OTTAWA – Elected Chief Ava Hill was in Ottawa this week attending a Federal Court Hearing launched in 2010 by four large First Nations communities: Six Nations, Tyendinaga, Oneida and Wikwemikong, to the Human Rights Commission.
The complaint is that as large First Nations, they are being discriminated against in respect to funding based on the Federal Government’s funding formulas.
“The Human Rights Commission originally agreed to deal with the complaint, but then reversed their decision,” says Hill.
The issue is now before the Federal Court seeking a decision to send it back to the Human Rights Commission.
The delegates met with lawyers for a briefing Monday with the hearing slated for Tuesday.
From there, Hill will be heading for Toronto to attend a Political Conference meeting of the Chiefs of Ontario. This gathering brings together the Ontario Regional Chief and the Grand Chiefs of Association of Iroquois and Allied Indians, the Anishinabek Nation, Grand Council Treaty 3, Nishnawbe Aski Nation, a representative for the Independent First Nations, the Mushkegowuk Tribal Council and the Six Nations and Akwesasne band councils.
Meanwhile the Iroquois caucus rejected the First Nations Education Act that will give First Nations more money.
And maybe, if the Six Nations of the Grand River would settle their claims, they would get the money they think they need.
And when there is no law to stop Indian band councils in Canada from taxing Indians on reserves and when about 1/6 of Indian reserves are taxing Indians on reserves, why don’t chief Hill and council organize to at least get businesses on the Six Nations of the Grand River reserve to pay some business taxes to help run the reserve?
Surely, those businesses and business owners would like to help their people.
“Meanwhile the Iroquois caucus rejected the First Nations Education Act that will give First Nations more money.”
Wrong story. Take your whining some place else.
“And maybe, if the Six Nations of the Grand River would settle their claims, they would get the money they think they need.”
Six Nations like all the other Mohawk / Haudenosaunee territories will only settle for land. There is over $1.5 trillion of Six nations / Haudenosaunee money sitting in a trust in Ottawa. They don’t need any more money for land.
And before you cut and paste your usual diatribe about how the government will only offer financial settlement let me preempt you by pointing out:
1. A statement by the INAC saying they would only make financial settlements was based on a Conservative policy, not law. In fact many recent settlements have included land, and
2. The Federal Court of Canada rejected the policy last year citing it was a violation against the “honour of the Crown” to remove land return as part of any negotiations on land claims. They ordered AANDC to keep land settlement as one of the viable options on table in the negotiations over the Culbertson Tract in Deseronto.
The Tyendinaga Mohawks accepted a 1793 Simcoe Patent (deed) for their land. The Six Nations of the Grand River did not.
First of all, the Six Nations of the Grand River would have to prove the land along the Grand River belonged to the Six Nations and not to the British Crown.
Nope they didn’t. The Simcoe deed was imposed on them at the same time that the government insituted rules that attempted to starve the residents of the reserve unless they surrendered the north half of the reserve.
Tyendinaga has already received a settlement of land about six years ago that involved handing over the entire village of Shannonvile. It was all third-party land. Deseronto will be subject to the same fate in the next couple of years.
Well, the Mohawks of Tyendinaga are using the 1793 Simcoe Patent (deed) to support their claims that land wasn’t surrendered or sold according to conditions in that patent.
The Simcoe Treaty 3 1/2 was not a deed and the Crown never owned the land. The original treaty lands extended from Kingston to Cobourg and from Lake Ontario to where Highway 7 is today – in in recognition of the Royal Proclamation 1763 which recognized that Six Nations held title to Southern Ontario. There has never been any treaty or legitmate surrender of any of those lands and under Canadian law remain the territory of Six Nations today.
The British Crown arranged to buy the land around the Bay of Quinte from the Mississauga Indians before letting John Desorontyn and his followers occupy the land that became the Mohawk Tyendinaga reserve.
If it was already Six Nations land, why didn’t Desorontyn and the Mississauga Indians say so?
Here is some information about Shannonvile from a 2013 federal court case.
Date: 20130618; Docket: T-951-10; Citation: 2013 FC 669
Ottawa, Ontario, June 18, 2013
PRESENT: The Honourable Mr. Justice Rennie
The Turton Penn Reacquisition
[16] In 1991, the parties settled a land dispute involving 200 acres of the original Mohawk Tract in Shannonville, Ontario. This land had been leased to a businessperson named Turton Penn in 1835 for 999 years. This land was then subleased and occupied by many third parties. In the 1970s the applicant questioned the legality of the leasehold interests of the third party occupants.
[17] A settlement was reached in 1991 whereby the Crown acquired the Turton Penn lands as they became available for sale by willing sellers at fair market value and then returned the land to the applicant. The land was reacquired over approximately fifteen years. In his affidavit evidence the applicant’s Chief states that he believes that the Turton Penn reacquisition model “points the way forward for a successful resolution of the Culbertson Tract claim.”.
Notice it says “willing sellers”. Shannonville land wasn’t just wrenched (expropriated) from third parties.
By the way, here is an interesting statement in the 1793 Simcoe deed provided to the Mohawks of Bay of Quite on the Tyendinaga reserve.
“And that in case any Person other than the Chiefs, Warriors, Women and People of the said Six Nations shall under pretence of any such Title as aforesaid presume to possess or occupy the said District or Territory or any part or parcel thereof that it shall and may be lawful for Us, our Heirs and Successors at any time hereafter to enter upon the Lands so occupied and possessed by any other Person or Persons other than the said Chiefs, Warriors, Women and People of the Six Nations and them the said Intruders thereof and therefrom wholly to dispossess and evict and to resume the same to Ourselves,Our Heirs and Successors”
The Mohawks leased land to Turton Penn for 999 years.
So I guess Tyendinaga Mohawks should be happy the Crown didn’t step in, “dispossess and evict” Penn, take the land from Penn and “resume” that land to the Crown.
“The Mohawks leased land to Turton Penn for 999 years.”
Actually it was 99 years. Like most colonial shysters his lawyers changed the lease to make it look like 999 years. It was just another fraud.
Prove it
You aren’t very smart.
Guess what happened when the reserve surrounds a property? The guy in the middle wants out as quickly as he can.
” Willing sellers” might be a nice sound byte but in reality they were told by Mohawks to get out and they did.
The second point is that the government bought the settlers out, not the Mohawks. The government settled the land claim by returning land.