Canada's Dispossession of the Stoney Point Indian Reserve in 1942 and Options for Redress

Abstract

The essay was written in 1996 and was circulated as a pamphlet among individuals with direct interest in the matter considered. The original pamphlet is lost, but the author retained an electronic version. In 2020, the author chose to make this essay available on SSRN as it relates to an event of historical importance and contains facts and contemporaneous analysis that may be useful to present researchers. In particular, the author believes that the essay from 1996 provides useful historical context for those involved in struggles over land rights in 2020 and beyond. For instance, the author recognizes many parallels (and divergences) between the Stoney Point case and the resistance of the Unist’ot’en clan of Wet’suwet’en people to pipeline development in their traditional territory. In 2015, the Chippewas of Kettle and Stony Point First Nation approved a settlement with the Canadian government for the return of land that had been appropriated in 1942 in connection with Canada’s war effort. The settlement included a $95 Million compensation fund and the federal government agreed to clean up the land. Twenty years earlier, Dudley George — shot and killed by a police sniper — was the “first aboriginal person to be killed in a land-rights dispute in Canada since the 19th century.”