The Canadian Press
OTTAWA—A historic land claim agreement in principle struck by the Algonquins of Ontario with the federal and provincial governments is being denounced as fraudulent and illegal by chiefs of a number of Iroquois and Algonquin First Nations.
They charge the vast majority of the Algonquins of Ontario (AOO) are not actually Algonquin—or even aboriginal.
Indeed, the chiefs say even Prime Minister Justin Trudeau technically could qualify as an Algonquin under the loose criteria set to determine eligibility to participate in a ratification vote on the proposed deal.
While non-natives are entitled to vote on—and benefit from—the deal, the chiefs say other legitimate First Nations, whose traditional territory overlaps with the AOO land claim, have been ignored while their rights were bargained away.
The claim—the largest being negotiated in Ontario—covers a territory of 36,000 square km in eastern Ontario, including Parliament Hill.
Among other things, the proposed deal would transfer 117,500 acres of Crown land to Algonquin ownership and provide a $300-million settlement.
If successful, it would become the province’s first modern-day, constitutionally-protected treaty.
But the agreement in principle, which is in the midst of a ratification vote, was denounced yesterday by the chiefs of four Algonquin First Nations, who said the land claim overlaps almost 900,000 acres of their territory.
Lance Haymond, chief of the Kabaowek First Nation, said “the vast majority” of the Algonquins of Ontario “are not Algonquin at all,” but non-natives who claim a loose connection to an Algonquin “root ancestor.”
In many cases, those eligible to vote on the land claim deal have not had any intermarriage with Algonquins for more than 200 years, he noted.
According to a genealogical analysis done for the chiefs, Trudeau technically could trace his ancestry to an Algonquin woman eight generations ago.
The deal also was denounced by the Iroquois caucus, which represents seven Iroquois communities in Ontario and Quebec.
“What has happened is, I will call it, fraudulent,” Kahnawake Grand Chief Joe Norton told a news conference.
Norton said the claim involves lands “continuously occupied” by the Iroquois, yet they have “more or less been pushed aside for people who have no right to any of this territory.”
