Six Miles Deep

Friends of the Oldman River Society v. Canada (Minister of Transport)

Home » Case Law » Friends of the Oldman River Society v. Canada (Minister of Transport)

  1. Case Title & Citation
    Friends of the Oldman River Society v. Canada (Minister of Transport), [1992] 1 S.C.R. 3.

  2. Decision Summary (Neutral Overview)
    This case involved a proposed dam project on the Oldman River in Alberta. Environmental groups argued that federal authorities had to conduct an environmental assessment before approving the project.

The Supreme Court ruled:

  • Federal authorities were subject to the federal Environmental Assessment and Review Process Guidelines Order.

  • The Minister of Transport had to consider environmental factors and follow the required process before approving works.

The decision emphasized that statutory and regulatory duties apply fully to government projects.

  1. Historical & Legal Context
    Oldman River arose at a time when environmental law and federal-provincial division of powers were in flux. The case consolidated the principle that governments must follow their own legal frameworks and cannot exempt themselves informally.

  2. Key Legal Principles Identified in the Case

  • Environmental assessment requirements are binding on the Crown.

  • Failure to follow mandatory procedures can invalidate approvals.

  • Courts can review compliance with such duties.

  1. Implications for Haldimand, Loyalist, and Mohawk Questions

  • Oldman River provides a template for insisting that all relevant legal frameworks—including Haldimand and related instruments—must be taken into account before development proceeds on the Grand River.

  • Just as the Crown cannot skip environmental obligations, it cannot legitimately ignore constitutional and quasi-international obligations toward Mohawk posterity when approving roads, subdivisions, or industrial projects.

  1. Points of Interest to Mohawk of Grand River Posterity

  • The case reinforces that procedural obligations are not optional; they bind governments even when projects seem economically or politically important.

  • It supports demands that any assessment of projects on Haldimand lands must begin by acknowledging who the land was purchased for and what obligations were attached.

  1. Unresolved Questions / Future Research Directions

  • Could courts require a “Haldimand impact assessment” analogous to environmental assessment, as part of Crown honour and fiduciary duties?

  • How far would Oldman River’s logic reach if the omitted framework is not environmental law but the Haldimand/Dorchester system?

  1. Sources

  • Friends of the Oldman River Society v. Canada (Minister of Transport), [1992] 1 S.C.R. 3.

  • Federal environmental assessment materials and commentary.

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“Ignorance may explain how we got here. It doesn’t erase the duty once people are put on notice.”

B. Doolittle UE

Categories

About Benjamin Doolittle U.E.

Benjamin Doolittle UE is a Lower Mohawk of Grand River and a direct descendant of the Mohawk Loyalist leadership that secured the Haldimand Tract. In his capacity as Secretary-General for the Mohawk Nation of Grand River, he works to uphold the hereditary rights and responsibilities carried by his line. Through his matrilineal line, he descends from Esther Springstead (Shatekariwate), a clanmother married to Captain David Hill, U.E.L.

Matrilineal line: Tracey → Beverly → Mabel → Bertha → Lydia → Esther → Ellen (daughter of Isaac Brant) → Mary → Esther Springstead (Shatekariwate)

This makes Benjamin a sixth-great-grandson of Joseph Brant U.E.L. (Thayendanegea) and Isaac Brant of Canajoharie, one of the three named Mohawk villages carried into the Grand River settlement. Band Council has certified that he holds 100% Mohawk blood quantum under their rolls, reflecting both his hereditary standing and his rootedness in the community.

In his role as Secretary-General, Benjamin’s work with Six Miles Deep focuses on recovering and enforcing the original Crown-recognized framework for Mohawk title along the Grand River — not as a generic “aboriginal rights” claim, but as a specific hereditary interest grounded in Loyalist service, the Haldimand Proclamation, and the subsequent Crown instruments that confirmed it.

Beyond Six Miles Deep, Benjamin has founded and developed several initiatives to strengthen Mohawk continuity and stewardship, including Grand Back, the Bluebelt conservation concept, Mohawk University, and the Kanien’kehà:ka Language Development Institute. Together, these projects aim to restore land-based governance, protect the Grand River watershed, and support language and cultural renewal for Mohawk posterity.

