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Remember this: People, Governments and their policies
make hunting complicated. Look to the problems of your abutting Country. Their problems
can soon become your problems.
As always upon closer imspection of events and details I thought this was an interest course of events to explore and look back over. Lets take a closer look and see what there is to see.
I looked for a court docket on these shenanigans.
Fancy that…..found it.
The
Court Docket:
The Powley’s shot a bull moose without a government
issued licenses but contended it was their right to do so by the Constitution
Act, 1982,s. 35 but were charged with hunting and possession of a moose without
a license contrary to ss. 46 and 47 )1_)of the Game and Fish Act, R. S. O.
1992, c. G. 1. This was based around Metis status in the area.
The
Ruling:
The Powley’s could hunt without a government issued license
due to proving a genetic or identity link to Metis people and location where
the moose was hunted.
The trial judge concluded that the respondents had
established the necessary ingredients for an aboriginal right to hunt for food
within the meaning of s. 35(1) of the Constitution Act, 1982 and that
this right was infringed by sections 46 and 47(1) of the Game and Fish Act.
The Canadian Game Wardens had erroneously arrested
the men and stole their moose aka harassment.
Issues
that arise from the milieu:
The harassment of citizens by governmental agencies,
who do not investigate but arrest then ask questions later (much to their embarrassment).
Loss of a food source that could have been used to stave
off hunger or winter stock piling.
Expense of a second hunting trip to hunt another
moose to replace the moose the Conservation officers took without a full
investigation of the facts (much to their embarrassment).
Matter of Status Rights vs. Resource Conservation.
Harvesting a moose or wild game outside of
conservation laws.
Conservation laws that conflict with current Sovereign
Nations laws or rights.
More hunters than moose; given opportunity to hunt
and protect the resource.
Government ignoring constitutional rights until the
aboriginal party takes gov’t to court.
Consensual-based negotiations.
Regulatory regime reflecting priority of another
group’s right to hunt outside of non-native peoples.
Distinction between one group or another; based on
the quantum factor.
Burden of Proof; locations of previous archaic settlements
of Metis people prior to European colonialism where animals are hunted.
Localized hunting rights versus national rights over
provinces without prejudice.
Unlicensed and unmonitored hunters taking advantage
of wild game resources without contributing to financial upkeep
Non-indigent organizations assuming unlicensed aboriginal
hunters are not responsible or do not have their own distinct identity as to
conservation practices within the community for continued supply and upkeep of
wild game resources.
Unrestricted right to hunt and potential for
overkill or population decimation without input of outside sources
Assumption by outside entities upon Aboriginal
peoples that their acts are a careless assault on wild game and over indulgent
to exclude non-native peoples in the taking of wild game.
Opening the
floodgates to people (indigent or non-indigent) being able to hunt, trap, fish
and extract resources from the land without limitation or concern for
conservation.
Concern of being
treated as a poacher versus a hunter and risk of legislative sanctions.
Hunters harvesting
wild game on land not know for indigent occupation prior to European occupation
but claiming it for the sake of getting away with unlawful hunting.
Side barreling this
would be the eventuation of animal rights activists, who are opposed to killing
animals as a form of murder or abuse, intruding on traditional hunting cultures
of indigenous peoples.
Looming hunger,
starvation, and death of people not able to feed themselves.
**Fast forward to 2014**
Then I found
another dated article from Jan 23, 2014 entitled, “Alberta Metis Hunting Rights
Appeal Won't Be Heard By Supreme Court” where Gary Hirsekorn was convicted in
2010 of hunting out of season after he shot a mule deer near the Cypress Hills
in southeastern Alberta.
Hirsekorn’s lawyers
wanted the court to expand Metis Rights on the Powley ruling benchmarking Metis
rights which pinpointed Canadian landscapes where Metis settlements exist prior
to European occupation. The problem with Hirsekorn’s case was the location
where he hunted the mule deer. As far as history noted there was no Metis
settlement there but that would mean the Powley ruling was solely based around
the Powley’s hunting the moose on known Metis lands.
Hirsekorn
lost because his lawyers failed to prove the Metis had a historic presence in
the area where Hirsekorn shot the deer.
Here is the link to the article:
As I was researching this it becomes
very clear that the Great Spirit has two hands; his left and his right. The
right hand being indigent people or aboriginal if that is what you fancy. I
prefer human beings but human beings have to label everything. The left hand is
people who are not indigent or non-native. I find this hard to scatter my brain
on because when you look at the world in this sense its kinda stupid. People
are people right down to the marrow bone.
Earth is a round rock that spins
in space. Everyone on it is native to Earth. There is no person on this rock
that can’t be considered a native. If
you fell out of your mother’s uterus on this planet somewhere you are native.
If you were born in a petri dish in a lab you are native. If a European points
at an American and say, “You are not native.”
The statement is false because after some point if you are born anywhere
on the Earth you are native. It’s a ridiculous concept born out of the need to
assert ownership of some small patch of land or cast the shadow of exclusion.
As an Earthling the fact that you
want to fight over a piece of dirt on Pangaea after it split which truly makes
continents not lost but displaced and discovered by no one because a jack ass
got on a boat and sail to another shore is short of dumb-fuckery. You cannot
discover something that was not lost to start with because it wasn’t in your
current reality. A good example of this is the moment some government wants to
lay claim to Mars or Canada declaring their right to the Artic and North Pole to
drill a hole in it and make it the Bog of Eternal Oil Slicks.
