[Blue_Nose]

Aboriginals, loggers await key Supreme Court decision

Quote:

Aboriginal leaders believe a Supreme Court ruling in their favour would lessen their economic dependence on government and change their lives overnight.

Considering they'd be given free access to one of NB's largest industries on Crown land, which constitutes 50% of NB, I'd say they'd be hard pressed not to.

Is this a reasonable solution to native dependence on government? While entering into industry and the rest of society is obviously a desired result, should natives be given special privelages, or is this in accordance with treaties?

My opinion is that if they really want to get away from dependence on government handouts, they wouldn't demand special treatment while doing it.

[DerbyX]

I would consider programs such as this very reasonable. I would even agree to seeing some provinces (notably ON & QC) if not all ceding some land back (to form a province/terroitory of their own). They would be responsible for the land and would start paying tax like all citizens. The feds would get their "cut" like they should with each province but the responsibility for managing the resources would fall with their "prov" gov't. They would be able to see themselves as "managing" their own destiny.

[BartSimpson]

DerbyX wrote:

I would consider programs such as this very reasonable. I would even agree to seeing some provinces (notably ON & QC) if not all ceding some land back (to form a province/terroitory of their own). They would be responsible for the land and would start paying tax like all citizens. The feds would get their "cut" like they should with each province but the responsibility for managing the resources would fall with their "prov" gov't. They would be able to see themselves as "managing" their own destiny.

Uh, I thought Nunavit was ceded to them? That was how it was presented in the USA when the Province formed.

[PJB]

The unanimous decision came in against the natives claim.


Supreme Court rejects aboriginal logging claim

By TERRY WEBER

Wednesday, July 20, 2005 Updated at 12:12 PM EDT

Globe and Mail Update

Canada's highest court ruled Wednesday that historic treaties signed with aboriginal people in Atlantic Canada don't give them the right to log on Crown lands.

In a pair of unanimous rulings handed down in Ottawa, the Supreme Court of Canada said the treaties only cover goods traditionally traded in 1760-61, when the treaties were enacted.

In the main judgment, Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin also wrote that the right conferred is the right to trade.

"The emphasis therefore is not on what products were used, but on what trading activities were in the contemplation of the parties at the time the treaties were made," she wrote.

"Only those trading activities are protected."

The ruling also acknowledged that ancestral trading activities aren't frozen in time.

"The question in each case is whether the modern trading activity in issue represents a logical evolution from the traditional trading activities at the time the treaties were made," she said.

Based on the evidence, she said, the court found that the commercial logging trade at issue in the case was not the "logical evolution of traditional Mi'kmaq trading activity in 1760-61."

An earlier landmark ruling on fishing rights had forced changes in how that industry is governed in this country.

The first of two cases being considered by the high court centred around Joshua Bernard, a Mi'kmaq, who was charged in 1998 in New Brunswick with unlawfully possessing timber belonging to the Crown after loading 23 spruce logs onto his tractor-trailer.

The matter sparked a heated legal dispute and quickly became one of this country's biggest aboriginal-rights cases in recent years. At its core was Mr. Bernard's argument that he — and his people — enjoyed a surviving treaty right to log for trade.

In 2003, following two appeals, New Brunswick's highest court ruled 2-1 that Mr. Bernard did not violate the Crown Lands and Forest Act when he cut down the trees from a patch of land near the Eel Ground Reserve where he lived, in the Miramichi area of central New Brunswick.

His appeal focused on 18th-century treaties based on ancient occupation dating back several thousand years that include a trade provision allowing Mi'kmaq and Maliseet people the right to hunt, fish and gather in pursuit of their livelihoods.

The second case involved Stephen Marshall of the Millbrook First Nation near Truro, N.S., and more than 30 Mi'kmaq loggers in that province who were also charged will illegally logging and removing lumber from Crown lands. They had argued similarly that the prohibition on logging on Crown lands was inconsistent with existing treaty rights.

In 1999, the Supreme Court delivered a landmark ruling in the case of Donald Marshall, who was convicted six years earlier for fishing eels out of season and without a licence. That ruling in his favour forced changes to Canada's fishing industry.

In Wednesday's Supreme Court case, the federal government had argued against the Mi'kmaq suggestion that commercial logging was the logical evolution of trading activities, suggesting that such an interpretation would amount to a radical departure from the intent of the original treaties.

The case had attracted widespread interest from across the country, with more than half a dozen provinces seeking intervenor status because of the possible implications of the court's ruling on the interpretation and application of treaty rights in Canada.

Federal lawyer Mitch Taylor said it remains to be seen "how much of this case applies elsewhere" in Canada.

A Mi'kmaq win in the case could have pushed them into the ranks of big players in the regions forestry industry, although lawyers in the case had offered assurances that any move into the sector would be negotiated and gradual.

Speaking with reporters, Dwight Dorey, of the Congress of Aboriginal Peoples, said the ruling leaves the door open for future action.

"The court has stated that there may be other times and other cases where aboriginal treaty rights will still be upheld, just not in this particular case," he said. "The evidence wasn't there.

"So it's important for us to continue to press the government as the courts have been saying it's time for us to look at sitting down and talking about the concept of modern treaties and resolving some of these outstanding issues outside of the court."

The forestry industry is the second largest in Atlantic Canada, after fishing. It is particularly crucial in New Brunswick, where the government owns 3.4 million hectares — about 50 per cent of the total land base.

It produces 19,000 jobs in the province, along with $4-billion in sales. Natives currently have access to 5.3 per cent of lands.

In Nova Scotia, 1.3 million hectares, or one quarter of the forested land, is Crown-owned, and the Atlantic Provinces Economic Council estimates 11,000 people are employed in the industry.

Government officials in that province said the ruling won't change the tone of talks with aboriginal people.

"Our position was that we want to negotiate with the Mi'kmaq and the people of Nova Scotia a way to provide access to all our economic sources of revenue," provincial Aboriginal Affairs Minister Michael Baker told reporters during a news conference.

"We want to have talks, so the decision itself is not about whether that process continues."