Harm, falloutof land theft notrelegated to past

Recently, the Fraser Institute published a report by Thomas Flanagan and Nathaniel Li on federal spending, Compensation for Past Treatment of Indigenous People, quantifying federal payments to First Nations in settling specific claims, land claims, comprehensive claims and class-action lawsuits.

As part of their study, the authors drew attention to how the settlement of 801 specific historical claims to date has cost the Government of Canada $29.4 billion and how the resolution of outstanding claims will cost much more.

This dollars-and-cents approach to the cost of historical reparations for “past treatment” doesn’t tell an important part of this story — that the legacy of Canadian Indigenous peoples’ historical experiences connects to their present circumstances.

​Our new book, The Lost Reserve: The Taking and Remaking of the Chacachas Treaty Nation, speaks to one such claim for breach of treaty and shows how these historical breaches cause ongoing harm. It tells the story of how Chief Chacachas made a sacred covenant with the Government of Canada by signing Treaty 4 at Fort Qu’Appelle on behalf of his band in 1874.

In 1876, the Chacachas Band selected reserve lands at the Crooked Lakes, in southeastern Saskatchewan, as part of its treaty land entitlement. However, in 1881 the Department of Indian Affairs co-located the Chacachas Band onto a new joint reserve in with another Treaty 4 band led by Chief Kakisiwew.

Three years later in 1884 Chacachas and Kakisiwew members were compelled to elect a new chief, thereby amalgamating under a new name, the Ochapowace Band. Through the co-location and amalgamation, the Chacachas people lost their original reserve lands and identity as an independent treaty band.

​The Lost Reserve shows how these events have reverberated up to the present day. In the early 1970s a new generation of Chacachas descendants were empowered by their elders to recover the Lost Reserve. Their decades-long struggle culminated in a federal court judgment in 2020, recognizing that the Chacachas Treaty Nation still exists today as a Treaty Indian band.

Despite their court victory, the Chacachas Treaty Nation has yet to achieve a successful resolution to its negotiations with the Government of Canada; The Lost Reserve has no happy ending.

It is clear many non-Indigenous Canadians have a limited understanding of existing treaty relationships and the legacy of Canada’s historical failures to uphold the treaties. On this point we appear to agree with Flanagan, who has observed that most Canadians are unaware of the “enormous payments Ottawa has made to First Nations to settle legal claims and class-action lawsuits.”

Where we differ with Flanagan is on the implications of this lack of understanding. Flanagan’s main purpose is to warn Canadians that historical claims represent a cash cow for First Nations: “The significant amount of money that the federal government has paid out… acts as an incentive to attract even more legal claims and class-action lawsuits to be filed.” But do Canadians view the settlement of claims as an act of charity — or a question of responsibility stemming from a binding legal agreement?

We might look to New Zealand to see how our understanding of treaties compare. Every year on Feb. 6, New Zealanders celebrate Waitangi Day, commemorating the anniversary of the Treaty of Waitangi.

The treaty functions as New Zealand’s founding document and since 1958, successive prime ministers of New Zealand have attended commemorative ceremonies at Waitangi in the Bay of Islands. The idea that Maori treaty rights were historically trampled on by the British Crown is not widely contested in New Zealand.

Here the work of the Waitangi Tribunal, which has investigated historical breaches of the treaty since 1975, has been hugely influential.

A key milestone was the decision of the New Zealand Parliament in 1985 to allow the tribunal to investigate events dating back to 1840. More than 3,000 historical claims have been made to the tribunal and more than 100 settlements with Maori iwi (tribes) have been achieved, with over NZ$5 billion paid out in compensation. This is not to say that there is a consensus within New Zealand about Maori treaty rights, but debates over the treaty between those across the political spectrum are at the heart of what it means to be a New Zealander. For us, the purpose of writing The Lost Reserve is to embody the need for truth before reconciliation by highlighting the resilience of the Chacachas Treaty Nation, whose members have embodied the Cree word “ahkameyimok,” meaning “keep going, don’t give up,” over the past 150 years. ​

As the recent provocations by Indian Residential School denialists shows, Canada is currently experiencing a culture war over the legacy of settler colonialism. It is our hope, then, that we as Canadians can learn something from the historical experiences of the Chacachas Treaty Nation, whose ongoing struggle for justice and historical redress shows in real terms how the legacy of treaty breaches continue to the present time.

Chief Charlie Bear of Chacachas Nation and Winnipeg-based historian Kenton Storey are the authors of The Lost Reserve, University of Regina Press.