Roseau River Anishinabe First Nation Mediation [Treaty Land Entitlement]

The First Nation alleges that the Crown is in breach of both its fiduciary obligations and its obligations under Treaty 1 in connection with its initiation of the surrender of 12 square miles of reserve land, as well as its questionable handling of the auctioning of individual lots. When the claim was first presented to the federal government in 1982, it dealt only with the compensation arising from the government management of land sales following a 1903 surrender. In a December 1993 planning conference, the First Nation also advanced the validity of the surrender as an issue. In November 1996, the parties agreed to conduct tripartite (federal government, First Nation, ICC) research on the validity issue and then to resubmit the claim to the Specific Claims Branch. The terms of reference for the joint project were finalized in February 1997. The Commission monitored the work of the contractor throughout the research. The report was completed in September 1997 and the parties met at the ICC office in October 1997 to discuss the findings. In December 1999, after a two-year wait for a legal opinion from the First Nation, work resumed on this claim.

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