NationTalk – The six Wolastoqey Communities in New Brunswick – Matawaskiye (Madawaska), Neqotkuk (Tobique), Wotstak (Woodstock), Pilick (Kingsclear), Sitansisk (St. Mary’s) and Welamukotuk (Oromocto) – announced they will be filing a lawsuit seeking the Court’s recognition of the Wolastoqey Nation’s title to lands in New Brunswick. Between 1725 and 1778, the Wolastoqey Nation negotiated and entered into Treaties with the Crown, known as the Peace and Friendship Treaties. The Crown did not honour the Treaties, and took Wolastoqey lands without consent, and pushed the Wolastoqey people into six small communities along the river. They have carved up the land and given it to private landowners, and kept for themselves all benefits in the form of taxes, royalties, leases and fees.

They have acted as if they have sole jurisdiction over the land and this is simply legally not the case,” said Chief Tim Paul of Wotstak. “You cannot give away something that is not yours to give. Yet for nearly 300 years, ignoring agreements signed nation to nation in black and white, this is what the governments of that time and the succeeding governments of New Brunswick and Canada have done.” “Meanwhile, many of our people live in poverty,” continued Chief Gabriel Atwin of Pilick. “Canada and New Brunswick and the preceding governments had a fiduciary duty to protect our lands. They did not honour those duties. And our people have suffered because of that breach. Even to this day they refuse to recognize what they have done and we are filing this lawsuit to ask the courts to recognize what the Crown has done.”