Kwey. Bonjour. Good afternoon.
My name is Steeve Mathias. I'm from the Long Point First Nation, a member of the Algonquin Anishinabe Nation.
I want to first welcome you to the Algonquin unceded territory where you're having this parliamentary standing committee session right now.
Winneway is where we're situated today, and we're considered an Indian settlement. We have a membership of about 1,000 on our band list, and we have around 600 members living in the community of Winneway.
We have all the infrastructure in terms of housing and public buildings. We have our school. We have our nursing station. We have our band office, our community hall. We have about 12 public buildings in the community, and we have 120-some houses.
When we came about, we were originally located at Long Point, Kakinwawigak, which is on the shores of the Ottawa River and is now known as Lac des Quinze, here in Quebec.
We were forced to relocate on two separate occasions. We were initially flooded by a hydro dam development, so we were forced to relocate upstream on the Ottawa River to Sand Point. Then there was another development. I'm going back about a century ago.
In the late 1930s, they had another hydro development project. Our ancestors took part in the construction of that little hydro power plant where they had to build some dikes upstream—seven dikes to stock up water in the winter months at the main dam. All the hard labour was provided by our ancestors to build all that infrastructure, including a 26-kilometre transmission line to provide the electricity to a mining project.
We were really impacted by this economic development back then by the industry, also to the benefit of the Crown, without any compensation, without any meaningful consultation either. We're doing some research right now, and we found some letters that were sent to the federal government in 1906 from one of our former chiefs, Chief Pier Ogoshen, who requested reserve land in 1906 prior to getting flooded. Quebec, at the time, had set aside 230,000 acres of land for reserve purposes. When the request was made, the answer was that there were 581 acres remaining out of that 230,000. We still don't have the status of a reserve here where we are now in Winneway.
The missionary oblates, in the early 1950s, obtained a lease from Quebec. It was two half lots totalling around 116 acres of land. They obtained those lands for religious and educational purposes. We built all those lands.
Today, I'm sitting at the administration office of Long Point First Nation. Most of our public buildings and residential homes are situated on those lands. We have engaged on more than one occasion to try to resolve the situation of my community.