{"id":494,"date":"2018-04-24T16:45:45","date_gmt":"2018-04-24T16:45:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cgrf.ca\/?page_id=494"},"modified":"2022-04-26T20:07:33","modified_gmt":"2022-04-26T20:07:33","slug":"background-why-the-cgrf-was-formed","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.cgrf.ca\/index.php\/background-governance\/background-why-the-cgrf-was-formed\/","title":{"rendered":"Background: Why the CGRF was formed"},"content":{"rendered":"

The CGRF was conceived back in 2008, in part to provide research support to a newly emerging corporate entity, the Rat Portage Common Ground Conservation Organization (RPCGCO). You can read the longer history of the Common Ground initiative here.\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n

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The lands outlined in brown became the property of the Rat Portage Conservation Organization in 2008.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The RPCGCO is a corporation that since 2008 has held the 450 acres of land that formerly was owned by Abitibi, the company that operated the former Kenora paper mill. The land includes about 350 acres on Tunnel Island, Old Fort Island, and some other adjacent small islands in the Winnipeg River.\u00a0 You can read more about the land here. <\/a><\/p>\n

The corporation is unique in that it is made up equally of representatives from Anishinaabe and settler communities, including Grand Council Treaty #3, the City of Kenora, and the three First Nations that together constitute the Rat Portage #38 Band: Obashkaandagaang First Nation, Ochiichagwe’babigo’ining Ojibwe Nation and Wauzhushk Onigum Nation, whose traditional areas overlap around this spot. These same entities also had representatives on the Executive Committee of the CGRF to ensure an easy exchange of information and guidance from the corporate partners to the research project.<\/p>\n

The RPCGCO’s governance structure, with its equal partnership among settler and Indigenous signatories, echoes the spirit and intent behind our treaty: that as people who share a place, we have an obligation to share in the governance and management of all resources, for the mutual benefit of all our people. Though we have different cultural traditions and different ways of doing things, we respect and honor our mutual systems. We are in this together, as equals.<\/p>\n

Though vast parts of Canada are covered by Treaties, the \u201cCommon Ground\u201d partnership represented one of the first examples of actually enacting the spirit and intent of a treaty in modern times. As such, it raised interesting questions about how to actually do this in practice, such as:\u00a0 How can Treaty peoples work together to achieve common goals, while still respecting each other\u2019s culturally distinct processes?<\/p>\n

The Common Ground Research Forum was formed with the intention of providing the capacity to try to answer some of these theoretical and practical questions and achieve these goals:<\/p>\n