First Nation lays claim to downtown Ottawa

An Ontario First Nation has filed a lawsuit seeking aboriginal title over much of downtown Ottawa, including Parliament Hill.

“The Algonquin Anishinabe Nation has never surrendered its title to the Kichi Sibi lands,” says the band’s statement of claim filed Wednesday in Ontario’s Superior Court.

The claim includes islands in the Ottawa River, as well as a long portion of its south bank that includes Parliament, the Supreme Court, the National Library and the Canadian War Museum. It stretches southwest along the river to include LeBreton Flats, federally owned land that is the proposed site for major new developments that could include a new hockey arena for the NHL’s Ottawa Senators.

That proposed development is a key reason why the lawsuit has been filed now, said Eamon Murphy, lawyer for the Anishinabe.

“These LeBreton lands, for the very first time in well over a hundred years, are vacant. (The band is) looking at them and saying these lands have been occupied for a very long time — it’s now time that our title’s dealt with before the next project happens and the lands are sold off again.”

The band argues that the Anishinabe once used the land for fishing, hunting, farming and camping. It maintains the band not only used those lands, but controlled who had access to them.

“The Algonquin Anishinabe Nation controlled occupation and use of their lands ... through a variety of means which included arrangements for temporary possession, but also, in the absence of an arrangement, sanctions of increasing severity up to and including death to any invader.”

None of the claim has been proven in court. A statement of defence has yet to be filed.