Opposition re-surfaces as land claim vote nears

Jeff Green | Jan 20, 2016

A ratification vote is set for late February and early March concerning the Agreement in Principle (AIP) for the Algonquin Land Claim in the Ottawa Valley.

The Algonquins of Pikwakanagan First Nation (APFN), the only community in the territory made up of “status” Algonquins under the Indian Act of Canada, joined with the Algonquins of Ontario (AOO), which is made up of nine off-reserve “non-status” communities. Together they negotiate the AIP with the governments of Ontario and Canada.

The AIP was presented to the public in early 2014. Both of the governments have now ratified it, leaving the ratification vote among Algonquins as the final hurdle. If ratified by the Algonquins, final negotiations towards a formal land claim treaty will begin. Those negotiations are expected to take five years to complete, which would make the land claim process, which began in 1992, a 30-year odyssey.

Over the last 25 years, a number of people have walked away from the land claim process for a number of reasons, and as the vote nears next month they are starting to come forward with concerns over the legitimacy of the vote, and the process that preceded it.

Jo-Anne Green put out an open letter this week. She writes on behalf of herself and her mother, Elder Eleanor Baptiste Yateman, the great grand-daughter of Chief John Baptiste Keeigu Manitou from Baptiste Lake, northwest of Bancroft, where Eleanor was born and raised.

Green says that her mother, who now lives in Peterborough, was in the closed meetings before the land claim began. “When she found out the way the claim was proceeding and that the non-status were going to be used for head count only, she decided to resign, but that is not to say she had resigned from working on attaining the rights for our indigenous people; it is quite the opposite.”

The letter goes on to say that APFN not only marginalized the non-status population, they created false communities and also downplayed the Nippissing lineage of local people.

One of the nine communities that make up the AOO is the Bancroft/Baptiste community. According to Jo-Anne Green and Eleanor Yateman, “The Bancroft/Baptiste community is not legal. We can say this because we know our lineage and our history ... the Nipissing history is a big part of the rights and title to the land claim.”

Green says that she, along with her mother, “have been exposed to ridicule, silence tactics and intimidation; all this by an institution that purports to represent Algonquin people”. She says there are others who share their concerns.

She also says that, “A great number of pertinent documents support our allegations”; that the “land claim needs to be exposed for what it is”; and that the “claim has many layers of deception.”