Didn’t BC recently allow indigenous hunters from USA to hunt without restriction
“ OTTAWA -- The Supreme Court of Canada says an American Indigenous man has a constitutionally protected right to hunt in British Columbia given his people's historic ties to the region.
The decision today comes in the case of Richard Lee Desautel, a U.S. citizen who was charged with hunting without a licence after shooting an elk near Castlegar, B.C.
Desautel defended his actions on the basis he had an Aboriginal right to hunt protected by section 35(1) of Canada's Constitution Act.”
Copied from CTV news article
It's more complicated than it seems. He said he was from a tribe that previously existed in that territory that now covers part of BC and northern Idaho (I think it is) that governments declared "extiguished." He was out to prove that his group still existed and claimed hunting rights in traditional territory across the border. It was not a carte blanche for U.S. indigenous people to hunt in B.C.
https://biv.com/article/2019/05/us-aboriginals-can-hunt-legally-traditional-territory-canada
The news story:
United States’ aboriginal people can legally hunt in Canada if the land on which they are hunting is in the traditional territory of their people, the BC Court of Appeal has affirmed.
“Claimants who are resident or citizens of the United States can be ‘aboriginal peoples of Canada,’” Justice Daphne Smith ruled in the unanimous May 2 decision.
In denying a government appeal, the court has also affirmed that the Sinixt First Nation continues to have a presence in Canada after Ottawa declared it extinct in 1956.
Richard Lee Desautel is a member of the Lakes Tribe of the Colville Confederated Tribes in Washington State and a U.S. citizen. He was charged with hunting without a licence and hunting big game while not being a resident of British Columbia. after killing a cow elk in the Arrow Lakes area near Castlegar in 2010.
In March 2017, a provincial court judge judge acquitted Desautel. He defended his actions saying he was exercising his Canadian constitutional aboriginal right to hunt for ceremonial purposes in the traditional territory of his Sinixt ancestors.
That territory straddled the current U.S.-Canadian border.
The government had argued Desautel could not hold a constitutionally protected aboriginal right to hunt in Canada because he did not belong to a group that was an “Aboriginal peoples of Canada.”
In acquitting Desautel in December 2017, the trial judge ruled that historical records referred to the Sinixt interchangeably with “the Lakes or the Arrow Lakes people,” and there was “a clear and ancient link between the Sinixt and the Arrow Lakes region.”
And, the appeal court judges agreed.
