On Monday evening, Carolyn Bennett, the federal minister for Crown-Indigenous Relations, congratulated Bernard and the Maliseet First Nation on the conclusion of the 'historic settlement.' However, the tribunal does not have the authority to return the land, so four years of negotiations for financial compensation settlement followed before the settlement was reached in mid-March.

In November 2017, a federal tribunal ruled that the Madawaska Maliseet First Nation's claim to 1,578 hectares was valid. In that claim, the band argued Canada breached its lawful obligations in transferring lands - including lands that now encompass most of downtown Edmundston - to third parties and did not fulfil the provisions of the Royal Proclamation of 1763. The band's court battle for legal recognition of its claim dates back to 1996.

Tribunal rules downtown Edmundston is on Maliseet First Nation land.

The land can be anywhere in the province and there is no time limit on its acquisition. In addition to $145 million, the settlement includes an option for the First Nation to acquire up to 783 hectares to add to its reserve. 'Our ancestors did not surrender their right to the land.'' 'This claim strikes at the heart of what it has meant to have grown up on reserve lands' and to be 'marginalized as a people,' Madawaska First Nation Chief Patricia Bernard said in a statement. The settlement settles a dispute that wound through the courts for more than two decades. The federal government will pay out $145 million to the Madawaska Maliseet First Nation in northwestern New Brunswick in what is now the largest federal land claim settlement in Maritime history.

Monkey Hill Gold by Patricia Bernard