In response to a recent Western Standard news story about indigenous grievances, Treaty 8 chiefs’ claims for resource revenue sharing on ceded Western Canadian lands lack a clear legal and historical foundation, which is essential for understanding their legitimacy and impact.
While the phrase “Treaty 8 territory” seems to refer to lands surrendered to the Crown in the 1899 agreement, understanding the temporal context of these land surrender agreements helps clarify why current claims for resource revenue sharing are legally and historically unfounded.
