Sun Aug 6, 11:27 AM
By Michelle Macafee
Canadian Press
WINNIPEG (CP) - For as long as he can remember, Chief Pascall Bighetty has heard the stories of how his great, great grandfather urged his people not to sign a treaty with the Crown.
It was a conclusion the trapper named Namikos (Trout), reached after he had been chosen to spend time in England studying the document.
"He said we'd be giving up our lands for nothing and his belief was that without a land base you're nothing," said Bighetty, head of the Mathias Colomb First Nation in northwestern Manitoba.
That warning has been a constant echo in his head, and has guided him through a political life that has seen him elected chief for 23 of his 55 years.
And it's what brought him to historic Lower Fort Garry last week, just north of Winnipeg, for a four-day gathering of aboriginals from across Western Canada.
Discussion centred around the original spirit and intent of Canada's numbered treaties, and how to enforce them in a modern era of lengthy land-claim negotiations with government.
The timing and location of the event were carefully chosen - the national historic site sits on what is considered Treaty 1 territory. Aug. 3 marked the 135th anniversary of the treaty's signing in 1871.
Aboriginals ceded most of what is now Manitoba in exchange for reserve land and about $5 per person each year in cash or goods and services.
Now the focus is on pressing the federal government to honour treaty rights.
Chiefs say the last few decades have left them with the impression that their concerns have fallen off the radar.
They wrapped up their meeting by appointing Chief Ovide Mercredi, former grand chief of the Assembly of First Nations and head of the Grand Rapids First Nation, to be the spokesman for chiefs representing Treaties 1 through 11.
The group wants "to create a movement, not a political organization" to help bring a speedier resolution to outstanding claims.
Bighetty wants to go one step further and gather chiefs to visit the Queen this fall to make a political statement by redelivering treaty documents.
"We're poor, but we're not supposed to be," said Bighetty. "If we reclaim our lands, at least we'd have an equal footing as the governments."
The Mathias Colomb band is still trying to get about 518 square kilometres of land.
The Department of Indian Affairs considers the claim settled, but reaching a deal at the negotiating table is often just the beginning of a long, winding road for bands to actually get the land back.
Almost a decade after the Manitoba Treaty Land Entitlement Framework Agreement was signed, only about five per cent of the 1.1 million acres owed to First Nations in the province has actually been converted to reserve status, said Carl Braun, executive director of the Treaty Land Entitlement Committee.
"The process can take years," said Braun. "There can be a whole collection of problems."
The federal government often must first get the land back from the provinces before turning it over to the bands, a process that can be complicated when third parties are using the land.
Bighetty said he's willing to be patient and doesn't share the view taken by others that protest and civil disobedience will speed things up.
Tensions erupted last spring at Caledonia, near Hamilton, Ont., in a series of nasty confrontations over a subdivision of land reclaimed by Six Nations members.
In southern Manitoba, the Roseau River First Nation says it will use surprise rail blockades to get Ottawa's attention.
Chief Terry Nelson says the reserve is owed at least $60 million from a 1903 claim.
"I believe in negotiations," said Bighetty. "You have to sit down at the table and if you don't get what you want, you go back. Protests and civil disobedience only work for awhile, it's only a Band-Aid solution, not long-term."
Chief Norman Bone believes peaceful talks are what ultimately got his Keeseekoowenin First Nation in southwestern Manitoba a successful resolution in 2004 of 440 hectares of land in Riding Mountain National Park and about $11 million.
The case took 32 years to resolve - "and it was an easy one."
But Bone attributes the delays to everything from a repeated change in government negotiators to calculating the price of "loss of use" of the land over more than 100 years.
"The system that's set up is very flawed because it's given to bureaucracy and there's all kind of delays and every kind of situation occurs," said Bone.
"Sometimes we felt like it was never going to happen. Thinking back, if we'd wanted it done quickly we might have done some blockades, but we were so confident in our research, no matter which way you looked at it, it was reserve land."
But Bone, 53, warns the system must be revamped because younger generations will be quicker to turn to protests to get results.
The Department of Indian Affairs has said about 20 specific claims are settled each year, compared with 55 new cases filed annually. There are 770 outstanding specific claims on file at various stages of the process.
Indian Affairs Minister Jim Prentice has said he plans a major "retooling" of the land-claims process, calling the current backlog unacceptable.
He's considering more mediation, adding more skilled negotiators and further funding. Ottawa spent $536 million in 2004-05 to negotiate, settle and implement claims.
Far too many of these cases are passing through several generations without final resolution, said Cynthia Wesley-Esquimaux, who teaches aboriginal studies at the University of Toronto.
"That's a sense a lot of native people have about the future and resolution of these things - how do we do this in a way that protects the integrity of the community in the moment but assures viability for the future?" said Wesley-Esquimaux, a member of the Chippewas of Georgian Island First Nation in southern Ontario who has helped research and write several claims.
"A lot of people are reluctant to sign agreements because they're not sure how to avoid condemning the future."