FORT WILLIAM FIRST NATION, Ont. – A nearly $99 million settlement offer from the federal government over the expropriation of lands nearly a century ago is about righting a historical wrong, says the community’s chief.
Fort William First Nations officials held a media conference Friday morning to discuss the settlement offer received earlier this week from the federal government in their Grand Trunk Railway claim that forced the relocation in 1905 of the community away from its original location along the banks of the Kaministiquia River.
The offer to resolve the claim, which has been ongoing since 1999, includes a payment of nearly $99 million as well as the return of up to 1,130 acres of land back to the reserve.
That financial amount was calculated through historical calculations such as loss of use and loss of rent, as well as environmental assessment and survey costs. It also contributes towards legal, negotiation and survey costs.
Chief Peter Collins said the settlement offer is important to the community in acknowledging forcing members off the land was wrong.
“I think mainstream society needs to understand the uprooting and legacy that’s been left behind for us as First Nations people being moved off the land that was rightfully Fort William and the hardships that were endured,” Collins said, adding the case was the largest railway land expropriation in Canada’s history.
The community’s historic location was along the river, adjacent to where the solar farm is currently located. The lands that are part of the settlement offer span along the river from where Totem Trailer Court is currently located west to the sawmill site.
When they were forced to relocate, the community spread out between Squaw Bay and Mountain Village. Farmland had to be abandoned, buildings were either torn down or moved and bodies were exhumed from graveyards and hauled to the new site.
Moving away from the river meant the members lost their primary mode of transportation.
“I’d listen to stories from my grandmother about the past when they moved to Squaw Bay and had to walk to the city or the township to get their supplies and those were hardships that were created from being moved off the land by the river,” Collins said.
The land that is subject to the settlement offer will remain industrial, as there are environmental and other concerns that would not allow them to become residential.
Collins said the offer means the First Nation will have the authority to collect taxes, rather than the municipality.
“We’ve been working on that process already trying to figure out the loops and hurdles that we have to get through,” he said. “At the end of the day, the taxing authority the city still has on our (Grand Trunk Pacific) land is what we ultimately want off the land.”
Fort William First Nation director of lands and properties Ian Bannon said it will take time to transfer the land back as there are certain properties with rental agreements and where properties have been sold.
A membership meeting will be held on Monday night were community members can provide their response to the offer.
Collins said it will likely be a three-month process to ratify at the community level, including a band council resolution, before the offer gets handed back to the government, which is expected to take at least a couple more months.
If the offer is accepted, it is still to be determined how the money will be spent. Collins said he expects there would be some cash distribution to members and he wants some used for long-term economic development to create sustainable jobs.
