McGill Queen's Press reported earlier this month that John S. Long's Treaty 9: Making the Agreement to Share the Land in Far Northern Ontario in 1905 has won the Ontario History Society's Fred Landon Prize in Regional History for 2010. The OHS website says only that its annual prizes will be given at its AGM on June 4, 2011.
The evidence John Long presents in Treaty 9, or perhaps Professor Long himself, may become part of the process in the lawsuit that began being heard yesterday in Toronto, in which some of the Treaty 9 signatories allege that Canada and Ontario failed to live up to their Treaty 9 commitments.
Is this to be Ontario's contribution to the big land claims cases that have begun to transform the state of treaty law in Canada. So far British Columbia and Quebec have generated leading cases, with the courts explaining to governments that yes, treaty obligations have to be taken seriously, but there is still far to go.
Professor Long, who began his working career as a school teacher at Moose Factory and Moosonee, now teaches at Nipissing University in North Bay, Ontario.
