Strong Supreme Court ruling on native rights
TheStar.com – Opinion/Editorials – Supreme Court ruling puts Ottawa and the provinces on notice that they must be readier to acknowledge aboriginal title, to consult with communities and to accommodate them.
Jun 26 2014. Editorial
Canada’s First Nations have just won a historic victory in the long struggle to affirm their rights. The Supreme Court has ruled — for the first time — that they have a broad right to claim possession of ancestral lands and to decide how those lands are used.
It’s a welcome decision that puts Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s government on blunt notice that it needs to be readier to acknowledge aboriginal title, to consult with communities and to accommodate them. Ditto for the provinces and industry.
As the Star’s Tonda MacCharles reports, Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin and her colleagues have adopted a generous approach to aboriginal title that will force government to take claims seriously and treat people honourably. While its effects on Canada’s 1.4 million aboriginal people and 100 ongoing land and governance claims are hard to predict, decency is the order of the day. Denying rights is no longer an option.
“What is at stake is nothing less than justice for the aboriginal group and its descendants,” McLachlin wrote, “and the reconciliation between the group and broader society.”
The unanimous ruling awards title to the Tsilhqot’in in British Columbia over a vast swath of wilderness. It’s the first time the court has recognized a First Nation’s title to a specific tract of land, and it sets out guidelines for future dealings between the Crown and aboriginal communities in the fraught area of land claims.
B.C. native leader Jody Wilson-Raybould calls it “a game changer.” Certainly, it will give native groups additional leverage as battle lines are drawn over the contentious Northern Gateway pipeline and other projects. “Resolving aboriginal title reduces conflict, creates the opportunity for respectful relations and ends an era of denial,” Wilson-Raybould said. Certainly, that’s the hope.
Narrowly, the ruling is a win for the 3,000 Tsilhqot’in people, giving them title to 1,750 sq. km of land. It settles a claim that dates back 150 years, and a decades-old dispute over clear-cut logging.
More broadly, the ruling sets guidelines for deciding future claims where no historical treaty or modern agreement exists.
First Nations such as the Tsilhqot’in that can show “sufficient, continuous … and exclusive” occupation of an area have a claim to title, the court ruled. That title can’t be restricted, as the Crown has sought to do, to small tracts under continuous, intensive use.
At the same time, however, Ottawa and the provinces can still regulate forestry and other economic activity on aboriginal land.
Where native groups don’t have formal title, the Crown must consult “in good faith” before making use of native land, and accommodate residents. Where title has been established the Crown has a heavier obligation to obtain consent, or at least to consult and to show that its actions are necessary, limited in scope and that the benefits outweigh any adverse effects.
In the court’s words, “the honour of the Crown” demands no less. Government must deal fairly with First Nations. More fairly than in the past.
< http://www.thestar.com/opinion/editorials/2014/06/26/strong_supreme_court_ruling_on_native_rights_editorial.html >
Tags: economy, featured, ideology, Indigenous, jurisdiction, rights
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