(OTTAWA) The Supreme Court will hear a legal battle over Crown compensation to Indigenous communities who ceded much of northern Ontario under two treaties signed in 1850.
Posted at 11:25 a.m.
The Ontario government is seeking to challenge a decision by the province’s Court of Appeal, which found last year that the Crown violated the terms of its treaties with the Anishinabe people of the north shores of Lakes Huron and Superior, by capping its annual payments at $4 per person for more than a century.
According to court documents, the amount of this annuity had been increased to $4 per person in 1875, but it has not changed since.
In its decision, the Ontario Court of Appeal found that although the federal and provincial governments agree that the pension should be increased in some way, “no action has been taken to do so”.
Accordingly, the Court of Appeal found that the Crown breached the treaty provision which provides for a sharing of revenues from the territory’s natural resources.
The Court of Appeal therefore sent the case back to the trial judge to determine the amount of money that is owed to the First Nations involved and which level of government — provincial, federal, or both — would be responsible. of this compensation.