Judge to rule on whether province should pay annuities to First Nations in northeastern Ontario
A Sudbury judge is being asked to determine whether the province should be on the hook for annuity payments owed to First Nations in northeastern Ontario.
Superior Court Justice Patricia Hennessy has reserved her decision on this and other legal issues following nine days of hearings in Sudbury last month in her historic ruling involving the 21 First Nations that are part of the Robinson-Huron Treaty.
In December, Hennessy ruled the First Nations should have received increased annuity payments under the Robinson-Huron Treaty that was signed in 1850.
The hearings last month were held to work out the details of the ruling, and to listen to legal arguments presented by lawyers for the federal and Ontario governments.
One of those arguments, said Mike Restoule, a Nipissing First Nation member who filed the lawsuit on behalf of the 21 First Nations, is that Ontario is seeking Crown immunity in the case since it was the federal government that negotiated the annuities in the Robinson-Huron Treaty.
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