Metis take GNWT back to court over caribou
An offer to pay travel to Beverly and Ahiak herds 660 km away is not enough, says North Slave Metis president
Laura Busch
Northern News Services
Published Monday, April 21 2014
NORTH SLAVE
The North Slave Metis Alliance (NSMA) is taking the GNWT back to court over access to caribou.
Despite winning a case before the Supreme Court of the NWT that ruled North Slave Metis must be consulted on the management of future harvesting seasons and be given reasonable access to harvest the animals, a judicial review filed April 11 alleges the GNWT is failing to live up to its part of the deal.
"We are taking the Government of the Northwest Territories back to court for what we consider to be a refusal to respect the court order and provide us with a reasonable share of the Bathurst caribou herd harvest," Bill Enge, president of NSMA, told News/North. "We are asserting our rights and asking the court now to determine whether or not the accommodation measures proposed by the Department of Environment and Natural Resources and Minister Michael Miltenberger are reasonable and would meet the smell test."
After waiting over a year for the ruling recognizing Metis rights to be included in Bathurst caribou management, Enge said he was elated when Justice Shannon Smallwood issued her decision June 20 that ENR "are directed to consult with (Enge) and the North Slave Metis Alliance about the management of the Bathurst caribou herd and the North Slave Metis Alliance's ability to participate in any current and future limited aboriginal harvests."
That never happened, Enge alleges. Instead, ENR approached the Metis alliance with a proposal to provide funding to harvest caribou from the Beverly and Ahiak heard to the southeast.
"They feel that that is a legitimate and proper accommodation of our aboriginal rights," said Enge.
NSMA's board of directors ultimately decided members would not harvest from the herd at all last winter, because the Beverly and Ahiak herds are located 600 km away and they felt it may undermine their ability to get a seat at the table when it comes to managing the Bathurst herd.
"What we're saying is that if they're going to have a bag limit of 300 caribou from the Bathurst caribou herd, perhaps it would be fair to provide 50 of the harvesting tags to the Metis and another 125 to (the Yellowknives and Tlicho) each," said Enge.
"That would be a reasonable accommodation measure, not an outright ban of the harvest by Metis."
ENR officials, including Minister Michael Miltenberger, were served with the court case last week. A court date has yet to be set.
The alleged failure to accommodate Metis aboriginal harvesting rights when it comes to caribou north of Great Slave Lake is part of a larger, ongoing mistreatment of North Slave Metis from the federal and territorial governments, said Enge.
"We had an expectation that this would be a more user-friendly government than the ones we find down south because our government here has a lot of aboriginal people in it," he said.
"Our elected leaders, some of them are Metis. Premier Bob McLeod and Michael Miltenberger are not taking a very enlightened approach to the North Slave Metis people's Section 35 aboriginal rights (to be consulted).
"Two of the heads of our government are not behaving in a way one would expect people to behave towards their brethren. We would expect there would be a more enlightened approach from our Government of the Northwest Territories than the one that we're being afforded."
Representatives from ENR were unavailable for comment due to the long weekend.
