Land Claim Meetings Point To Contentious Issues

Jeff Green | Mar 14, 2013

The Ministry of Aboriginal Affairs (Ontario) has sponsored a series of meetings throughout the region to talk about the Agreement in Principle that has been reached between the Algonquins of Ontario and the governments of Ontario and Canada.

Last week meetings were held in Ottawa, Perth and Kingston, and this week the travelling land claim road show will be in North Bay, Pembroke, Mattawa and Bancroft.

The meetings are set up as drop-in information sessions. There is a lot of information available about the agreement, lots of maps on the wall, and lots of detail about the agreement itself. Eager Ministry of Aboriginal Affairs officials are available at every turn to explain exactly how far the Algonquin Land Claim process has come and how much further it has to go.

The meetings run from 3:00 until 8:00 pm, and they shift from quiet drop-ins to free-wheeling question and answer sessions at 6:30 when seats are set out for a public forum. The senior negotiators for all three parties to the agreement present very brief remarks and then face the public.

A parallel set of meetings took place earlier in February in most of the same cities. They also featured maps on walls, copies of documents, etc., but they were put on as primers by groups that are critical of the land claim process and the Agreement in Principle as well. The Ontario Federation of Anglers and Hunters (OFAH), the Federation of Ontario Cottage Associations (FOCA) and the Canadian Sport Fishing Industry Association (CSFIA) jointly sponsored those meetings and also an accompanying website, Algonquinlandclaim.com.

Matt Demille, a researcher with the OFAH, pointed out some of his organisation's key concerns with the Agreement in Principle, such as: potential uses for the 200 parcels of land that are going to be transferred to the Algonquins of Ontario; some of the muddy language in the agreement as regards harvesting rights; and the lack of clarity about what kind of a park will be established in North Frontenac surrounding Crotch Lake.

But the leaders of the three groups had a more basic political point to make. They said they have participated in stakeholder meetings with the governments about the land claim for 15 years, but at those meetings the governments shared little or no information and never listened to any of the concerns expressed by the stakeholders.

“We have been vocal in asking questions and demanding answers over the years, and we’ve got none. As far as the input at the public meetings that are coming up having an impact, don’t hold your breath. But it is important to show the government we will not roll over,” said OFAH President Bill Blackwell.

I attended one of the OFAH/FOCA/CSFIA meetings on February 22, and the general feeling that I came out of the meeting with was that there is a lot of anger and mistrust, directed not only at the government but at the Algonquins as well.

I also attended the Ministry of Aboriginal Affairs-sponsored meeting in Perth last Thursday night, March 7, and the public session at that meeting did not change that impression at all.

The first question at the March 7 meeting immediately strayed from the land claim into a long-standing grievance.

“I'd like to talk about the need for conservation of resources,” the questioner said, “I'm wondering whether, once the land claim is settled, there will be any restrictions on the Algonquins netting Walleye in the spring. Will they continue to have the right to rape the walleye population? I'm sick of seeing Algonquin from Sharbot Lake spearing walleye and using chicken wire to block streams, while fisheries officials do nothing. Was chicken wire part of their traditional harvesting patterns hundreds and thousands of years ago?” said the man, who identified himself as being involved in Walleye spawning programs in Westport.

Brian Crane, who is a lawyer and the long-serving chief negotiator (since 1998) for Ontario, pointed out that the land claim is not about settling Aboriginal rights.

“Under the law the Algonquins have Aboriginal rights to hunt and fish and there cannot be an agreement that abridges those rights. The agreement will not extinguish those Aboriginal rights, but there is also a conservation issue at play. That is the job of the fisheries department.”

The second questioner of the night then came forward.

“Somehow or other we all have to get along together. Rights that go to one and not another end up looking preferential. Will this agreement draw us together or will it push us further apart?”

This question cuts to the heart of the entire public debate about the land claim.

The land claim is an attempt to resolve a legal issue of jurisdiction over the land we all live on, the land where many of us were born and where our parents were born and where our children were born. The land we have invested our energy in and the land from which we draw the water that keeps us alive.

The property we own, the businesses and institutions we have built over the centuries, are all located on land that was never legally acquired by the Government of Canada. Since everything we have built here flows from land grants that came from Canada, and its junior partner, Ontario, we have a collective interest to settle this land claim once and for all.

That is all well and good for lawyers and government officials, but on the ground, the concerns expressed at the meetings are more concrete.

How can one person, by virtue of an Aboriginal right, have the right to trap Walleye in chicken wire during the crucial spawning season, when there is a crisis in the Walleye fishery?

For that matter, how can the Shabot Obaadjiwan First Nation operate smoke shops with impunity when shopkeepers across the road have been hounded out of selling any kind of cigarettes by the Smoke Free Ontario Act?

What does that have to do with reconciliation and with living together into the future?

The land claim will head behind closed doors again after the public flurry we are seeing this month. It will not emerge to the public for another 5 years or so, at which time it will truly be a fait accompli.

In the interim there is time for the local Algonquin communities to begin to move on from the land claim and the pre-occupation with enrolment that they have been engaged in for years, and begin to prepare for a new role as landholding institutions with economic clout, and as First Nations that are ready to take a central role in the cultural life of our local communities.

After all, the distinction between indigenous and non-indigenous people in our communities is rather subtle and is only one of the many elements that define what is in reality an integrated whole.

To move forward we will have to come out of the shadows more, however. We need to hammer out our differences in our own communities and not in front of government officials and lawyers who live somewhere else.