Treaties and annuity payments

What is an “annuity,” and how did you learn about it as a kid?

It’s a yearly payment that is part of the treaty. It was negotiated, and it represents a monetary value for sharing the land in the Treaty 3 area. My first experience was getting a government cheque in the mail when I was a kid, then I asked my mother about it, and she said, “You’ll get this for the rest of your life.” And then I found out more about it and that it was all part of that treaty—part of our hunting and fishing rights as well. It’s something that kind of stuck with me.

But back in the day, the government would come to the community. They had a ledger book and the money, and you had to show up in person to get it. My wife once volunteered at a treaty payment event when she worked in government. She went to a community outside of Winnipeg, and the treaty event had a carnival aspect to it, to make it fun for the kids.

When you look at the historical treaty document, you can see some contentious parts of the treaty that are still active to this day, but you also see the names of the people that had negotiated and signed the treaty. Treaty 3 took at least four meetings to negotiate with numerous communities and leaders, and some things that were promised orally were not written into the treaty. Today, more than 150 years later, we are still trying to fight for those things. It’s important to celebrate the elders who signed these treaties. They knew the value of what was there and what we should get.