BY KAREN BEST
Dunnville Chronicle
Wednesday, February 14, 2007 - 09:00
After key negotiators received the Six Nations response to Canada's legal opinion on Douglas Creek Estates, only Confederacy Chief Allen MacNaughton commented to reporters.
At the Feb. 8 main negotiating group meeting, he told federal representatives that their legal opinion was "inappropriate for this table," said MacNaughton.
Two weeks earlier, federal negotiators tabled a justice department report that stated a Canadian court would uphold the federal government's position that Six Nations legally surrendered lands for the Hamilton to Port Dover Plank Road in the 1840s.
After that meeting, Canada's special representative, Barbara McDougall, said there was no legal claim to Caledonia's Douglas Creek Estates, which is part of the Plank Road claim.
This issue is not before the courts of Canada or the courts of his people and will not be, said MacNaughton after the February meeting. He told reporters he had no expectations on the resolution and that use and development of lands in the Haldimand Tract were not discussed.
In 1784, the British granted 950,000 acres along the banks of the Grand River to Six Nations to replace territory lost due to their allegiance to the Crown in the American War of Independence.
MacNaughton said Six Nations rights exist and are the same for the full extent of the Plank Road from Hamilton to Port Dover.
When asked if this meant seeking ownership of Caledonia and Hagersville, MacNaughton said he was talking about the road, not the towns.
Discussions will eventually go beyond this claim as Six Nations has rights to blocks of land in the tract, said MacNaughton.
Six Nations spokesperson Hazel Hill said their mandate now was with DCE but that doesn't negate title and jurisdiction over the whole tract.
After the Feb. 8 meeting, McDougall and Ontario's special representative, Jane Stewart, offered limited comments.
"I don't have anything to report today," said McDougall while walking out of a Six Nations building in Willowgrove. "We had a very good meeting."
"We want a peaceful resolution and we know there is one," said Stewart on the way to her car.