Earlier in his career, Benjamin operated a community photo studio for several years, specializing in weddings, newborn, and family portraits across the Grand River region. He later helped launch the Indigenous newspaper Two Row Times, supporting its development as a platform for Onkwehonwe voices and treaty-based perspectives.

Benjamin is also an independent music producer, releasing work under the name One Way Current, published by Corn Press Publications. Through his music and writing, he explores Mohawk history, land, and spiritual continuity in contemporary forms that speak to both youth and elders.

He is a member of the United Empire Loyalist Association of Canada, the Royal Heraldry Society of Canada, and the Monarchist League of Canada. These associations reflect his conviction that Crown honour, hereditary recognition, and proper heraldic and historical process are essential to resolving the long-ignored duties owed to Mohawk posterity on the Grand River.

Benjamin maintains an active working relationship with ministers, local officials, and church representatives, regularly greeting dignitaries and visitors at the Mohawk Chapel and using those encounters to remind them of the Crown’s ongoing duties to the Mohawk Nation of Grand River.

Benjamin is also a survivor of the Indian Day School system, an experience that informs his understanding of how imposed systems of education, identity, and governance have tried to overwrite Mohawk continuity while leaving the underlying treaties and Crown obligations intact. His lived experience sits alongside his archival research, legal studies, and community work, grounding Six Miles Deep in both documentation and reality on the ground.

Through Six Miles Deep and related projects, Benjamin works to:

re-establish lawful recognition of Mohawk hereditary rights along the Haldimand Tract clarify the distinction between band-council trust structures and the underlying Mohawk title educate institutions, governments, and the broader public about the continuing force of Crown promises to the Mohawk Nation of Grand River

His goal is not simply to revisit history, but to restore living jurisdiction, stewardship, and continuity for Mohawk posterity, “six miles deep” on both sides of the Grand River, in a way that honours both the ancestors who secured the land and the children who will inherit it.

listen to BLOODLINE

“Bloodline” follows the Haldimand Proclamation from its original promise to the present fight to have it honoured. The track moves through Crown grants, broken commitments, and the legal and political road back to enforcement, asking listeners to hear the Proclamation not as a relic of the past, but as a living obligation that still binds the Crown to the Mohawk Nation of Grand River.

Artist: One Way Current
Writer: Benjamin Doolittle UE
Producer: One Way Current
Publisher: Corn Press Publications
Affiliation: Six Miles Deep / Mohawk Nation of Grand River

WHITE PAPER

CROWN PLUS

Crown Plus is an initiative of the Mohawk University, dedicated to restoring truth, lawful continuity, and honour in the interpretation and application of the Haldimand Proclamation of 1784 — the foundational covenant between the Mohawk Nation and the British Crown.

This paper is divided into three parts, each exploring a distinct dimension of the Haldimand covenant: its legal origins, its modern violations, and the path toward lawful restoration. Together, they form the living record of a truth that has been long buried beneath colonial misinterpretation.Crown Plus stands for the principle that the Mohawk Nation is not a subject of the Crown, but a co-sovereign pillar upon which the Canadian state itself rests.

The phrase “Crown Plus” reclaims the language of Canada’s political history — a response to the White Paper (1969) and Red Paper (1970) — and reframes it in the Mohawk context. Where others spoke of “citizens plus,” we assert “Crown Plus”: the indivisible bond of alliance, honour, and hereditary right between the Mohawk and the Crown.

Part I — The Legal Foundations and Historical Continuity

Explores the origins of the Haldimand Proclamation, the Dorchester correction, the Mohawk–Crown alliance since Queen Anne, and the constitutional distinctiveness of the Mohawk Loyalist posterity.

Read Part I

Part II — Modern Violations, Fiduciary Duties, and Institutional Responsibility

Documents the breach of fiduciary duty by Crown agents, the propagation of false land acknowledgements, and the complicity of academic, corporate, and judicial institutions in sustaining unlawful occupation.

Read Part II

Part III — Framework for Restoration, Recommendations, and the Path Forward

Outlines a ten-year restoration plan, proposes the Mohawk Posterity Registry and Royal Commission of Continuity, and reaffirms the spiritual and legal covenant through the Crown Plus Initiative.

Read Part III