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06/12/2007
ICC Panel Recommends That Canada Negotiate Roseau River's 1903 Surrender Claim
Ottawa (December 6, 2007) – In a report released today, an Indian Claims Commission panel found that, although the Roseau River Anishinabe First Nation’s surrender of part of Indian Reserve (IR) 2 in 1903 was valid, Canada breached its fiduciary duty by exerting undue influence on the Band and by allowing a “foolish, improvident and exploitative agreement” to take place.
The panel found that the government did not breach Treaty 1 by permitting a surrender, nor was there sufficient evidence that it contravened the surrender provisions of the Indian Act. But the government’s motivation for requesting the surrender reflected the settlers’ and the surrounding municipalities’ desire for land, not the present and future needs of the First Nation. The panel for this inquiry, composed of Commissioners Daniel J. Bellegarde (Chair), Alan C. Holman and Sheila G. Purdy, found that Canada failed in its fiduciary duty to protect the First Nation’s legal and stated interests in the land granted to it by Treaty 1, and that officials should have resisted the intense lobbying to open up the land for settlement.
“From 1895 to 1903 – up to 10 days before agreeing to the surrender – the Roseau River First Nation had steadfastly refused to give up any of its land at the mouth of the Roseau River,” Commissioner Bellegarde said. “There is considerable evidence, from Canada’s own documents, that officials completely disregarded what was best for the First Nation by encouraging the surrender of up to 60 per cent of its main reserve. At the time, the First Nation was struggling to adapt to an agricultural lifestyle. The land it was pressured into surrendering was the part most suited to farming. What land was left to the Roseau River First Nation lay in a flood zone.”
Four Anishinabe Chiefs in the Roseau River area signed Treaty 1 in 1871, however, only one reserve was set aside for the four distinct groups. Designated IR 2, this reserve, located at the junction of the Red and Roseau Rivers, contained 13,350 acres. When they signed Treaty 1, the Chiefs were under the impression that they were to receive lands on both sides of the Roseau River, from its mouth to the Roseau Rapids located 20 miles upstream. After seven years of struggle to have a separate reserve set aside for the Anishinabe living at the Roseau Rapids, only 800 acres were allocated by the government as the Roseau Rapids reserve or IR 2A.
Between 1889 and 1903, the year of the surrender, the Roseau River Band faced increasing pressure from local settlers, municipalities and politicians to surrender all of IR 2. The reserve, considered one of the best in Manitoba, contained prime agricultural land, as well as water and timber. In December 1902, band councillors refused a request to surrender the eastern portion of IR 2, responding that it was the only dry land on the reserve and would be needed for cultivation and for their cattle during the spring floods.
In January 1903, the Minister of the Interior, Clifford Sifton, instructed Inspector S.R. Marlatt to attempt to obtain a surrender of IR 2. Marlatt held a meeting on the reserve on January 20, at which time the Band refused a surrender. Ten days later, on January 30, 1903, the Band surrendered the eastern portion of the reserve, comprising 7,698.6 acres, or 60 per cent of the reserve. Among the terms of the surrender was a condition that two sections of land at the Roseau Rapids be purchased for the Band from the proceeds of sale.
The Roseau River Band submitted a specific claim in 1982 to the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development for compensation arising from the government’s management of the sales of the land surrendered in 1903. The government rejected the claim in 1986. In 1993, the First Nation requested that the ICC conduct an inquiry into its rejected claim. During the planning stages of the inquiry in December 1993, the First Nation brought forth a further claim based on the validity of the 1903 surrender. In July 2001, the government rejected the surrender claim, which was then incorporated into the ICC inquiry. In February 2005, the First Nation decided to proceed only with the surrender claim, and in June, the panel convened an expert session with the parties and the authors of a research report on the quality of the reserve land jointly commissioned by the parties. After filing written submissions in late 2005 and early 2006, the parties presented their legal arguments in March 2006.
The ICC was established in 1991. Its mandate is: to inquire, at the request of a First Nation, into specific claims that have been rejected by the federal government, or accepted claims where the First Nation disputes the compensation criteria being considered; and to provide mediation services on consent of the parties at any stage of the claims process.
To download the report - PDF