$5 treaty payments won’t even buy a Tim Hortons meal today, Alberta First Nation says in multibillion-dollar lawsuit

A southern Alberta First Nation is suing the federal government for $1 billion, the latest in a series of lawsuits claiming annual treaty payments should have been adjusted for inflation.

The Bearspaw First Nation filed the class action in Calgary on Tuesday, inviting other Treaty 7 nations — Chiniki, Siksika, Kainai, Piikani, Tsuut’ina and Goodstoney — to join the fight to adjust the $5 annual payments members receive. from the federal government.

“We either do it today or we wait another 100 years,” said Bearspaw Chief Darcy Dixon, the representative plaintiff in the lawsuit.

“We as First Nations have held the view of understanding, you can see in this wonderful country, that it has flourished.”

“It’s an injustice,” says the lawyer

Bearspaw attorney Sonny Cochrane says that while the federal government has made billions from the swapped land in annual payments, community members continue to receive just $5 a year.

“In 1877, $5 was enough to get a family through the winter,” he said. “Today, $5 can’t even buy you a Tim Hortons coffee and a breakfast sandwich, so it’s an injustice.”

Now he and the First Nation he represents are hoping two recent cases will set the precedent for their own settlement.

Last year, after a decade of litigation, a $10 billion out-of-court settlement was reached in The Case of the Robinson-Huron Treaty with the Ontario and federal governments.

A Supreme Court of Canada (SCC) ruling in July found that the federal government had made a “mockery” of its Robinson-Superior treaty obligations by failing to increase annual payments to residents since the late 1800s.

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The Supreme Court of Canada has ruled that the Ontario and federal governments made a “mockery” of treaties signed with the Anishinaabe of the Upper Great Lakes in the 19th century by failing to increase annual payments for resource extraction. The decision could cost governments more than $100 billion.

The SCC gave the Crown six months to negotiate a settlement with the Robinson-Superior claimants.

CSC Agreement and Decision opened the legal doors indigenous communities across the country to challenge the interpretation of their treaties. Lawsuits have been filed for Treaties 2, 4, 5, 9 and now 7.

“Constantly Abused” Members

University of Calgary law professor Kathleen Mahoney says the lawsuit “has been a long time coming.”

She says it’s clear First Nation members of the class action “have been consistently abused by the federal government since 1877 and simply ignored the Crown’s obligations that were embedded in the treaty.”

In 1877, Alberta’s Treaty 7 traded 130,000 square kilometers of land in southern Alberta for an undertaking by the Crown “to take those First Nations under its protection”.

Two placards display the Treaty 7 agreement.
The original Treaty 7 document of 1877, on display in Calgary in 2017, traded 130,000 square kilometers of land in southern Alberta for a commitment from the Crown “to take those First Nations under its protection.” (Terri Trembath/CBC)

The Bearspaw First Nation lawsuit claims that the intention behind its treaty was the Crown’s commitment to provide communities “as long as that sun shines and the river flows…for your children, grandchildren and unborn children.”

“There’s no way the heads of Treaty 7 at the time would have agreed that it would be $5 (until) the end of time,” Cochrane said.

“The purchasing power of $5 from 1877 until now, is an empty promise, this is how Canada has handled it.”

“They promised”

Treaty 7 nations were promised annual payments of $5 per person, $25 for each chief, and $2,000 for communities.

“The Crown was asked to raise annuities to the level that would maintain purchasing power,” the statement said.

“The promise made by Treaty 7 was to provide at least the same level of purchasing power for all future generations.”

With lawsuits launched across the country, it’s unclear what the government’s final bill might look like if the courts continue to side with indigenous communities.

Mahoney says it’s a debt the Crown has “negligently accumulated”.

“The cost of settling this matter has grown to an enormous debt on the part of the Crown, but they owe it, it’s as simple as that. They promised”.