What will the Algonquin Land Claim accomplish?

Jeff Green | Mar 18, 2010

Shabot Obaadjiwan Chief Doreen Davis presenting former Ontario minister of Aboriginal Affairs Brad Duguid with a memento of his attendance at the opening of the Algonquin consultation office in Pembroke on January 11th.

The Algonquin Land Claim process is 20 years old. While there are many who think it will never be resolved, the establishment of the Algonquin Consultation Office in Pembroke as well as the fact that the target date for a Memorandum of Understanding has been set for March of 2011, suggests that there may actually be a deal in the works.

Information about the claim that has been released to the media has been so general as to give little insight into the details of the deal that may be in the works.

We do know, however, that the deal will likely include an amount of land, as well as money for economic development that will be shared among the “communities” or “First Nations” that are at the negotiation table. There will also be provisions for hunting rights and a consultation and/or royalty agreement for resource extraction, such as mining or forestry.

Land Claims in general, and this one in particular, are complicated, unruly enterprises. Two of the major contradictions that are inherent in the process are the fact that 'land' itself is not something that can rightly be claimed. It is jurisdiction over the land that is the issue, and there is a complicated set of economic and legal relationships that have developed between governments and individuals related to land use in Ontario and Canada that are not going to be altered by this, or any land claim.

The governments involved in the Algonquin Land Claim are being pushed by Supreme Court of Canada rulings to accomplish a deal that will solidify their jurisdiction over the 8.9 million acres that are included in this particular claim.

The question of who this deal must be done with is problematic because the land was appropriated over a period of time, starting up to 400 years ago, and there are no written records about who used what piece of land for what purpose over the preceding 1,000 years or more.

This reality is underlined by the fact that a treaty was signed in the 1800s with the Mississauga First Nation for much of the land that is now under negotiation as the Algonquin Land Claim – land which turned out never to have been Mississauga territory. That treaty as it pertains to these lands has since been discarded.

Court rulings and government decisions have established the Ottawa Valley as Algonquin Territory for the purposes of seeking an agreement over jurisdiction. The next problem is:

“Who are the Algonquins?”

The Federal Indian Act assigns “native status” to certain people, based on several criteria, the major one being “blood quantum”, the percentage of native blood that courses through the veins of an individual.

Blood quantum is more than problematic. Over time as First Nations peoples marry people of other genetic backgrounds, the blood quantum will continue to thin and the numbers of people who are eligible for “native status” will inevitably decrease.

To paraphrase what an elder from the Alderville reserve near Peterborough once said to me, “Canada is a nation that takes people in and grants them citizenship. That is how a nation grows. How can First Nations grow and prosper if we as First Nations deny citizenship to our children because of who we marry. What other nation on earth does that?”

As far as the Algonquin Land Claim is concerned, the only native “status” community in the territory is the Pikwàkanagàn reserve, which includes about 400 residents and 1500 off reserve members.

All of the other communities, including the Shabot Obaadjiwan, which is based in Sharbot Lake, and the Snimikobe, which also has a number of members in Frontenac County, are “non status” communities in terms of the Indian Act.

Membership criteria in these First Nations is only restricted to “direct descendants” from an individual who is listed on a schedule of names that was developed in 1987.

The schedule, known as “Schedule B”, includes names that were taken from the Algonquin petitions, speeches and Council proceedings that relate to or refer to Algonquin Territory lying in Ontario prior to that time.

Direct descent is a less onerous requirement than blood quantum, and it creates a larger number of people in the Algonquin Nation.

It also does not provide an end of the line and allows for the possibility of a growth in Algonquin population over time.

It does, however, provide for the possibility that people with some pretty tenuous connections to their Algonquin ancestry, perhaps a single great-great grandfather, 1/64 or 1/128 by blood, becoming a beneficiary of the Algonquin Land Claim.

Ultimately the blood quantum criteria and the direct descent criteria each have difficulties associated with them: one is too restrictive and the other may be too open.

These contradictions are not exclusive to the land claims process. Any public discussion that centres on questions of bloodlines and race issues is destined to lead to difficulties, particularly in light of the fact that people in our society are less and less inclined to stay within their own culture when finding a mate.

Recent projections released by Stats Canada say that “visible minorities” will be in the majority in major Canadian cities within 20 years.

It turns out that visible minorities are defined by Stats Canada as “persons who are identified according to the Employment Equity Act as being non-Caucasian in race or non-white in colour. Under the Act, Aboriginal persons are not considered to be members of visible minority groups.”

Visible minorities are defined in the report as South Asians, Chinese, Blacks, Filipinos, Arabs and West Asians. Latin Americans, as well as Aboriginals, among others, are not considered visible minorities.

But just as Algonquin communities have seen their “blood quantum” diminish over time, so will all the other ethnic groups in Canada, and around the world.

As societies develop, skin colour and racial backgrounds will inevitably become diminishing issues (at least that is the hope). As we move forward as a multi-ethnic, multi-cultural society that recognizes not only the foreign roots that people have, but the native (Aboriginal) roots as well, racial idiosyncrasies will cease to define anything of importance.

In this context the Land Claim process must be a way of honouring not only the heritage of people who can claim Algonquin roots, but also the cultural legacy of the Algonquins. The genetic connection to the past will inevitably be diluted over time, but the cultural connection need not follow.

Ultimately the success of the Land Claim will be measured not in the amount of money or land or hunting or resource rights that are achieved, nor even in who gets what share of the spoils.

What is at stake in this process, is whether two, three or seven generations down the road there will be any kind of cultural memory of how people lived on this land 500 years ago, what that land meant to them, and how that past can be honoured and what it can teach.

The Algonquin profile in Sharbot Lake, and in the region as a whole, remains fragile even after 20 years of land claims talks and the concerted efforts of numerous people.

If the Shabot Obaadjiwan or the Snimikobe, or the Ardoch Algonquin First Nation (which opposes the land claim for a variety of reasons) are not able to establish themselves as active communities that maintain and foster Algonquin traditions and bring this heritage to the forefront of the local scene, then the Land Claim will be nothing but a legal exercise that expunges Aboriginal rights over this territory forever.

Further information about the land claim can be found at Tanakiwin.com and at http://www.aboriginalaffairs.gov.on.ca/english/negotiate/algonquin/algonquin.asp