Band claims Toronto islands

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The Mississaugas of the New Credit First Nation council is sure it has a legitimate claim on its traditional homeland. Council is just not sure what category the claim falls under.

Chief Carolyn King said her research staff has made a case that all lands south of Front Street (which runs east/west across downtown Toronto) were not part of her people's 1805 surrender of the land where Canada's largest city now stands.

Toronto Mayor Mel Lastman, the longtime mayor of the borough of North York who was elected mayor of the amalgamated super city of Toronto two years ago, laughed off the land claim when reporters asked him about it a few weeks ago. Cashing in on local jokes about his political longevity, he cracked that he was mayor at the time of surrender and he recalls that everything was done by the rules.

Chief King also appreciates a good joke.

"Well, they've got somebody to blame now," she said, laughing.

But as negotiations continue, it may turn out that Lastman is going to have to take the Mississaugas a little bit more seriously.

"If it was legal - a legal surrender - then the compensation wasn't right. We're not happy with the compensation," she said. "The other part is we're not happy with what is viewed to be the boundaries. There was dispute from the traditional chiefs at that time about what the boundaries were, from what the original under-standings were to identifications like 'the water's edge.' Our people's understanding was that [the surrender] did not include the islands because the islands were sacred lands where they went for healing purposes. Our history tells us that the islands were part of it and then the water would wash it away. Sometimes it was an island and sometimes a peninsula and attached. So 'Where was the water's edge?' is part of our claim and 'Why would we give up our sacred lands?'"

New Credit maintains the water's edge at that time was Front Street That could mean that some of the most expensive real estate in Canada, if not North America, still belongs to New Credit. Such landmarks as SkyDome and the new home of the Toronto Maple Leafs, the Air Canada Centre, are on reclaimed land that is south of where the water's edge was at the time of the surrender.

Canada's Specific Claims policy rejects relocation of third parties in landclaim settlements. If the research proves the New Credit claim then compensation will be negotiated. But if New Credit decides it is not prepared to surrender the islands off the Toronto waterfront because of their value as a spiritual place, then the claim moves into the realm of a comprehensive claim.

"If we say that it's still ours then it's a comprehensive claim, which doesn't belong in this process," she said. "I think more data and more discussion will decide which side we belong in."

Historical records show that the Mississaugas were living in the area when the colonial government decided to make the city of York (later renamed Toronto) the capital city of Upper Canada. Encroachment by settlers and the development of this growing major urban centre pushed the Indigenous people to the outskirts of the city. They settled along what is now called the Credit River where the modern city of Mississauga now stands. As more settlement occurred, the pressures increased on the Mississaugas.

In 1787, the first Toronto treaty was negotiated. In 1792, Lieutenant Governor Simcoe discovered that the treaty was a forgery. A blank deed was passed off as the "Toronto Purchase."

"They'd pasted the chiefs names on there and some of them were even dead," King said.

In 1805, a second treaty was formalized. New Credit claims neither deal included the islands.

The original claim was rejected by Canada in the mid-1980s. But since the Delgamuukw decision, which accepts oral history as legitimate, New Credit has been able to enter into negotiations to get the claim back on the table.

When band member Jim Secord was charged with hunting illegally by provincial authorities, he band came to his aid. The charges were laid because Secord was caught hunting near Parry Sound, which is more than 100 km away from the New Credit reserve, the province's limit for Aboriginal hunters. The band council came to his defense claiming their traditional territory encompassed almost all of Southern Ontario and therefore he had the right to hunt and should not have been charged.

The charges were eventually dropped when the province realized the Mississaugas had a potentially good case. But provincial authorities did not recognize any Aboriginal title to any area besides the present reserve.

In the 10 or more years the claim was in limbo, New Credit has waged a subtle battle to raise awareness of its traditional ties to the land around Toronto. The band was invited to participate in the celebration of the 200th anniversary of the city in the early 1990s. King was working for the band at the time and she decided to attend.

"Our chief at the time didn't want to be a part of it. He said we've got nothing to be happy about. I think it's true to say we didn't have, eh? But we have survived here," she said. "We've been coming into our own and now starting to thrive here at least in building our community and making it stronger. But when I looked at that, knowing the hardships we've had to face in trying to make things happen in our community, and sat there and watched all that happened with all the water and all the development and the big city behind us and the nice islands out across the water there . . . well, when I got up to talk - and they were about to do a re-enactment of the war - and I said, 'In war there are winners and losers and on both sides there are survivors, the Mississaugas are survivors. We're on the surviving side and we live 75 miles from here and we strive to survive yet today. As you celebrate your great city, think of us.'"

The group that picked up from the Credit River and moved to the present reserve, located southwest of, and adjacnt to, the Six Nations of the Grand River territory near Hagersville, Ont., was a very Christian community. King is proud that her community is gradually getting back in touch with its traditional Ojibway customs. She is also proud of the community's development, something that was accelerated by the settlement of a 200-acre land claim for an area near Mississauga. The successful completion of that claim nearly three years ago brought close to $18 million worth of benefits to the community, which boasts a beautiful new school, a commercial plaza with a number of new business developments and several public buildings that rival any on any reserve in the country.

New Credit may also be the only reserve in Ontario, or perhaps the country, with fire hydrants and its own water and sewage system.

King and council believe in long-range planning. They see the successful completion of the Toronto claim as a way to scratch a few more items off their wish list and improve the standard of living in their community even more.