Unit 3 - Indigenous Peoples and the Land

Land claims are when a First Nations community or treaty organization claims that they did not receive land promised in the original treaty, and are thus asserting their ownership of the land.

Remember that those writing the treaties did not always include all they had promised, and First Nations leaders at the time did not read the language. Also, the governments sometimes changed the size of a reserve without consulting First Nations, either while the reserve was being surveyed or later through Legislative Acts.

Since the 1997 Supreme Court of Canada’s Delgamuukw decision that First Nations oral history is equal to a written document, First Nations communities have had legal standings to claim land that was promised in the treaties. This forced the provincial and Canadian governments to open up negotiations with the First Nations who had not received the amount of land promised in the treaties. The Treaty Land Entitlement Process was established as a framework for First Nations communities to use to acquire previously promised land.