Many keen to collect treaty payments
Advertisement
Read this article for free:
or
Already have an account? Log in here »
We need your support!
Local journalism needs your support!
As we navigate through unprecedented times, our journalists are working harder than ever to bring you the latest local updates to keep you safe and informed.
Now, more than ever, we need your support.
Starting at $15.99 plus taxes every four weeks you can access your Brandon Sun online and full access to all content as it appears on our website.
Subscribe Nowor call circulation directly at (204) 727-0527.
Your pledge helps to ensure we provide the news that matters most to your community!
To continue reading, please subscribe:
Add Brandon Sun access to your Free Press subscription for only an additional
$1 for the first 4 weeks*
*Your next subscription payment will increase by $1.00 and you will be charged $20.00 plus GST for four weeks. After four weeks, your payment will increase to $24.00 plus GST every four weeks.
Read unlimited articles for free today:
or
Already have an account? Log in here »
Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 30/08/2017 (3140 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.
For many of the people receiving their $5 treaty annuity payments this week, it’s about much more than receiving a blue note.
The amount hasn’t changed in more than 100 years, during which every status First Nations person in Canada under treaty has been entitled to receive $5 per year.
Inflation hasn’t affected this payment, which over time has been relegated to more a symbolic gesture than anything else.
“It’s just time to honour the treaties,” Tammy Hossack of the Brandon Friendship Centre said while helping host the event, adding that both the payments and retaining one’s status card tie in to this effort.
The Friendship Centre’s 205 College Ave. location is hosting treaty payments from 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. this week through Thursday, during which those in attendance are also filling out paperwork and getting their photographs taken for new secure certificate of Indian status cards.
Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada representatives are on hand to walk people through the process.
This is the first time Brandon has hosted these payments since 2012, when 659 people received a total of $18,030, although payments are also held every summer in each of the province’s First Nations communities.
Joining a few family members in receiving his payment on Tuesday, Vince Guimond said that he hadn’t collected in five years, meaning this year’s entitlement was $25.
It’s a means of holding the federal government to account for promises made, Chelsey Hunter said, adding that it’s important that Indigenous peoples “remain resilient.”
» tclarke@brandonsun.com
» Twitter: @TylerClarkeMB
» Why was it important you participate in the treaty annuity payment?
• Chelsey Hunter — “It’s important to our culture that we remain resilient to what we’ve been through in the past; that we’re still here.”
• Barry Anderson — “It’s been there for us.”
• Vince Guimond — “We just get it for tradition.”
• Glenda Shorting — “It was part of our treaty agreement.”
• Darryl Racette — “It gets money for my son.”
• Terrance Lathlin — “It’s part of our heritage and something we’ve always done.”
