By Sarah Wallace

First Nations lawsuit dates back 129-years

Jun 3, 2014 | 12:57 PM

It’s a lawsuit that could be worth $40 million and dates back to the Northwest Resistance of 1885.

There are 14 Saskatchewan First Nations currently involved in the lawsuit against the Federal Government and Ron Maurice, with the Maurice Law Group, is representing the bands in the case.

“The historical facts go back to the Northwest Rebellion of 1885. This [lawsuit] is basically a claim that was submitted by the Beardy’s and Okemasis First Nation, as well as 13 other First Nations in Saskatchewan that were characterized as disloyal following the events of the rebellion,” Maurice explained.

The government at that time then instituted a number of repressive measures, including labelling the bands “disloyal,” to force First Nations to stay on their reserves and not allowing them to leave without permission from an Indian Agent, he said.

Maurice added the government would remove chiefs and would confiscate tribes’ guns, horses and other things that belonged to them.

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“Basically I think the message that the government was trying to send was, really, to potential immigrants aboard that there was no danger of an Indian uprising in Western Canada and that this was a safe place to move and immigrate too. That seemed to be the overwhelming message.”

In the course of the government sending that message, Maurice said the Cree in particular in central Saskatchewan; around Prince Albert and North Battleford, were subjected to a number of these measures, including the withholding of treaty money which was owed to members of the bands at the time.

“For a period of four years they were deprived of their annuity money. And all of this was of course happening at a time when these bands had lost their mainstay in buffalo, [there was] widespread starvation and high mortality rates at the time, so what seems like a small amount of money, $5 per person, would have had an immense impact on people who were in dire need at the time,” Maurice explained.

So what are the bands seeking? Maurice said in a lot of ways it’s a fairly modest claim monetarily.

“It’s about the withholding of annuities to every man, woman and child who were members of those bands who were characterized as disloyal at the time. It would have been about $20 a dollar a person, but every member of the community was subjected to this form of punishment.”

When you put a present value on that today those losses represent about $2.5 million per community on average or about $40 million together.

“We think it’s a fair resolution in a lot of ways. Compensation is really just one small facet of the claim; it’s more about the principle and debunking the fairly suborn theory that Indians took a huge role in the events of the rebellion and that wasn’t the case at all.”

Maurice said the events that took place at Beardy’s and Okemasis during the rebellion were largely “kind of happenstance.”

“They just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Chief Beardy at the time actually counselled his band to stay out of the rebellion and most members of the bands did. A handful of the younger men might have participated but those were isolated events.”

He said this was used as a means of punishment to put out a growing treaty rights movement amongst some of the Cree leaders at the time.

“It was kind of a major turning point in the relationship between the Crown and First Nations and that’s when you see things like the past system come into place.”

Maurice said an example of that are residential schools being put into place not long after the resistance.

“All of those things were largely designed to force assimilation of the bands. As one public official put it, ‘the intention was to continue until Indians cease to exist because they would either die off as a people or be absorbed,’ I think it was put.”

Maurice calls the case unusual and very exceptional based on the facts because it relates specially to the events around the resistance.

“We are pursuing the claim before a specific claims tribunal so we can’t put the rebellion on trial so to speak … we’re pursing the claim on the basis of the one tangible piece of law that we can identify which is the withholding of their treaty money.”

The special claims tribunal was created in 2008 to specifically hear claims like this and they have the authority to make binding decisions and award compensation up to $150 million per claim.

A number of these claims are now making their way to the tribunal.

“It’s unfortunate that we couldn’t negotiate a settlement of this type of claim with the Government of Canada, which is always our preference, but where the Crown isn’t willing to do, so this process allows for the claim to be decided ultimately by the tribunal and dealt with.”

Right now the claim is into its final stages, written arguments have to be filed by the parties in July and the final arguments will be heard by the tribunal at the Wanuskewin Interpretative Center in Saskatoon in September.

swallace@panow.com

On Twitter: @sarahthesquid