“Our action also includes Parliament and the Supreme Court land because we want to stir it up good to try and get some action from them,” he said.

Some of the disputed land ended up in the hands of an Ottawa company, the Windmill Development Group, which is now, along with a financial partner, spending 1.4 billion Canadian dollars on a development project, known as Zibi, that includes condos, offices, restaurants and stores. The property encompasses parts of the banks of the Ottawa River in both Ottawa and Gatineau, Quebec.

As a private company building on privately owned land, Windmill has no legal obligation to compensate indigenous groups or negotiate with them. But Jeff Westeinde, a principal at Windmill, believes that even as a private property owner, he has an obligation to reconcile with indigenous communities for past wrongs.

“As private citizens I think we should do something,” Mr. Westeinde said. “We committed apartheid, there’s no ifs, ands or buts about it. Success for us will be a community where my Algonquin friends can come down here and say: ‘Yes, that’s my community too.’”