Exhibit A: Memo from Sir John A.

Indians sue Ottawa on timber rights 1st PM arranged 1886 deal, court told

A cozy deal on Indian timber rights that Sir John A. Macdonald helped arrange for a Tory ally has come back to haunt the federal government. The Whitefish Lake Band of Indians, southwest of Sudbury, is claiming more than $55 million in damages for timber rights Ottawa sold on its behalf in 1886 for just $ 316. Honore Robillard, the Ontario Conservative MPP who obtained the rights for that price along with a partner, sold them for as much as $ 55,000 some 10 months later, band lawyer David Butt said in Superior Court in Toronto yesterday.

Robillard later served as a member of Macdonald’s government. As MP for Ottawa, he faced pointed questions in the press and House of Commons about the deal.

“ This was all over the press and the House of Commons in the 1880s and no investigation was ever done,” Butt told Justice Blenus Wright as he opened the band’s case yesterday. “We have an allegation of a breach of fiduciary duty.”

Federal government lawyer Wayne Morris said that Ottawa has admitted that it breached its fiduciary, or trust relationship with the band, but called the methods of valuing its losses “ unprecedented.” He said government will call its own experts to help estimate appropriate compensation, but did not name any specific amount. Depending on the formula, the band can be owed as little as $ 136,000 or as much as $ 41 million, excluding punitive and other damages. On April 28, 1886, Robillard wrote to Macdonald, who was Superintendent General of Indian Affairs as well as prime minister, complaining that he had lost money in another federal timber deal and asking for the Whitefish Lake reserve rights in compensation.

In May, Indian agent James Phipps wrote Chief Mongowin of the band, which had agreed to let Ottawa sell its timber rights, promising it would “get the highest price possible.”

In two subsequent letters, Indian affairs deputy superintendent L. Vankoughnet noted Macdonald’s personal interest in the sale. “ In connection with your application . . . Sir John Macdonald would like to have a conversation with you . . . at your convenience,” Vankoughnet wrote to Robillard on Sept. 29, 1886. The timber licence issued for $ 316 on Oct. 14, 1886 was way below market value, the band claims. The Crown completed the sale without any appraisal and without any consultation, bid process or other public auction, the band says.

Teresa Migwans, said the nearly 900 band members don’t feel anger about the sale but do think they have been unjustly treated. “ We have waited long enough,” she said. She was amazed to find out that Canada’s first prime minister had a direct role in the sale, she said. “ He was a father in every sense of the word,” she said. “We should have been taken care of.” The band discovered the $ 316 timber rights sale while investigating a land claim in the 1990s, said band lawyer Aaron Detlor. The band wrote to Ottawa about the issue in 1995, but received no response until it launched its lawsuit in 2002, Detlor said. The trial continues today.