Accounting requested for Six Nations losses in Moulton; FEDERAL REP SAYS LAND WAS SURRENDERED BUT OUTSTANDING MORTGAGE PAYMENTS DUE

KAREN BEST

Wednesday, November 21, 2007 - 05:00
Dunnville Chronicle

The 30,800 acres of Moulton Township were never to leave Six Nations hands and were to generate revenue forever according to a consultant working for the Confederacy Chiefs Council.

After a recent meeting between Six Nations and the provincial and federal governments, Aaron Detlor said chiefs asked for a historical accounting of all the financial transactions from 1797 to present in this township. This accounting is necessary to understand losses that have occurred on this tract of land, he added.

On Nov. 19, 1993, the Canadian government accepted the Moulton claim as valid for land claim negotiations. At the time, the federal Indian affairs ministry acknowledged that Canada breached a lawful obligation its administration of funds or other assets by failing to enforce a mortgage that when into default in 1836.

Negotiations had not yet begun when In 1995, the Six Nations band council launched a lawsuit for 29 claims. The case is in abeyance.

During recent negotiations that were launched last May, Confederacy chiefs have asked federal representatives to identify what wrong was done. As far as Six Nations is concerned, the breach of fiduciary duty can be traced back to the initial handling of Moulton, said Detlor.

There never was any attention to surrender the township and a surrender was never attained by the Crown, he said.

"Our revenue plan from our elders was to lease land and to be collecting rent on a perpetual basis," said Confederacy Cayuga Sub-Chief Leroy Hill, who is a Six Nations negotiator.

If Six Nations can look back at records on financial transactions and if they can prove monies were stolen, "we are looking at full compensation with the compounding effect", continued Detlor.

"The Crown cannot come to equity with dirty hands and we know their hands are not clean," he said.

In July, federal negotiator Ron Doering said the township was validly surrendered but a mortgage on it was not paid and that the claim was for financial compensation.

After a lands negotiation meeting on Nov. 14, Doering said compound interest for establishing current value is not relevant in cases where the federal government has no liability and land surrender was valid. However in the case of flooding Six Nations land when the Dunnville dam was built to support the Welland canal, the Whitefish Lake First Nations decision is particularly relevant, he said.

On Nov. 1 the Ontario Court of Justice issued a decision supporting compound interest on $316,000, the amount agreed to for an 1886 timber sale by the First Nation. The federal government only paid $316.

Doering said the compound interest calculation is relevant for the Welland Canal claim. Without waiving any rights, the federal government conceded it breached a lawful obligation by not paying for the 2,200 to 2,500 acres flooded between Dunnville and Cayuga, Doering said.

Compensation of a yet to be determined amount will be provided, he added.

MacNaughton was looking for equitable compensation for the lands and said the Confederacy planned to use those funds to acquire land on a willing-seller willing-buyer basis and to fund an administration office to do real estate research and purchase property. He also asked for 2,500 acres as compensation for loss of use on the flooded land.

The request is on the table but has not been endorsed by the federal government.

To achieve some real progress before Christmas, a new direction may be taken and could include money for land purchases, said Doering. "The federal government may be in a position to come up with some kind of new approach,"he continued. "We have to keep the momentum going."

Chris Maher, provincial director of the Six Nations/Haldimand project, reiterated the Ontario's commitment to hold 14 pieces of Crown land in Norfolk and Haldimand Counties. He also said, "We certainly made no commitment that those are part of any settlements."

Large land holdings in South Cayuga and Townsend were acquired by the Ontario government in the 1960s in anticipation of new towns developing alongside the Nanticoke industrial park.

The boom did not happen. The remaining Ontario owned lands in these two areas are 4,744 acres in South Cayuga and 1,413 acres in Townsend. Most of the South Cayuga lands are under lease to farmers, said Maher.