuities had not been increased as they should have. While Ontario intended to appeal those decisions to the Supreme Court of Canada, with the case expected to come up this fall, the federal government accepted the decisions. All three parties however paused the process for the third trial stage, which would have established specific monies owing for past under-payments and the monies to be paid going forward, and were able to negotiate the proposed settlement.

Under the proposal, the Anishinabek nations would receive $10 billion for past underpayments, to be provided equally by the province and the federal government. The nature of past and future payments, and how they should be distributed, has yet to be determined. I am taking a wild, half-educated guess and expect that the settlement will not be exclusively cash, and that some transfer of Crown land, or management/stewardship in the form of an Indigenous Protected Conservation Area such as the one created last year at Georgian Bay’s Shawanaga Island, will form part of it.