Canada’s Approvals Expected by End of Summer

on the Boundary and Neebing Claims

July 15, 2010

SUMMARY UPDATE

Over the past while, I have been receiving inquiries relative to the status of the Boundary and Neebing claim and therefore wish to provide an updated summary to assure our members that this claim is in fact still active and has been placed on Priority with Canada towards it settlement.

The Land Claims Negotiating Team has continued to follow up with officials in the office of the Minister and with senior managers in Indian Affairs to ensure that Canada’s approvals process for the Boundary Claim and the Neebing Surrender Claim keeps moving. Through the dedicated work of the team with the assistance of the Chief, we have been successful in getting these two claims to the goal line and we are currently waiting for the Treasury Board of Canada’s Specific Claim Department to issue the approval to provide FWFN with the written offer for these two claims.

We received word earlier this week that all of the submissions and supporting materials for consideration by the Treasury Board have been completed. Consistent with this, the Negotiating Team is working on the assumption that written offers will be received from Canada by the end of the summer.

Immediately upon receipt of the written offers, the Chief and Council will meet to consider them, after which time, we will distribute an information package to our Members. The package is almost ready-to-go, so there will virtually no further delay after the Chief and Council authorize distribution.

Please note that no distribution amount has been established and will not be done until such time that Fort William First Nation receives the official written offer from Canada.

The package will contain summary information about the offers, and also outline the steps established for community consultation about the Settlement and Trust agreements, and for our approvals process.

In the mean time the Land Claims Negotiation team is currently in the process of working on our next file which is the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway claim (GTP) and again we are making positive progress with this. Once we commence with the community consultation process for the Boundary and Neebing claims, a full update will be provided to members on this file.

Thanks to all Members for your continued patience.

Respectfully submitted,

Ian Bannon

Manager – Lands & Claims Negotiations

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