Land Claim negotiators say vote on AIP is less than a year off

Jeff Green | May 17, 2012

This time, they really seem to mean it.

Land Claim negotiators Brian Crane (Government of Ontario), Robert Potts (Algonquins of Ontario) and the new kid on the block, Ron Doering (Government of Canada), said last week that they expect that up to 9,000 Algonquin descendants will be voting on an Agreement in Principle (AIP) in early 2013.

Robert Potts, a Toronto-based lawyer who has been the chief negotiator for the Algonquins of Ontario since 2005, said there has been steady progress in negotiations over the last couple of years.

“We've done very well in the time we've spent working on this. We are forging ahead and we are doing it in a very business-like fashion. We are not playing games,” Potts said.

Brian Crane, a senior partner with the Ottawa law firm Gowlings, has been the representative to the Government of Ontario to the negotiations for about 15 years. He said that a ratification vote could take place as early as next winter.

The comments were made at a briefing session for the media that took place in Perth on May 9, just before the negotiators held a closed meeting with municipal representatives.

The negotiations have taken 20 years to proceed to this point. The Algonquin Land Claim is unique in Canada in a couple of ways. Unlike virtually all other claims process, in this case there is no existing historical treaty to refer to. Secondly, the 36,000 square kilometre territory, which encompasses the entire Ottawa River watershed on the Ontario side as well as a portion of the Mattawa River watershed, is home to over a million people.

Quite apart from the negotiations with the provincial and federal governments, the Algonquins have dealt with internal challenges. The land claims process was frozen between 2001 and 2003 because the Algonquin communities were not in a position to have a unified presence at the land claim table.

Eventually an internal accommodation was reached among the Algonquins, although it has left a number of opposing groups out of the process. The entire seven-member council of the Pikwàkanagàn Algonquin First Nation sit as Algonquin Nation Representatives (ANR) at the negotiating table. Pikwàkanagàn is the only Algonquin reserve on the Ontario side of the Ottawa River, and its members have native status under the Canada Indian Act. The other nine identified Algonquin communities, which are scattered throughout the land claim territory, are made up of people who are for the most part “non-status” Algonquins as far as the Indian Act is concerned.

In 2005 the Pikwàkanagàn leadership agreed that for the purpose of negotiating the claim, anyone who could demonstrate they are a direct descendant of one of the people on a list of some 1,500 names would be eligible to join one of the Algonquin communities and vote for an ANR to represent them at the negotiating table. Those names were drawn from census and other information that dates back to the mid or late 19th century,

In Perth last week, Robert Potts confirmed that these electors will also be beneficiaries once the Algonquin Land Claim is settled, and that there will only be one class of beneficiary. Pikwàkanagàn members, for example, will not receive any extra benefits.

An updated electors' list is being developed, and Potts said that there might be as many as 9,000 people who will be eligible for a ratification vote on the Agreement in Principle next year. New criteria have been added to the “direct descendancy” requirement, including “demonstrating a cultural and social connection with an Algonquin community, and demonstrating they have a life event connection with the territory,” said Potts.

“We realize these additional criteria are less clearly defined than direct descendancy, which requires genealogical proof, but we wanted to make sure that all the people who are involved at this point have some previous stake in the territory in addition to their genealogical connection,” he added.

Electors may identify with an Algonquin community that is not participating in the land claim negotiations, opening up the door for members of a number of communities who have walked away from the talks to vote on the Agreement in Principle.

While all of the elements of the agreement were not divulged in Perth last week, the negotiators confirmed that the deal will include a number of parcels of so-called Crown land that are currently under the purview of the Government of Ontario, as well as a cash settlement. There will be no self-government provisions over the land that is transferred; the Algonquin ownership will be the same as that of any other landowner, and the land will be subject to municipal taxation.

Benefits will not flow directly to individuals or even the local Algonquin communities, such as the Shabot Obaadjiwan or the Snimikobe, the two communities with signifigant membership from our local region.

The money and land will go to an “Algonquin Nation Trust” Potts said, which will likely be administered out of Pembroke, where the Algonquins of Ontario consultation office was set up a couple of years ago.

“Settlement lands are usually transferred to a single organization,” said Brian Crane.

The specific pieces of land that will be transferred have not been finalized, but “I would say we have done a lot of extensive work internally and we are now in the process of starting to discuss possible land selections,” said Crane.

The claim will solidify hunting, fishing and other harvesting rights that have been covered by interim agreements over the past number of years, but Robert Potts confirmed that aside from the lands that are to be transferred, forestry and mining rights throughout the territory will be retained by the government of Ontario.

“Forestry and mining rights are essentially commercial rights” said Brian Crane. “We have already developed a consultation process in relation to mining. Algonquin entrepreneurs are already in the forestry industry and want to continue to develop forestry on Algonquin lands, and a large proportion of the lands that might be available to them through the process are forestry lands,”.

“Settling the Algonquin claim will be very good for Eastern Ontario,” said Potts. “It will bring certainty for everyone involved. It will bring economic development for everyone involved as well. All of the money that will be part of the settlement will flow into the territory. And it will also be an opportunity to begin a process of reconciliation.”

Not so for the Algonquins residing in Quebec, apparently.

Quebec Algonquins to oppose Ontario settlement by Jeff Green

Algonquin history is tied in with the Kichi Sipi, "the Great River of the Algonquins", which we now call the Ottawa River. It is no coincidence that the land claim territory that is being negotiated by the Algonquins of Ontario (AOO) is the Ontario section of the Ottawa River Valley. The valley extends, of course, to the other side of the river, the Quebec side, and on the Quebec side there are nine ‘status’ Algonquin communities.

Chief Gilbert Whiteduck, of the largest of those communities, the Kitigan Zibi, most of whom live on a 45,000 acre reserve located near Maniwaki, Quebec, has some serious concerns about the potential settlement of the Ontario land claim.

“The first thing I would say is that I acknowledge the reasons why the Pikwàkanagàn Council is pursuing this land claim in the manner that they are. We share many ties, including family ties, with Pikwàkanagàn, and they are working to bring improvements to their communities. What concerns us, however, is that any settlement made in Ontario could impact on our rights on that same territory,” he said in a telephone interview this week.

Chief Whiteduck said that when land claims have been settled in the past they have invariably extinguished the rights of any other claimants to those territories, and “The letters we have received about the Ontario claim indicate that our rights will be compromised.”

Last year, Whiteduck presented a map of Algonquin territory to the federal government, a map that encompassed a large swath of land, 650,000 acres, in Ontario and Quebec.

“We presented that map not as part of any land claim, but in order to reaffirm our territory.”

Whiteduck is also concerned about the inclusion of claimants who are “not formally recognised under the Indian Act” in the Ontario claim.

“As far as I know there is no limit on these claimants; they could be 15th generations descendants,” he said.

Bob Potts, the chief negotiator for the Algonquins of Ontario, made a presentation to the Kitigan Zibi, and the inclusion of non-status Algonquins in the land claim was addressed at that meeting.

“Mr. Potts said that in essence they had been denied for decades and decades the benefits that people have received who are living on an Indian reserve. That did not get a great reaction from our people, because reserves have brought a lot of negative things along with them,” said Whiteduck.

“I don’t want to deny anyone their claims, and we acknowledge people's descendancy, but we are very worried that we will lose our rights if this claim is settled. We’ve had a look at the treaty, and we have tremendous concerns. When and how we will intervene, we don’t know, but we will intervene somehow.”