Treaty payments to be handed out in Brandon – Brandon Sun

Returning to Brandon after a five-year absence, this week’s treaty annuity payment sessions might find recipients collecting more than the $5 they’re allotted annually.

With recipients allowed to collect for those years they missed out on, Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada communication officer Camille Dupas said that some might leave with a small stack of Wilfrid Laurier-emblazoned bills.

More a symbolic gesture than anything, treaty annuity payments make good on a treaty promise to provide every First Nations person with $5 per year —a rate of pay that has not increased with inflation since treaties were signed more than a century ago.

“It’s only people who are registered members of a First Nations band that were signatories of the treaty who are eligible to receive the payments,” Dupas said.