SASKATOON (Staff) — The long-term goal of farmland purchases by Indian bands is to get native people back on the land, says a land claims official.
But in the short term, most of that land will be leased back to the people now farming it.
Brad Michael, a treaty land entitlement co-ordinator for the Federation of Saskatchewan Indian Nations, said in an interview it’s up to each band to decide exactly what to do with any land it buys.
He said there are three distinct areas of interest for the bands: Buying rural land for agricultural projects run by Indian people living on the land; buying land in urban centres for commercial, nonresidential ventures; buying land to get access to natural resources and tourism-based developments.
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The rural projects will likely be the slowest to develop, he said.
“A lot of the bands at the moment are quite busy co-ordinating all these other activities, so for practical purposes we’ll likely see them offering five-year lease arrangements to allow farmers to stay on the land.”
Bernard Kirwan, president of the Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipalities, agrees. He admires the goal of getting Indian people out of the cities and back on the land in a self-sustaining economic environment, “but I can’t see it happening for a long, long time.”
