Wish you had invested in Microsoft or Sony 15 years ago That's one of the interesting things about hind-sight, it's always 20/20. That is why Judge Teitelbaum of the federal court was correct when he ruled against the Samson Cree's claim to $600 million in oil and gas royalties due to federal government mismanagement of funds.

The decision is part of a $1.4 billion lawsuit the Samson Cree filed a lawsuit against the federal government in March 2000. The native band alleged Ottawa had breached its fiduciary responsibility in managing the band's oil and gas royalties. Specifically, that Treaty 6 negotiations in 1876 gave the Cree sub-surface mineral rights.

The administration of royalties are just part of the lawsuit which is so large and complex it has been divided into several phases. The Samson Cree claim five decades of mismanagement of oil and gas revenues. Other aspects of the case, including how oil and gas money was used for programs and distributed to band members, have yet to make it to court.

The Samson Cree have spent over $70 million on legal fees battling this case. Therefore it came as no surprise the lawyers in the case filed an appeal shortly after the controversial judgment was delivered on December 5, 2005.

Here are some of the judgments the Samson Cree may mention on appeal. Judge Teitelbaum wrote in his judgment, "Samson has not established an aboriginal or treaty right to own, manage, control and administer their own reserve lands, resources and any money arising therefrom."

Regarding the issue of any historical understanding the bands would handle their own resources Teitelbaum concluded, "Quite the contrary, it is clear that this was to be a function and responsibility of the Crown. In my opinion, the Cree leadership who signed Treaty 6 understood that by doing so they were putting themselves under protection of the Crown in return for certain specified benefits."

In effect Teitelbaum ruled the Indian Act enables the government to act in any way it determines is in the best interest of native people. This is not an unreasonable conclusion if one considers The Indian Act was first introduced in 1876, the same year Treaty 6 was finalized. The Act maintained, and still does today, protection of Indian reserves. Therefore, registered Indians are under the legislative and administrative jurisdiction of the federal government as spelled out in the Constitution, and are regulated by the contents of the Indian Act.

The court also rejected the band's claim that Ottawa should have actively managed the money to realize a better return. That is because; Ottawa collected the oil and gas revenue and paid interest on it. For the past several years, the interest rate was based on the average yields of Government of Canada 10-year bonds.

Specifically, the judge said the argument for damages, "may represent a present-day reconstruction of what current generations wished had happened or thought should have happened."

Paying interest on government bonds may not deliver the same returns as stock in Microsoft, but it is a prudent choice when the government has a fiduciary responsibility to status Indians. After all, many people wish they had invested in Microsoft years ago, many still rue the day they invested in Enron.