Celebrating Black History Month

September 28, 2011 DOWNLOAD PDF

Special Signing Ceremony Marks Formal Conclusion of Historic First Nation Land Claim Settlement

Blaney McMurtry partner, Robert (Bob) Potts attended the special ceremony in Wabasca, Alberta on September 12, 2011 to mark the formal conclusion of the historic Bigstone Cree Nation (BCN) land claim settlement in northern Alberta.


Bob, who heads the Firm's Aboriginal Law Group, was the lead negotiator for the Bigstone Cree Nation in the treaty land entitlement claim and resulting negotiations with the Alberta and Canadian governments which began in 1999. The settlement is the largest one ever concluded in Alberta and one of the most complicated and richest First Nation Land Claim settlements in Canadian history,  involving at least one hundred and forty thousand acres of new Reserve land  (some of the most oil rich Territory in Alberta), over a quarter of a billion dollars of compensation and assets to be administered by eleven trusts, the creation of a new First Nation (Peerless Trout First Nation - "PTFN") armed with new Membership and Election Codes, a revised political structure within BCN with a new Election Code there as well, two new elementary schools, a new high school, two new water treatment facilities and a new health care centre in addition to the aforementioned assets.