Robinson Superior Treaty annuities case heads back to court after settlement talks fail
First Nations expected dozens of billions of dollars, they say Ontario and Canada offered $3.6B
Negotiations to settle a longstanding case involving annuities owed to 12 First Nations along the shores of Lake Superior have broken down.
The Supreme Court of Canada had given the federal and Ontario governments until Jan. 26 to make offers in a case estimated to be worth billions of dollars.
The Anishnaabe Nations of Robinson Superior Treaty entered talks last month expecting a settlement offer in the dozens of billions – a lot more than the $3.6B offer Canada and Ontario made.
"They simply ignored the economic evidence about how much wealth Canada and Ontario took from our lands," said Gull Bay First Nation chief Wilfred King.
According to a Supreme Court of Canada ruling, the two Crown governments must now each pay their half of the $3.6-billion offer to the First Nations, even if the Anishnaabe communities intend to turn back to the courts.
An Ontario court hearing with Justice Patricia Hennessy is scheduled for June in Thunder Bay. The Robinson Superior Annuities litigation team intends to ask her to review the settlement offer.
"Our position is that the amount offered was not enough," said King.
Hennessy's decisions in the coming months could potentially be appealed to another Ontario court, or even back to the Supreme Court, adding more years to an already decade-long legal battle.
"We've waited 174 years for this money," said Michipicoten chief Patricia Tangie. "What's another 10?"
In its decision last summer, Canada's top court said the Crown had made a "mockery" of the treaty over the last 175 years, and its settlement offer for annuities owing could be reviewed by the courts.
The Robinson treaties promised the Anishinaabe that the annual payments they received from the Crown in exchange for the right to extract resources from their land would increase according to the wealth produced in the territory, but they've been capped at $4 per person per year since 1874.
Federal government says its offer was fair
Eric Head, spokesperson for Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs Canada, says the federal government's offer was fair, just and honourable.
"We worked closely [and] in good faith with the First Nations and Ontario over the past six months to try to reach a negotiated agreement," he wrote.
"Unfortunately, the parties could not find the common ground to achieve this goal in the six-month timeline provided by the Supreme Court of Canada."
Head declined to say how much of the $3.6B offer would have come from federal coffers, saying details remain confidential at this time.
"Arriving at the compensation amount, Canada considered the factors set down by the Supreme Court of Canada, our past discussions with our treaty partners, all the facts in this case, and the evidence heard during the trial," he continued.
King says Ontario and Canada had planned to each pay half of the $3.6B settlement offer to the Robinson Superior Nations, just like they did in the $10B out-of-court settlement reached with the other groups of plaintiffs in the case, the 21 Robinson Huron Treaty Nations, back in 2023.