22521 ISLAND ROAD · PORT PERRY, ON · L9L 1B6 · TEL: 905-985-3337 · FAX: 905-985-8828 · www.scugogfirstnation.com
Participant Statement of Dave Mowat
Consultation, Lands and Membership Supervisor
Mississaugas of Scugog Island First Nation
Ontario Municipal Board
Applicant and Appellant: Burleigh Bay Corporation
Case No.: PL150313
File No.: PL150313
Township of North Kawartha
Background
I am the Consultation, Lands and Membership Supervisor for Mississaugas of Scugog Island First
Nation (MSIFN) and a member resident of the Alderville First Nation (AFN) and former Band
Councillor of AFN 2007-2015. I have an Advanced Bachelor of Arts Degree with a Major in Canadian
History from the University of Manitoba. I have been working at the First Nations level for the past 26
years in various capacities, in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Northwest Ontario, MSIFN and AFN.
The 1818 Treaty #20-Rice Lake Purchase
1. The Treaty area within which the proposed development is planned to occur is known as Treaty
#20, negotiated and signed at what is believed to be present day Port Hope, on the north shore of
Lake Ontario during the first week of November, 1818 (signed Nov 5/1818). The context in
which this treaty was signed is of importance.
2. The War of 1812 had altered the landscape dramatically showing both American and British
sides how penetrable their artificial colonial borders were. While the War of 1812 was a
relatively minor one on a global scale (15,000 Americans died; roughly 8,600 British and
Canadians died in battle or from disease; the losses of First Nations warriors is not known) and
while the peace terms that ended the War were status quo antebellum the status quo did not
prevail for the First Nations.
1
3. Their lands, the lands they had fought on the British side to protect, the lands they had agreed to
share with the settlers, and lands still “unpurchased” would become the focus of increased treaty
activity from 1815 onward.
4. We need to understand that Ontario’s treaty history makes up a patchwork of interests, reflected
in the treaty parcels, some 35 in total between 1764 and 1923, at least. It involves multiple
Indigenous groups, the Crown, and in the back of these the agents of change in the colony that
sought to build new communities. Our people during this period were still living on the land.
The reserve system had not been invoked yet; that entire colonialist and religious movement that
would sweep through the lives of the First Nations had not yet resonated in the sedentary small
parcels of land upon which they would be expected to eke out a new living.
5. Struggling to hold on to a land and culture that had been under attack for longer than the leaders
in 1815 had been alive it was at 1815 and after that sees the increased push by the Crown to buy
up Indian lands and strengthen the colony of Upper Canada, back and away from the early land
surrenders.
6. Between 1815 and 1819 approximately four and a half million acres had been purchased in
additional lands over and above the original treaties along Lake Ontario, not to mention
additional lands in the Thames district; at a time when the First Nations found themselves at a
great loss in the wake of the War of 1812. The signatories to Treaty 20 were amongst those
groups who, while having defended Canada, now found themselves struggling to secure their
futures upon their own lands. This is the general backdrop of the negotiation and signing of that
particular Treaty, a Treaty which would play out in the Ontario Court of Appeal some 163 years
later in R. v. Taylor and Williams.
7. The key here is that as difficult as it was in the face of an encroaching settler society, the primary
concern of our people was protecting access to their hunting and fishing grounds including the
islands. This was evident in the minutes of the Treaty #20 negotiation and it was a concern that
was spoken directly to the Crown representative William Claus and clearly understood by Claus.
It was 1818, the reserve system did not exist and the oppression of the Indian Act was decades
away!
8. The guarantees provided by Claus in protecting hunting and fishing and access to the islands,
however, did nothing to halt the movement of settlement and continued encroachment. That was
in fact the least of the Crown or settler’s concern it would appear, staying clear of harvesting
sites and respecting the concerns of the effected First Nations.
9.
By the 1820s continued encroachment forced new and alarming social changes amongst the
First Nations groups throughout Upper Canada, such as conversion to Methodism or other
religious factions, and the challenge of shifting to an agrarian society. This is not an
encouragingly satisfactory history in this province, that of the encroachment of Indian lands in
the colony, and the subsequent racist attitudes that hardened against our people.
2
10. We have heard much of it now, or we should be aware of it, all through Ontario society, in the
ensuing generations. As Upper Canada grew and gave way to the re-constituted Province of
Canada and eventually the Dominion of Canada through Confederation the First Nations had
now been placed on small parcels of “reserve” land.
11. The 4 First Nations speaking out in this particular OMB case (the Treaty #20 First Nations of
Curve Lake, Hiawatha and Scugog Island, and the affiliated First Nation of Alderville) never
acquired more than probably 7,400 acres of reserve land during the advent of the reserve system
and/or the Indian villages.
12. While Ontario now could evolve on the back of questionable First Nations land purchases the
First Nations people themselves had become paupers on their own land. The Reserve system
would become the tool of oppression controlling those lands and the people living upon them, as
it’s been said “from cradle to grave.” Colonial and provincial legislation that had evolved
around the First Nations did not concern itself with the earlier concern of access to harvesting
sites addressed in 1818. It did not concern itself with our people’s desire to protect their burial
sites or the spawning grounds and the wetlands and the overall general maintenance of the
environment. As for consultation, well that was the least of concern amongst the agents of
change within the Treaty #20 area, even though the First Nations voice can be heard throughout
the historical record.
13. Into the 20th century the hardened attitudes amongst the settler population and government
manifested themselves in our people being chased off the land, having their trap lines sabotaged,
seeing attempts to lease out and keep our people out of their own wild rice beds, being shot at,
being harassed from airplanes while simply attempting to access the country food that kept them
healthy. That is the history around the long campaign of protecting Treaty #20 harvesting rights,
access to them, and their maintenance.
14. So in R. v. Taylor and Williams, while all of the sad drama had been playing out in Treaty #20
for generations, it did not discount the fact that the Crown had in fact heard loud and clear that
harvesting rights and access were of primary concern, and that it honoured that fact. All of the
uninformed attitudes against those rights do not diminish their existence! Those harvesting
rights are real, they are integral to the Treaty 20 First Nations, they keep our people close to the
land, to the spirit of the land, to our ancestors! They are not something to be scoffed at, to be
ignored and disrespected.
15. In my capacity and in the capacities my colleagues of Curve Lake, Hiawatha and Alderville hold
down we see a continuous onslaught of development continuing to occur across our Treaty land.
We should all be aware of the principle of the Duty to Consult which has come down through the
Supreme Court of Canada in Haida and Taku River. It is on this basis that we stay apprised of
development, and enter into engagement and consultation processes with proponents.
3
16. In the particular planning application of Burleigh Bay Corp. that has not been the case. It is only
through Curve Lake that we were originally informed and not through the expected channels of
information sharing that multiple proponents flow to us. The fact that the Duty to Consult has not
been properly and clearly demonstrated is the reason for our opposition to this application
proceeding as is desired.
4