By Margaret Ellsworth
OHSWEKEN, ONT. — The Six Nations of the Grand River land-rights trial is on a break. The court adjourned on Oct. 28 and will not sit again until Monday, Nov. 9.
“LITIGATION UPDATE: October 28, 2026 Court has been adjourned and will resume on Monday, November 9,” the Six Nations of the Grand River Elected Council said in a public notice that day.
The pause comes four weeks into a trial that began Oct. 5 in Ontario Superior Court before Justice Ira Parghi. It is expected to last nearly a decade. Six Nations is suing Canada and Ontario over what it says was the Crown’s failure to protect the Haldimand Tract, the land along the Grand River promised to the Haudenosaunee in 1784, and to account for money from land sold off in the decades after. The case contains 46 individual claims, which CBC News reported are valued at between $13.9 billion and $8.7 trillion.
The court heard from Joseph Martin, one of Six Nations’ oral history witnesses, on Oct. 26 and 27, Tayler Hill of Six Nations of the Grand River said in an email to The Buffalo Chronicle. The witness scheduled to follow him was ill, and another witness could not start on such short notice, so the court adjourned, she said.
The break is shorter than it looks. The week of Nov. 2 to 6 “was always off from the trial,” Ms. Hill said. When court resumes, Professor Alan Taylor starts on Nov. 9, she said. There has been no ruling that she is aware of.
The Elected Council posts weekly summaries of the proceedings on its website; its most recent covers Oct. 19 to 23. Proceedings are streamed by Zoom, and community members have watched at viewing sites on the territory.
Where the case stands
The third week focused on how the court should treat Haudenosaunee oral history. Canada and Ontario challenged evidence from Six Nations witnesses in a voir dire, a hearing within the trial on whether evidence can be admitted. The Chronicle reported on that week in detail on Saturday, based on the Elected Council’s Oct. 19–23 summary.
One of the witnesses, Dr. Darren Thomas, explained how knowledge passes between generations. “The Haudenosaunee, we exist as a collective society, one of which is absolutely dependent on your relational connections and relational well being. When you are doing chores for an elder for example, that’s where that learning happens, that’s when they freely share their stories and teaching,” Thomas testified, Turtle Island News reported.
For Six Nations, the core claim is simple, even if the evidence is not. “All of our money, all of our lands were sold to run the colonial government of Upper Canada for about 60 years,” Lonny Bomberry, the community’s lands and resources director, told CBC News when the trial opened. “Six Nations was left without any land, without any money.”
Canada and Ontario
In a statement to CBC News, Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs Canada said: “We respect the decision of Six Nations to pursue their claims through the courts and will continue to work in co-operation with all parties as this case moves forward.” Ontario’s Ministry of the Attorney General declined an interview request from CBC.
In court filings, Canada argues that the Haldimand Proclamation is not a treaty, and has argued that it did not inherit the Crown’s obligations to Six Nations. The Chronicle examined that argument last month.
The Confederacy stays out
Not everyone on the territory backs the lawsuit. The Haudenosaunee Confederacy Chiefs Council, the traditional government, is not a party. “Council didn’t exist when treaties were made,” Allan McNaughton, a Kanien’kehá:ka chief on the council, told CBC, referring to the Elected Council created under the Indian Act. He said the Confederacy prefers arbitration and will not stand before a “foreign court.”
Analysis: what the break means
This section is analysis.
Only part of the pause was unplanned: one scheduled week off, plus a few lost days when a witness fell ill. Pauses like that are routine in a trial this long. The larger question is still ahead: how Parghi treats the oral-history evidence, which underpins much of Six Nations’ case. That will affect what Six Nations can prove about promises made more than 200 years ago, when much of the written record was kept by the Crown itself.
Six Nations lead counsel Robert Janes of JFK Law has argued that time has strengthened the community’s position. “The ironic thing is, that in many ways, without the benefit of the cases that have been fought over the last 30 years, the nation would be in a much weaker position,” Janes told CBC.
The Chronicle has asked the Department of Justice Canada for comment and will report any response.
Updated November 2, 2026: This story was updated to include comment from Six Nations of the Grand River.
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