In a unanimous ruling, the Supreme Court of Canada on Friday ruled that the Blood Tribe in southern Alberta is entitled to a larger reserve after the federal government under Sir John A. Macdonald “dishonourably breached” Treaty 7 more than a century ago.Justices agreed 7-0 that Macdonald’s government failed to fulfil a promise made in 1877 to set aside a reserve of one square mile (259 hectares) for each family of five.Under the treaty, the Blood were entitled to a reserve of 710 square miles rather than the 547.5 it was allotted..Although the Liberal government under Justin Trudeau acknowledged the discrepancy in 2018, it isn’t clear how it will be corrected — if it can be — apart from monetary compensation. Ironically, the land claim was first raised in 1980 under the elder Trudeau.The present reserve covers 1,400 square kilometres stretching from Medicine Hat to Cardston and Fort McLeod.But the tribe has been arguing for almost a century that its traditional lands include everything between the St. Mary River in the east all the way to the Waterton River in the west south to the US border — including Waterton National Park..First Nations with valid land claims generally seek compensation based on what they could have earned from the land, dating back to when the land was "wrongfully taken.” That in turn could lead to another legal battle over how much a town — Cardston — and a national park would have been worth to the tribe over the past 140 years.“Ultimately, a declaration is a discretionary remedy that must be considered within the unique context of the legal dispute at issue,” wrote Justice Michelle O’Bonsawin on behalf of the court.A further declaration from the government that the Blood Tribe was entitled to more land will serve an important role in “identifying the Crown’s dishonourable conduct, assisting future reconciliation efforts and helping to restore the honour of the Crown,” she added..Court heard that the three bands that form the Blackfoot Confederacy — the Kainai (Blood Tribe), Siksika and Piikani — occupied a massive expanse of the western landscape before the arrival of European settlers.Together, their traditional territory stretched from the Rocky Mountains in the west to Cypress Hills in what is now southwestern Saskatchewan and from the North Saskatchewan River down to the Yellowstone River, south of the US border.When the dominion government opened up the west for settlement, surveyors, agents and commissioners were charged with reserving land for indigenous communities. Macdonald's cabinet directed officials in 1880 to assign a reserve to the Blood Tribe near Fort Kipp, north of what is now Stand Off, "in accordance with their desire.".The claim that the reserve should have stretched beyond what eventually became the town of Cardston was upheld by the non-binding Indian Claims Commission in 2007.When Treaty 7 was signed, the buffalo were becoming extinct and whiskey traders were moving west. The Blood Tribe was suffering from a small pox epidemic that decimated its numbers.Treaty 7 initially envisioned a joint reserve for the Blood, Siksika and Sarcee — now Tsuut'ina Nation — along the Bow River. But Chief Red Crow told dominion government officials he wanted a reserve farther south in its traditional territory where its ancestors were buried.In 1882, land surveyor John Nelson drew up a territory of nearly 1,700 square kilometres under Treaty 7's formula that allotted land by population size. That survey was central to the court battle..That reserve under the 1882 survey would have been roughly 265 square kilometres larger than it is today, an area larger than Regina or Niagara Falls. The existing reserve itself is the largest in Canada, bigger than the cities of Vancouver, Calgary and Montreal combined.The federal government argued the 1882 survey was a draft that was never finished or approved. A followup survey a year later moved the southern border to where it is today, because the reserve "had to be sized in accordance with its bona fide population" which had dwindled due to alcoholism and disease.The court said the reserve should have been shaped by the 1882 survey, noting the dominion government acknowledged the reserve had been surveyed and completed by the end of that year.
