Algonquins foresee conclusion to long-awaited land claim dispute

One of the most complex, and geographically largest, native land claims under active negotiation in Ontario may soon come to a conclusion.

Lynn Clouthier, the Algonquin negotiation representative (ANR) for Ottawa, explained that negotiations will soon come to an end and a settlement could involve everything from co-management of Algonquin Park to economic development initiatives, land, financial compensation, defined resource harvesting rights covering fishing, hunting, trapping and gathering, and related cultural matters.

"The Algonquins are not claiming any private land," Clouthier stressed. "What we're asking for is Crown land, and what we call unpatented land."

The Algonquin land claim covers a territory of 36,000 square kilometres (8.9 million acres) that fall within the Ontario portion of the Ottawa and Mattawa River watersheds.

The area that is the subject of the Algonquin claim includes most of Algonquin Park as well as CFB Petawawa and the National Capital Region, including Parliament Hill.

Of the area within the claim territory, approximately 59 per cent is privately held patented land, 21 per cent of the land mass is within Algonquin Park, 16 per cent is land held by Ontario as public lands and by provincial Crown corporations, and four per cent is federal Crown land.

She said the Algonquins of Ontario are able to do this comprehensive land claim because they never signed a treaty with any government. Other claims are called specific land claims, for First Nations groups who did sign a treaty but feel they have a land claim because the treaty was inadequate.

"The government had taken a hiatus from negotiating comprehensive land claims for 75 years," Clouthier said, pointing out the Algonquin claim in Ontario, which began in earnest in the early 1990s, is the first comprehensive claim in 75 years.

"It wasn't for lack of asking, either," she stressed. "We had many petitions over the years, and in fact, the signing of those petitions is the basis for our set of ancestors, to know who we come down from."

Clouthier said the final settlement is expected to take the form of a modern-day treaty which will provide certainty of legal title to lands in the region and will give legal force to a lasting and comprehensive settlement of all outstanding issues related to this Aboriginal claim.

Clouthier said the land claim is status-neutral, because it will include both status and non-status natives.

"There is only one reserve in Ontario, and that's at Pikwakanagan (Golden Lake)," Clouthier pointed out. "There are other communities, (created) when we were being pushed out of our traditional areas with settlement and logging. "Logging comes in and wipes out the forest, well, it kind of ruins it for hunting."

She said that as the Algonquins were pushed back, they petitioned for reserves from the government, which suggested Pikwakanagan or Manitoulin Island.

"People didn't want to up and just go to a whole other land," she pointed out.
Natives who went to live at Golden Lake became status Indians, while those who decided to stay where they were became non-status Indians.

"What we're working at is to have a treaty that is fair to all Algonquins, including to ones that weren't altogether able to hold on to all parts of their heritage," Clouthier stressed.

To that end, 16 Algonquin negotiation representatives belong to about 20 working groups, with Clouthier the chair of mineral aggregates. She deals with provincial policies around mining and excavation for pits and quarries.

"Once I know that, I would want to find out well, in our territory, what are the resources?" she explained.

She said the land claim includes three thrusts - shared revenues, "because we would like to have some kind of income so we can run our nation, whatever form it takes when it's done"; building capacity, and training and education for young people, as well as retraining for older people.

"We would like to have more say in some of the things that happen in natural resources, or water, or land," Clouthier said.

She said the Algonquins have a much different concept than the European culture did when dealing with land.

"European culture cuts it all into little pieces and you own the land," she explained. "But the First Nations view is we're all part of the land - we don't own the land; we are of the land. It is leant to us by the Creator and Mother Earth. We don't own any part of it.

"You get to use it and pass over it and not leave a huge footprint," she added. "Within the context of Canada and Ontario, that doesn't work so much anymore."

The negotiating groups have worked on an agreement-in-principle, which includes 13 chapters.

"We have written these chapters, they've gone back to the governments, they look at them, they suggest certain things," Clouthier explained. "So we're in the process of getting that framework for a treaty down, and we hope to have it finished by the end of the year, and kind of then tidied up and to have our membership vote on it next June."

She said it is an ambitious timeline, but the parties have more hope than ever before.

"We have never been this close, ever," she stressed.

The modern treaty-making process started in the early 1990s, she said, but it fell apart once or twice due to various difficulties.

She admitted that the politics of the land claim will not be easy.

"One of our basic premises is to make good relations with our neighbours," she said. "We don't want to push anybody off land. We're hoping whatever we can achieve will raise the standard of living, the prospects of the whole area.

"That's our aim, and nobody's going to be getting any little package of money or land," she stressed. "Everything is a collective, it's communal. We want social programs and services."

She said that municipal politicians have shown a fear that the Algonquins will start pushing municipalities around.

"It is a weakness of ours in that we haven't been able to get the message out really well," she admitted.

Ten communities are involved in the treaty negotiations, with other groups of Algonquins within the territory that are not now part of the process.

"Now that does not mean the treaty will not be for them, too," Clouthier explained. She said groups must enrol as members of the Algonquins of Ontario, and have a direct lineal descent from an ancestor.

The final treaty will have to strike a balance between money and land, Clouthier said.

"The land, we want to be able to use for traditional purposes, some for community lands, for people to able to just come together," she said. "We also want land where we might be able to build housing for various people, and just empty land for them to be in.

She said Algonquins would also like to practise traditions ways of living and gathering, along with hunting and some resource extraction.

"It is a collective culture, so the money and land will be in a trust," she stressed.