DCHP-2

specific land claim DCHP-2 (August 2016)

• n. & adj. — Law, Aboriginal

  a claim related to land granted by the Crown to a First Nation which asserts that the Crown has not fulfilled its obligations.

  Type: 1. Origin — In the 1970s, the Canadian government began distinguishing between comprehensive land claims, sometimes called "modern treaties" in which Aboriginal groups claim title to territory not previously granted, and specific land claims, where groups assert government impropriety with respect to lands granted by historic treaties or under the Indian Act (see Parliament of Canada reference). The term is exclusive to Canada (see Chart 1).
  See also COD-2, s.v. "specific land claim", which is marked "Cdn".

  See also: Indian Act  treaty (meaning 1a)  comprehensive land claim  land claim  indigenous  

  • 1978  A negotiating session scheduled for this week was cancelled when the CYI executives announced they would be in Ottawa lobbying members of Parliament about the land claims and the pipeline legislation. The council representatives are looking at presenting a specific land claim proposal to the Government in March, several months later than expected. Government officials were less than precise in responding to CYI complaints that the second-phase pipeline impact inquiry promised in 1976 has been eliminated. 
  • 1982  A band of New Brunswick Indians has been given federal approval to negotiate a claim for 4,856 hectares of land now part of the town of Perth-Andover. Approval to negotiate the claim, which the 802-member band on the Tobique Reserve first submitted in 1973, was given last week in a letter by Indian Affairs Minister John Munro to Chief George Francis. Although the band can negotiate compensation, third parties owning former Indian lands won't be dispossessed because of protection under sections of the federal specific land claims policy, Lilian Blondin, spokesman for the federal office of native claims, said yesterday. The band surrendered the land and was compensated for it in 1892, she said. 
  • 1986  Indian Affairs bases its land settlement offers on the current unimproved value of the land and the loss of use the Indians suffered. It has made 27 specific land claim settlements worth a total of $55 million. 
  • 1997  That agreement, the Treaty Land Entitlement Framework, dealt with lands that were promised to natives in treaties but were never delivered. The current dispute involves specific land claims, which deal with lands that were at one point given to natives but may have later been improperly taken away by the Crown. Specific land claims are dealt with at a slower pace, usually no more than two or three a year, but could eventually involve thousands of hectares. Given that specific land claims involve less land over a longer period of time, the federal government has suggested the municipalities be entitled to only five times the previous year's tax revenues, instead of the 22.5 times they received in the 1992 agreement. 
  • 2002  On Thursday, the minister proposed a law that will replace the Indian Claims Commission and create an independent body to settle specific land claims. 
  • 2006  "What we are expecting -- and we are hopeful -- is that everything will work out in terms of (operating water-control structure/land claim) agreements (for Echo and Crooked lakes) with the four First Nations bands (Pasqua, Muscowpetung, Cowessess, Sakimay). We are working towards a final execution of those agreements by the end of 2009," Johnson said, referring to the protracted specific land claim agreements being negotiated between the federal-provincial governments and the four First Nations. "But we are hopeful that everything is in place to allow for normal operations in the interim." 
  • 2007  Receiving national headlines, Prime Minister Stephen Harper touted the announcement June 12 as one that will "revolutionize" the resolution of specific land claims, adding the current backlog of 800-plus claims, and the average settlement period of 13 years, were unacceptable. But when Ekos Research sat down with four focus groups in Montreal and North Battleford, Sask., the very next day, it found most of the participants knew nothing about it. 
  • 2009  Four thousand voters are eligible to cast ballots in Winnipeg Jan. 23 and at Peguis, 220 kilometres north of Winnipeg, on Jan. 24. They will vote on a $127 million compensation deal and if they go for it, the vote will close out an aboriginal claim to some of the best farmland in Manitoba. It would be the largest compensation settlement for a specific land claim in Canada's history. The land in question was once called St. Peter's reserve. Today, its 50,000 acres are some of the most valuable real estate north of Winnipeg. It includes all of Selkirk and lands on both sides of the Red River north of the town. 
  • 2013  Earlier this month, the OPP came under fire from a judge frustrated that police failed to enforce his court injunction to stop a railway blockade. Judge David Brown had made a distinction between the 2006 blockade in Caledonia, where protesters had a specific land claim and were therefore subject to a more "nuanced" interpretation of the law, and the recent blockades in Sarnia and Tyendinaga, where he ordered injunctions because they constituted political opposition to legislation.