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For more than a century, the vast lands of Northern Ontario have been shared among the governments of Canada, Ontario, and the First Nations who signed Treaty No. 9 in 1905. For just as long, details about the signing of the constitutionally recognized agreement have been known only through the accounts of two of the commissioners appointed by the Government of Canada. Treaty No. 9 provides a truer perspective on the treaty by adding the neglected account of a third commissioner and tracing the treaty's origins, negotiation, explanation, interpretation, signing, implementation, and recent commemoration. Long reveals the contradictions that suggest the treaty parchment was never fully explained to the First Nations who signed it.
Today, the treaty is at the centre of multi-million dollar lawsuit. The Star reports:
Now James Bay Treaty No. 9 is the focus of a historic, multi-million dollar lawsuit called “Mishkeegogamang First Nation v. The Attorney General of Canada and Her Majesty the Queen in Right of Ontario” that began Monday in a University Ave. courtroom.
There were 15 lawyers in the courtroom before Mr. Justice Arthur Gans, representing the Mishkeegogamang people (who sometimes call themselves “Mish”), the federal government, the province of Ontario, Ontario Power Generation and Ontario Electricity Power Corp.
There are only 900 on-reserve and 500 off-reserve Mish people, but the amount of their traditional land that’s involved is enormous — nearly 355,000 square kilometres in northwestern Ontario and the former Northwest Territories.
The case is already historic because this is believed to be the first time a land claims lawsuit against the province of Ontario has actually gone to trial alongside the federal government.
Dollar figures for damages and reparations cited are in the hundreds of millions — even more than $1 billion.
Read the full article.
Learn more about Treaty No. 9
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