Thank you, Chair.
Thank you for the opportunity to provide information that will allow us to strengthen our relationship.
My name is Chief James Plewak. I'm the son of Marjorie Burns, who is the daughter of Walter Burns, who was the son of Solomon Burns, who was a son of Moses Burns, also known as Chief Keeseekoowenin, who was the half-brother of Chief Mekis, who entered into Treaty No. 2 on August 21, 1871, with the imperial crown, on behalf of the Riding Mountain and Dauphin Lake bands and the rest of the territory.
The territory is the map that you see before you.
Today with me are Chief Nelson Houle of Ebb and Flow, and Chief Eugene Eastman of O-Chi-Chak-Ko-Sipi. Both of them are with Treaty No. 2 first nations.
In the 1800s our people worked with the Hudson's Bay Company to create trade and commerce in what is Manitoba today. The area, which was our traditional territory over which we exercised sovereignty, covered the eastern shore of Lake Winnipeg, as our eastern boundary, going west to Moose Mountain, which is today in southeastern Saskatchewan, as you'll see on the map.
It essentially ran from the northern point of Waterhen Lake to the U.S. border, except for the area that was specified in Treaty No. 1...the postage-stamp Manitoba stretched out to what is today Brandon in southern Manitoba, and it's as you can see on the map.
In 1871, when representatives of the imperial crown asked us if we would open up portions of our territory for immigration and settlement, there were no settlers on our territory. We were the only occupants, as Chief Houle noted in his comments. By requesting the treaty, the crown acknowledged our sovereignty. We utilized our sovereignty and consented to Treaty No. 2. The word “consent” appears at the outset of the treaty.
We could have done what the Ojibway of the Rainy River area did. They told the commissioners to get on their way and they would think about the treaty for a winter or two more. But we did consent, and as Justice Binnie said in Mikisew Cree First Nation v. Canada, the treaty was not the end; it was the beginning.
As Chief Justice McLachlin said in the Haida Nation decision, the duty to consult and to accommodate is for the purpose of reconciling the sovereignty because of our prior occupancy and the crown's assumed sovereignty. That's an ongoing process that's required when we speak of consultation.
There is another matter that you should be aware of. We not only opened up portions of our land for settlement, but we invited the settlers' children to attend our schools because they had none. We invited the settlers to be part of our church because we had one for our people who wanted to learn Christianity.
We helped the settlers establish themselves, to build their homes, to survive the winter. We made arrangements with them to trade in our cattle and our horses, which were the finest of the land. By the Rupert's Land Act, the crown was told the new Canada had no jurisdiction in our territory until a treaty had been entered into, a just and equitable treaty for compensation.
We were assured in our treaty negotiations that lands not taken up by immigration and settlement would continue to be ours, to be governed by our sovereign governments, which included all the Ojibway communities within our territory. We were assured that we would be compensated for the loss of use of those lands that were settled. One dollar an acre was the amount to be paid in 1871, the going price then: not a dollar annually, but a one-time dollar an acre for as long as the sun shines and the river flows, but you never paid a penny of it, not one penny of it.
This alone explains the poverty in which we have lived for so many generations. Just to give you an idea, in my area agricultural land is now going for about $500 an acre. Back in 1871 the value of that land was $1 an acre. You can see how much it has increased in value.