Algonquins of Ontario organization removes nearly 2,000 members after ancestry disputes

The Algonquins of Ontario (AOO) has removed nearly 2,000 people from its certi‐ fied electorate after an in‐ ternal tribunal ruled against their asserted Algo‐ nquin ancestry last year.

This follows years of con‐ troversy and internal protests, which flared in 2021 after CBC News reported a suspicious letter - on which several hundred people re‐ lied to claim Algonquin rights - was likely fake.

The AOO comprises 10 communities, only one of which - Algonquins of Pik‐ wakanagan, roughly 150 kilo‐ metres west of Ottawa - is federally recognized.

The Algonquins of Pik‐ wakanagan had disputed the alleged Indigeneity of 19thcentury voyageur Thomas La‐ garde dit St. Jean and his wife Sophie Carriere three times previously.

Pikwakanagan members succeeded on the fourth try last spring, when the AOO tri‐ bunal rejected the letter, ousting Lagarde and Carriere from the AOO's ancestors list, plus five others.

AOO uses "root ances‐ tors," historic Algonquins with a documented link to liv‐ ing descendants, to help de‐ termine beneficiaries of a pending modern treaty. But for years, allegations of eth‐ nic fraud and loose vetting overshadowed what would be a first-of-its-kind deal in Ontario.

"Certainly, Pikwakanagan has long suspected that the list was not accurate, and did not have the integrity neces‐ sary to bring us to a final treaty," said Pikwakanagan Chief Greg Sarazin.

The removals ousted 1,937 AOO electors out of 8,528, according to a Sept. 19, 2023 final statistical re‐ assessment, provided to CBC News with an October 2023 list of removed individuals.

Meanwhile, some ques‐ tion the democratic integrity of an agreement-in-principle AOO ratified in 2016, which members in Pikwakanagan widely rejected.

The agreement promises AOO 47,550 hectares of land, a $300-million payout and recognition of ongoing land and resource rights, settling a claim to 36,000 square kilo‐ metres in eastern Ontario.

"I think I'm not alone in believing that the last 15 to 20 years of these negotia‐ tions are entirely illegiti‐ mate," said Veldon Coburn, an associate professor at McGill University and a Pik‐ wakanagan member.

"We're going to have to go back to the drawing board, like right to square one. There's nothing here, be‐ cause those that were sitting in the driver's seat for the ne‐ gotiations weren't Algo‐ nquin."

The Algonquin Nation has roughly 17,000 status mem‐ bers from 11 federally recog‐ nized bands in western Que‐ bec and eastern Ontario, with several thousand more claiming Algonquin ancestry.

The provincial border di‐ vides Algonquin territory, which was never surrendered or ceded to the Crown. Algo‐ nquin leaders on the Quebec side previously rejected the AOO deal.

Chief Lisa Robinson, of Wolf Lake First Nation in Quebec, said it's fundamen‐ tally wrong for the group to negotiate rights that belong to the entire nation, regard‐ less of the colonially imposed border.

"We have been people of the Kichi Sipi (Ottawa River), and that includes both sides of the river, the west side and the east side," said Robinson, who is also grand chief of the Algonquin Nation Secretariat.

In 2015, the secretariat analyzed AOO's voters list and concluded 39 per cent were non-Algonquin. The re‐ cent removals represent roughly 23 per cent, so Robinson believes there is still work to do. Ultimately she blames the Crown.

"At the end of the day, to create this group of people and to give them rights, even before having a fully negoti‐ ated claim, is really prob‐ lematic," she said.

'Manufactured consent'

Lynn Gehl is Algonquin but was denied Indian status for more than 30 years due to sex discrimination in the Indi‐ an Act rules, until Ontario's top court declared she should have status in 2013.

Now a Pikwakanagan member, Gehl said the iden‐ tity issue is important but distracts from what she sees as the bigger issue - that the offer is bad.

"It's 1.7 per cent of our land, a one-time buyout and there's no resource revenue sharing," said Gehl.

In her view, the treaty pro‐ cess is not a negotiation be‐ cause the Crown came to the table with rigid mandates and inordinate power to dic‐ tate terms.

"This is manufactured consent. This is genocide," she said.

"And if Canada and On‐ tario want to walk around and talk about reconciliation and 'nation to nation,' they have to give us a cut of our resources, so that we can sit at that table with some lever‐ age. It's really not rocket sci‐ ence."

Sarazin is alert to the con‐ cerns.

He suggested the agreement-in-principle does‐ n't need to be cancelled be‐ cause it's legally non-binding. He is focused, he said, on shoring up the integrity of the Algonquin registry while concluding a final treaty Pik‐ wakanagan members find ac‐ ceptable.

'Oversized, expensive, unresponsive'

The Trudeau government seems intent on letting treaty talks continue.

"Although good progress has been made in these dis‐ cussions, more work remains to be done before a treaty can be concluded," wrote Matthieu Perrotin, spokesperson for Crown-In‐ digenous Relations Minister Gary Anandasangaree, in a statement.

As with any treaty, Indige‐ nous people enrolled as po‐ tential beneficiaries must vote to approve it, wrote Per‐ rotin, who described eligibil‐ ity and enrolment as internal Algonquin matters.

On that front, Coburn said there is community chatter about reconstituting a new Algonquin body.

"I believe there's a very good chance that the AOO will collapse and had it be my way, that's the preferred out‐ come, too," he said.

CBC News obtained a Dec. 21, 2023 slide deck prepared for constituents of Kijicho Manito Madaouskarini, a non-status AOO community in the Bancroft area, about 220 kilometres west of Ot‐ tawa.

The presentation said a majority of Algonquin nego‐ tiators recently came to see AOO as "an oversized, expen‐ sive, unresponsive organiza‐ tion incapable of reaching a treaty settlement" and that a new Algonquin treaty alliance may be formed.

Sarazin said restructuring is possible.

"Treaty negotiation struc‐ tures are always being re‐ viewed to ensure that the Al‐ gonquins in Ontario are best represented," he said.

"While a reorganization is possible, nothing has yet been decided."

Robert Potts, the AOO's lawyer and negotiator, didn't respond to multiple requests for comment for this story.

Ontario's Ministry of In‐ digenous Affairs also didn't respond.