Leaders of the Robinson Huron Treaty Litigation Fund announced that they have reached a proposed settlement totaling $10 billion for past losses with the Canadian and Ontario governments.
The fund, which represents 21 Robinson-Huron Treaty First Nations, said the proposed settlement only affects annuities that have only increased once in more than 170 years.
The Robinson-Huron Treaty was signed in 1850. The government of what was then United Canada, a British colony, was to pay these groups an annual annuity tied to revenues from the natural resources of their territory.
Annuities increased only once in 1875 when they went from $1.70 per person to $4 per person. The amount has remained the same since that time.
Under the settlement, the federal government will pay half of this amount, with the other portion to be paid by Ontario.
Spokesperson Duke Peltier of Wiikwemkoong Unceded Territory reports that in 2012, “21 First Nations came together to hold the governments of Canada and Ontario to account through the courts,” but that an agreement was finally reached after negotiations began in April 2022.
“We know that reconciliation is not possible in a courtroom. Canada and Ontario have heard us and met with us at the negotiating table to make this proposed settlement a reality,” he said in the statement released Saturday.
Chief Dean Sayers of the Batchewana First Nation said “the compensation provided in this settlement will ensure a stronger and brighter future for our people and our nations.”
For his part, federal Minister of Crown-Indigenous Relations, Marc Miller, said he hopes the settlement will help advance efforts “to find common solutions to right the wrongs of the past. [et renforcer] future treaty relationships”.