by Nigel Gloade, Communications Officer, Millbrook Band

Millbrook First Nation, Nova Scotia – Effective as of May 18, 2016, the Chief and Council of the Millbrook First Nation has withdrawn its support and participation from the Kwilmu’kw Maw-klusuaqn (KMK)/Made in Nova Scotia Process and its governing body, the Assembly of Nova Scotia Chiefs. Millbrook is the second Mi’kmaw community to exit the KMK Process since 2013.

The KMK Process was initiated in 2001 by the 13 Nova Scotia Mi’kmaq Chiefs, the governments of the Province of Nova Scotia and Canada. All parties entered into a negotiation process to discuss outstanding issues of Aboriginal and Treaty Rights of the Mi’kmaq. As beneficiaries of the Treaties of 1725-26, 1749, 1752 & 1760-61, Millbrook First Nation formally became part of the KMK process in June 2002. Millbrook became a signatory to the KMK Framework Agreement, which details the matters set for negotiation and how negotiations will proceed, in February 2007.

Concerns about the KMK Process and the work of Kwilmu’kw Maw-klusuaqn Negotiations Office (KMKNO) have grown in recent years amid wide-ranging criticism from community members and some Mi’kmaw leadership. Among those concerns:

  • That KMK is has slowly expanded its scope well beyond its original mandate of Treaty implementation to a become an all-encompassing process that community members do not understand or recognize;
  • That the process is being undertaken while basic questions – including “Who is ...
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