Manitoba lawsuit claims feds breached Treaty 2 by keeping annuity payments 'frozen in time' at $5

Another Manitoba First Nation is taking the federal government to court for keeping $5 annuity payments to treaty members "frozen in time" for nearly 150 years.

Lake Manitoba First Nation and community member Ron Missyabit are seeking class-action status in a lawsuit filed on behalf of Treaty 2 communities that argues the Crown breached its "fiduciary and equitable duties" by keeping annuity payments fixed at $5 since Treaty 2 was signed in the 1870s.

"The Crown was required to regularly increase the annuities to maintain the purchasing power at the level agreed to," reads the statement of claim that was filed in Manitoba Court of King's Bench on Dec. 21, 2023. 

"The annuities are an empty shell of the original treaty commitment."

The lawsuit is part of a pattern of legal challenges emerging across Canada in recent years targeting federal and provincial governments over annuity payment amounts.

At least two other Manitoba communities — Fisher River First Nation in Treaty 5 and Roseau River Anishinaabe First Nation in Treaty 1 — filed similar lawsuits in 2023 seeking class action status.

The latest suit names the Attorney General of Canada as a defendant and accuses the Crown of the "wrongful withholding of money" and loss of investment opportunities for Treaty 2 members by failing to scale annuity payments over time with inflation.

Treaty 2 First Nations agreed in 1871 to an annuity framework that would see community members receive $3 per year. That was amended to $5 in 1875. Councillors were to receive $15 and chiefs $25 per year.

The amendment harmonized Treaty 2 agreements with those signed by Treaties 3 and 4, the lawsuit says.

The purpose of the agreement was to ensure Treaty 2 members would receive an annual payment in exchange for the use and occupation of 35,700 square miles of land — a space roughly the size of Nova Scotia. 

'Purchasing power' stripped: lawsuit

Annuity payments were supposed to help secure "survival in the face of encroaching settlement and the host of social, economic and personal ills brought on by colonization," the lawsuit says. 

The payments were also supposed to retain the "same level of purchasing power ... to all future generations," according to the statement of claim.

"The value of money has declined precipitously as the cost of goods and services has grown, stripping away all meaningful purchasing power of the annuities," the lawsuit says.

"Over the same period of time, the value of the land claimed by Canada through Treaty 2, and the resources in that land, have grown astronomically, yielding billions of dollars in revenue for the benefit of the Crown and settlers."

Annuities now 'merely symbolic'

Lake Manitoba First Nation, or Animozeebeeng, has 2,300 registered members, two-thirds of whom live on reserve about 160 kilometres northwest of Winnipeg.

Ron Missyabit, 66, was born there in 1957. He spent almost two decades as a school liaison for the Manitoba Indigenous Cultural Education Centre and nearly two more decades as a director of the Indigenous relations branch with Manitoba Conservation.

In recent years, he has worked as a circle keeper for the care and protection of the natural world and lead keeper for Treaty 2, the lawsuit says.

Missyabit has received the same $5 annuity payment throughout his life as the cost of housing, food and clothing have increased considerably.

Food prices are now roughly 50 times what they were in the 1880s and clothing has gone up 25 to 136 times what they were back then, the lawsuit says.

The lawsuit states that the Crown and treaty signatories mutually understood the annuities agreement as a "guarantee of a minimum level of material security," but that the Crown eventually started to treat the annuities as "merely symbolic."

"The Crown was, to a large extent, responsible for this inflation, which is at least partially a product of exponentially increasing government spending," the lawsuit says. 

"Having committed to a certain level of purchasing power, and then contributing to creating the inflation that destroyed purchasing power, the Crown was required to increase the annuities."

Lake Manitoba and Missyabit are seeking a range of unspecified damages for treaty members and nations.

Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs Canada declined to comment on the lawsuit. 

Instead, spokesperson Jacinthe Goulet told CBC News that "honouring the treaty relationship" is a key part of reconciliation.

"We recognize that more needs to be done with regard to renewing the treaty relationship and remain open to looking at ways to advance this important work," Goulet said in a statement on Tuesday.