REGINA (Staff) — The Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipalities plans to sue the federal government to get compensation for specific native land claims.
Delegates attending last week’s annual convention voted unanimously in favor of a resolution from the SARM board of directors that instructs the directors “to take legal action to secure a tax loss compensation package for specific land claims.”
When the treaty land entitlement deal was signed in 1992, SARM received a $25 million package for tax loss compensation. A similar agreement for specific claims, worth $6.5 million and covering 250,000 acres, was signed by the minister of Indian Affairs in the dying days of the Tory administration, says SARM. The agreement was subsequently accepted by SARM, the provincial government and the Federation of Saskatchewan Indian Nations.
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However, the Liberal government has yet to honor the agreement.
The SARM directors say Ottawa “has wrongfully granted reserve status to selected Indian properties without mitigating third-party interests.”
Bernard Kirwan, past-president of the association, asked federal agriculture minister Ralph Goodale, who spoke to the delegates Friday, if he could give any assurances that compensation would be made.
“I wish very much that I were in a definitive position to give you an answer but I’m not,” Goodale replied.
Meanwhile, delegates also passed two other resolutions dealing with Canada’s native people.
One of them, put forth by the Regina District Association of Rural Municipalities, said that treaty Indians should “be required to pay taxes like the rest of Canadians.”
The other, originating at the North Central Rural Municipal Association, said native self-government should not be allowed. The resolution said there is one people, Canadian, and all people should be governed by one law.
“Splinter governments within Canada, and their laws, could create confusion and chaos within the laws now governing all Canadians,” said the resolution.
