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Chief Billie Diamond Launches York U. Conference on Aboriginal and Treaty Rights in Canada: the Coming Agenda
The Encounter Canada Conference on Aboriginal Rights and Treaty Rights convenes on Thursday, March 2, 9:30 a.m. as tensions continue in Atlantic Canada following the Supreme Court ruling last year in Regina vs. Donald Marshall Junior. That ruling recognized the right of the Mi'Kmaq to the commercial fishery, and said the government could not unilaterally enforce federal fisheries legislation on them except for conservation purposes. Ottawa was unprepared for the ruling, resulting in violent confrontations between native and non-native fishermen. Nova Scotia Mi'Kmaq leaders last week charged Fisheries Department officials in Halifax with "Gestapo tactics" for seizing two Mi'Kmaq fishing boats believed to be plying waters closed for the season. And the federal Fisheries Minister has now acknowledged that the government may not be able to meet its April deadline for negotiating agreements with native fishermen consistent with existing regulation of the Atlantic fishery.
The conference at York University brings together First Nations leaders and prominent legal and historical experts to discuss how governments should handle the issues of aboriginal and treaty rights in Canada. Participants include two key figures in the continuing dispute over native fishing rights in Atlantic Canada -- Joe B. Marshall, professor of Mi'Kmaq studies at University College of Cape Breton and an elder in the Mi'Kmaq community, and Alex Denny, Grand Captain of the Mi'Kmaq Nation Grand Council. The conference will examine the federal government's 1999 treaty granting self-government to the Nisga'a people of British Columbia, as well as the battles for fishing rights in both the Marshall case in Nova Scotia and another one at Cape Croker in Ontario.
"There is a willingness now, although not universal, on the part of governments to negotiate outstanding claims with Canada's First Nations, based on the recognition that native people cannot become functioning members of the Canadian federation until they have the economic means to make a living," says York University History Professor Bill Wicken, an expert witness in the Marshall case and a conference chair.
One of Canada's most respected authorities on constitutional law, Peter Hogg, Dean of York University's Osgoode Hall Law School, will present an overview of the changing constitutional landscape, looking at the enshrinement of aboriginal rights in section 35 of the Constitution Act, and how those rights have been expanded by the Supreme Court of Canada in cases such as Regina vs. Sparrow (1990) on fishing rights, and Regina vs. Delgamuukw (1998) on aboriginal title.
A New Brunswick lower court decision on native rights to timber on crown land, which may set a further precedent in expanding aboriginal logging rights, is expected in April. The York conference is sponsored by McLaughlin College and Vanier College and starts at 9:30 am, Thursday March 2, in the Junior Common Room, 014 McLaughlin College. An agenda is attached.
For further information, please contact:
David Shugarman
Susan Bigelow
ENCOUNTER CANADA CONFERENCE
ABORIGINAL RIGHTS and TREATY RIGHTS
Thursday, March 2, 2000
PROGRAM:
Helen Doan, David Shugarman
Introduction of Keynote Speaker:
Keynote Address
10:30
Introduction: Terms and Issues - John Borrows (Law, U. of T.)
Lunch Break
1:45
Overview and Chair - Peter Hogg (Dean, Osgoode Hall Law School, York U.)
3:45
Chair - Michael Posluns, McLaughlin Fellow, York U. |
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