With settlement talks now looming to resolve an annuity issue with 21 First Nations, including Nipissing First Nation (NFN), work has to begin to determine what value to place on the annuity.
Mike Restoule, of NFN and the lead plaintiff in the Indigenous claim against the federal and provincial governments, says it will take quite a bit of time to arrive at a value.
In 1850 when the governments signed the Robinson Huron Treaty with the area First Nations, the residents were to receive $4 a year (the annuity) based on how much revenue both governments collected in revenue from mining and forestry operations.
Under the Treaty the annuity was to rise as revenue grew.
However, while the revenue did rise over the decades, the annuity remained at $4 a year.
Last month a judge ruled the annuity should have increased since 1850 but didn’t assign a value leaving that up to the parties.
Restoule says arriving at a value will be difficult because both the feds and province collected revenue on the land-based resources for the entire province and not just the land involving the First Nations within the Robinson Huron region.
Restoule asked, “So how does the province split that off from the rest of Ontario and say this is the amount of revenue that was (collected) in the Robinson Huron Treaty territory?”
“This is something that should have started in the 1850s. They should have kept tabs on that. But they didn’t and now it’s going to take some research to try and find a global figure for the revenue from the territory.”
Restoule says up to now he knows this research has yet to begin, that’s despite the federal and provincial governments being advised to start the work.
He says a mediator told both governments last year in March to come back with something on the revenue but so far he has no information that this has happened.