When the right and the left hand
do not get along, they fight. This is the current state of affairs it would
seem. There are two different entities living in one place and they don’t play
well together.
I then thought of the problems
that arise between loss of food and food security problem from the article, “Support
hunters to fight hunger in Nunavut, says report”. Indigenous hunters have the
problem of a lack of a hunter in the household or not having the financial
resources to hunt at all.
Here you have the Powley’s who
didn’t break any laws but lost their moose food source; sniffed of deprivation
to me.
Clarity is a great thing when it
is applied. One main problem here was the fact that governmental policy was not
streamlined in the agencies where knowledge of indigenous legal guidelines were
known alongside of non-indigenous. The Canadian Conservation Agents treated it
as hunters under Canadian law bypassing indigenous privilege. When the judge
ruled that there was to be a vast overhaul of the system to clarify the
specifics I guess Canada said “Fuck that” and decided to label them all “indians”.
The fat got chop on that issue. This is a statement to the unorganized
structure of Canada’s government in treatment of native issues, policies, and
approach.
I then thought of the issue of
Status Right versus Resource Conservation.
No matter what you still have to have common sense approaches to daily
living and your resources. Just because you can do an act doesn’t mean you do
it without limits but then again outside entities shouldn't assume someone is
reckless as well in dealing with natural resources. There again when you have
groups of hunters going out at once or over a period of time harvesting wild game
without a count to what is going on there might lay a problem of overhunting by
proxy of not monitoring what is available and replenishing it. Also there is
the problem of financially caring for wild game and landscapes through
conservation and a gross imbalance of burden on one group while the other
benefits without prejudice. This could cause a lot of strife. This too creates
the problem of limiting a resource to keep it viable in the present of groups
of people who are not limited based on ancestral rights, traditions, and culture.
The problem here is the
responsibility of maintenance and upkeep to this group or that when it’s all
the peoples no matter their distinction.
Even though my friend Judy told
me the Metis would soon get “indian status” I thought of the blood quantum
problem. This has been an annoying long term stain on human existence. Metis
were not given the same rights over hunting as “indian status” because of their
heritage. Being of mixed ancestry somehow it subjugates a person to a certain
amount of prejudice or exclusion. The point I am getting at is if you are born
from a French mother who is considered white and an Ojibwa man the world you
live in will try and dictate to you, shame you, or threaten you into denying one
part of your being. You may have to cast your white French self out to be accepted
in an Ojibwa world or cast your Ojibwa self out to live in a white world. Either
way you will disavow your mother’s or your father’s people through denial. The
same goes for mixed raced children of African and Caucasian parents. Social
groups compel them to choose which group they affiliate with instead of accepting
both Caucasian and African descent. Such as President Obama and his wife having
Caucasian heritage but they publically affiliate with non-Caucasian groups. We
live in a world of mixed heritages and ancestry yet people are compelled to
choose over one side or the other just like the Super Bowl. The only thing missing
is half time and tail gating.
When there is something outside
of your psyche that is telling you to rendering some part of your being as a
whole to fractions and repressing it away from yourself and the world to
assimilate is terribly wrong. The only reason we have check boxes for ethnic
groups is for statistician to do their mathematical magic for surveys, focus groups,
presidential elections, monitoring trends and targeting audiences.
We as a world have not done away
with the labeling of our human brethren and sisters to just one box on the
application. Are you Hispanic, African, Caucasian, Native American, or Oriental?
Or are you born of the interlacing of centuries of people from different ports
of the world? I would tell you to look toward the Genographic Project for some
answers.
On the other hand you have people
that love this state of being because it fuels their need for separation and
validation for excluding a group they perceive as an enemy or beneath them.
In regards to First Nations not
being responsible enough to manage wild game is short of poppy cock. On the
individual level there might be some question to each person’s individual
attitude but overall when you have a group of people that wonder why they have
to fight their government over clean water, migratory fish, natural landscape, and
intrusion from third party entities to access areas for mining or not
considering the pollution the company may cause to the threat of life and limb
of inhabitants is like a slur to their person. This type treatment only re-enforces
the idea the finger pointer is probably polluted and trying to defame the image
of the activist. It’s a spectacle. There is documentation from Europeans journaling
the way in which native inhabitants performed land management. Give us a break
on that one, please.
I then considered the burden of
proof in regards to previous archaic Metis settlements and hunting wild game
solely on this outlined property without a governmentally issued license. This
is complete bullshit. Before Europeans set foot here there were roads
everywhere as documented by settlers in South Carolina in the 1700s. The King’s Road was a traveled Native American
road until it was renamed. Reminds me of someone tossing a body in a house foundation,
backing a cement truck up and dumping cement in the hole, and covering it up. Then
the owner walks all over it without a clue. This is history. In school you are taught
bullet points and not details because that is where the devil lays.
On reflection when you consider
all the issues that can arise from someone shooting a moose you have to step
back and take a personal moment. The moment that moose dropped it began to tell
us a great many disturbing things. How the problems between the Canadian government
and the First Nations people that inhabit the same spaces are causing a lot of
emotional, cultural, and spiritual damage in brief. Separation can be amicable
or down right aggressive but somewhere in the middle of compromise and a well-structured
government where all parts are in harmony through communication could bring
about change that benefits both sides.
There are so many issues here to
consider. It’s a lot to think about.
Written by: W Harley Bloodworth
