Completed Inquiries – Reports Released
01/03/2004
Peepeekisis First Nation [File Hills Colony] - March 2004
After waiting for 15 years for a decision from the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development on the validity of its claim, the Peepeekisis First Nation requested that the Commission conduct an inquiry in 2001 on the basis of constructive rejection. Canada subsequently rejected the claim. The inquiry involved the Crown’s decision in 1898 to create an Indian farming colony on the Peepeekisis reserve. The Scheme required the placement of Indian graduates from industrial schools on the Peepeekisis reserve as farmers. In order to implement the plan, Acting Indian Agent William Graham brought the graduates to the reserve, placed them on farming plots, provided special farming assistance to them, and was instrumental in orchestrating their transfers into the Band. The Crown also subdivided most of the 26,624-acre reserve into lots, allocating them to the graduate farmers. As a result, most of the prime agricultural land on the reserve was taken up by the File Hills Colony, and the graduates, as they transferred into the Band, began to outnumber the original members and to assume control of band affairs. Meanwhile, the original members were pressured to relocate to inferior land on the reserve and soon found themselves displaced on their own reserve. After the original members repeatedly complained about their treatment and the membership transfers, several investigations into membership validity were held during the 1940s and 1950s. The last of the membership reviews took place in 1956, when a judge confirmed the validity of all disputed memberships. The Commission found that Indian Agent Graham did not inform the Band about the Crown’s Scheme or seek its consent. Handing over exclusive use and control of reserve land to non-band individuals was a de facto disposition of reserve land, which contravened the Treaty 4 requirement for prior consent. The unilateral imposition of this Scheme also breached the Indian Act’s policy of inalienability of Indian lands. Moreover, the Crown breached its fiduciary obligation to use ordinary diligence to avoid invading or destroying the Band’s quasi-proprietary interest in its reserve. In this case, it was the Crown, not a third party, that exploited a vulnerable Band with no Chief by imposing the Colony on them. The Crown also breached the Indian Act by placing non-band members on the reserve and by allocating lots to them for their exclusive use and occupation, without following the strict provisions of the Act. As a result, the Band’s collective right to occupy the entire reserve gradually shifted to individual rights over most of the land. Each allocation was a disposition and each disposition affected the Band’s legal interest in its reserve. Canada’s primary defence to this claim was the doctrine of res judicata, or issue estoppel, arguing that the 1956 judgment on validity of memberships prevented the First Nation from succeeding with its claim.. The Commission agreed that the question of validity of memberships could not be reopened, but determined that issue estoppel did not apply to its findings of breach of treaty, statute, and fiduciary obligation, as these questions were either not before the judge in 1956 or, at best, collateral to the judgment. The Commission concluded that the Crown appropriated the land of an unsuspecting Band for its Indian farming colony and embarked on a series of illegal practices that infringed on the Band’s legal interest in reserve land and forever changed its identity. In so doing, the Crown was in serious breach of its lawful obligations under the Specific Claims Policy. To download the response from the government - PDF 
To download the report - PDF
|
