Mineral Rights Decision May Help First Nations

Mineral Rights Decision May Help First Nations

Monday, December 21, 2009 at 14:11

An Indian Affairs spokesman says the settlement of a mineral rights dispute between the federal and provincial governments should make it easier for First Nations to buy those rights on former reserve lands.

Earlier today, the province announced that it was dropping its six-year-old lawsuit over the ownership of mineral rights to lands sold after the First World War to returning soldiers for farming, as part of a federal program called the “soldier settlement”.

The province gets nearly $33 million and title to 34,000 hectares of non-reserve federal Crown land from Natural Resources Canada, in exchange for the province dropping its claim to the mineral rights to another 24,000 hectares of “soldier settlement” lands — all of which is within the boundaries of surrendered Indian reserves.

Trevor Sutter says that with the lawsuit out of the way, it is now clear who First Nations must negotiate with for the mineral rights on the surrendered reserve lands.

“Because the province had contested this, we couldn’t really put it up for acquisition, and now that this is cleared, it provides clarity as to who controls the minerals on-reserve as well as off-reserve,” Sutter says.

He says ownership of the mineral rights on a given parcel remains separate from the right to the use the land itself, which will have to be addressed through Indian Affairs’ land claims process.