MOHAWK+GRAND RIVER

Gazette No. 41 — Notice of Parliamentary Record

Be it known and placed on record: That the parliamentary record establishing the Crown’s acknowledgment of the Haldimand obligations is hereby formally entered in the Register of the Nation as a constitutional instrument of historical fact, admissible under the principle established in Pepper v. Hart [1993] AC 593 (House of Lords).

I. Churchill — HC Deb 06 March 1922, vol. 151, cc856–7

Lord H. Cavendish-Bentinck asked the House of Commons: when and by what parties was the Haldimand Treaty denounced? The Colonial Secretary, Winston Churchill, replied that the matter was entirely a question for the Government and Parliament of Canada. The question of denunciation was not answered. The Haldimand Treaty — the term used in the parliamentary record — was not denounced.

II. Frank Oliver — House of Commons of Canada, 5 April 1909

The Honourable Frank Oliver, Minister of the Interior: “The Grand River Six Nations are on a different footing from other Indians of Canada; they came under special treaty arrangements, arrangements that the Canadian Government has no right to interfere with.”

III. Frank Oliver — House of Commons of Canada, 11 May 1914

The Honourable Frank Oliver, confirming the same position in a second statement to the House.

IV. Evidentiary Significance

Under Pepper v. Hart [1993] AC 593, Hansard is admissible to establish the intention of a statutory provision or the scope of a governmental commitment where the language is ambiguous or where the statement in Hansard clearly discloses the intention. These three statements are the Crown’s own declarations of what the Haldimand obligations mean and of the limits of the Canadian Government’s authority to interfere. They are included in the Request for Judicial Notice in the Memorandum of Fact and Law (G64, Part IV.I(c)).