Metis file land claim over vast Sask., Alberta tract
Communities seeking redress over 122,00 square kilometres
Despite the large swath of land separating the northern communities of Île-à-la-crosse in Saskatchewan and Fort Mckay in Alberta, Jim Durocher and Ron Quintal were surprised by the similarities between their communities.
“Our Metis people are the same,” said Quintal, president of the Fort Mckay Metis Community. “Our communities are almost exactly the same by way of culture, sense of humour, language and our ability to practise on the land.”
That connection was apparent Wednesday morning as the pair joined about 20 other plaintiffs in filing a massive land claim against the federal government. Those gathered in the lobby of Saskatoon Court of Queen’s Bench were told they had arrived so early they would have to wait until the office opened to submit their 33-page claim.
“It’s been 150 years so far, what’s another five minutes?” one man joked, and the room filled with laughter.
The plaintiffs represent a coalition of Metis communities from across northwest Saskatchewan and northeast Alberta, filing a first-of-its-kind interprovincial land claim for an area of about 122,000 square kilometres, most of it in oilsands territory.
With the claim, the 60 plaintiffs seek to redress the scrip system, a government-run land claim process for Metis people that took place throughout the late 1800s and early 1900s.
The intention of the process was to provide equitable settlements for Metis people in Canada, but Metis people say it dispossessed them of land and resources. In 2003, the Supreme Court of Canada called scrip “a sorry chapter in our nation’s history.”
A 2013 Supreme Court ruling opened the door for land claim negotiations with the federal government by finding the government had failed to follow through on a land deal it made with Metis people in Manitoba.
“This is a long overdue action that could have been avoided if successive governments had simply done the right thing and admitted the scrip process deprived Metis people of what the law promised to us,” Quintal said.
There are about 20 Metis communities within the claim boundary and the filing is open to other communities to join on as plaintiffs as well. Although First Nations have land within the boundary of the claim, Quintal said they have nothing to worry about and talks will only involve land as it pertains to the Metis.
The action speaks to a larger matter of Metis people being able to assert autonomy and speak on their own behalf, Quintal said, especially in regard to negotiating with resource extraction companies about activity taking place.
“We remain without a land and a resource base,” said Durocher, president of A La Baie Metis Local 21 in Île-à-la-crosse. “We remain marginalized while industries such as forestry companies come into our land and take our resources from there for their own corporate benefits and not for the benefits of our communities.”
The majority of those communities already have a relationship with companies but feel as though their rights aren’t being recognized or granted credibility in the planning of projects, he added.
Both Derocher and Quintal made clear they aren’t looking to displace those companies, but instead move forward with them in a way that is more sustainable and respectful of traditional land-use practices.
Clem Chartier, a Metis leader and the lawyer who filed the claim, said it comes as the result of a need to renegotiate a modern land claim agreement.
He cited how land-use partnerships differ for First Nations and Metis in northeast Alberta. First Nations under Treaty work with industries there as a rights holder to the land, while Metis communities operate under a good neighbour policy.
“This case both in Alberta and northwest Saskatchewan, when we file it, puts industry on notice that we have a valid and legitimate claim to those lands and resources,” he said. “And that they have to deal with the Metis not as a good neighbour, but as a rights holder.”
Filing the claim a week before the federal election was a strategic move, Quintal said, in order to send a message to the forthcoming government that this is something it will be in talks about soon, in some capacity.
Quintal was unable to quantify what that will look like from a financial perspective as it’s early in proceedings and there are a number of ways to settle the matter.
The plaintiffs prefer to move forward via out-of-court negotiation — they’re hoping the Liberal government remains in power due to an openness to negotiate, but they consider the claim an open call.
“It is important for us to make a call out to whoever forms government,” Quintal said. “Whether it be Mr. Scheer, Mr. Trudeau, Mr. Singh, it’s so important that they understand that there’s an opportunity here and we need Canada to be on board going forward.”
Quintal said that while the group prefers negotiation, he’s confident they will win if the matter is taken to Supreme Court.
“Ultimately, from our perspective, unless the federal government is prepared to negotiate, we’re willing to litigate, we’re willing to fight this thing all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada if we have to. We’re making a stand for our people.”