TORONTO -- Ontario's aboriginal communities are getting more than $3 billion over the next 25 years for community health care, education and infrastructure as part of a new deal to share revenue from provincial lotteries and casinos.
The Chiefs of Ontario announced today they had ratified the deal, which gives 134 aboriginal communities an immediate payment of $201 million and a 1.7 per cent cut of provincial gaming revenues starting in 2011.
In return, the chiefs have agreed to abandon an ongoing lawsuit regarding taxes collected from Casino Rama, near Orillia, Ont., and will in 2011 give up altogether their rights to the casino's revenues.
The agreement, the first of its kind in Canada, ends three years of negotiations and follows a failed deal which was voted down by Ontario chiefs last summer.
"It's been a marathon," Aboriginal Affairs Minister Michael Bryant said from Thunder Bay, where he has spent the past several days personally engaged in non-stop negotiations.
"It's a historic agreement... (It's) a jump-start to helping to assist the living conditions in First Nations."
Under the current deal, which expires in 2011, some aboriginal communities get a cut of the revenue generated by Casino Rama, which works out to an average of $60 million a year. This deal doubles their annual revenue share to about $120 million a year, starting in 2011.
It's up to the individual aboriginal communities to decide how that money is spent, Bryant said. But he said he expects it will help nurture the growth of an aboriginal middle class.
"This money will be used to improve schools, to improve housing, to address infrastructure challenges, to provide training that will lead to more jobs," said Bryant. Hopefully, the money will spur other economic projects within the communities, he added.
"The government's goal is to significantly enlarge an aboriginal middle class so that they can have the same opportunities that many, many Ontarians have. This will go some way to allowing that capacity to do the things that so many First Nations people want to do."
Ontario Regional Chief Angus Toulouse of the Assembly of First Nations said the deal finally gives aboriginal communities some long-term stability over the next 25 years. It is also more flexible than the previous proposal which dictated how the money should be spent, he said.
Some communities will spend the money on funding traditional approaches to mental health while others will focus on bolstering education and improving crumbling infrastructure, Toulouse said.
More importantly, though, the agreement is a concrete step towards a new relationship the Liberals have talked about forging with Ontario's First Nations, he added.
"This just puts action to the words that the premier has talked about in past throne speeches," Toulouse said. "First Nations certainly see this as a positive step."
Conservative Leader John Tory said he hoped the money would make a "significant difference" in the lives of Ontario's aboriginals. But he said a large cheque isn't going to solve the difficulties facing these communities including crumbling police detachments, poor housing and tainted water.
"This is a step forward (but) there are just a whole lot of things out there that sending more money by itself won't resolve," he said. "I just hope it doesn't just amount to another cheque."
New Democrat Gilles Bisson said he had hoped for a better deal, but wasn't going to second-guess the vote by aboriginal leaders. Many just wanted to move forward to allow badly needed money to flow and discussion to move on to larger issues, he said.
The Liberals still have a lot to prove when it comes to sharing cash from northern development projects, as well as putting some funding back into housing and infrastructure on reserves, Bisson said.
"(First Nations) are not ecstatic about this agreement, but they see this as extending a hand to the province so that the province can make good on its claim that it wants to start a new relationship."
Sharing gaming revenue has been a thorny issue for governments of all stripes in Ontario. Casino Rama was originally set up as a First Nations casino with revenue going to communities within the Ontario First Nations Limited Partnership.
A 20 per cent "win tax" -- imposed on Casino Rama by the former Conservative government in 1996 -- prompted several lawsuits from aboriginal communities and Ontario chiefs, claiming the government was not entitled to a cut of the casino profits.
Aboriginal chiefs rejected a $2.5 billion, 20 year settlement offer from the province last June which offered to pay First Nations a 1.6 per cent share of provincial gaming revenues.
PREVIOUS
