Aboriginal Rights & Title 

Traditional Self Governance 

Sovereignty is viewed as self-government, which is the way we governed ourselves prior to contact. Our people essentially made their decisions based on a family head structure, where the headman maintained his or her position through respect. Headmen acted in the spirit of consensus, and maintained cooperation between families regarding land use decisions (sharing, protecting their traditional land use areas). KLCN members hold eight active traplines within the territory.

Land Rights

Land rights include

1. The "right to exclusive use and occupation of the land" as outlined in Delgamuukw v British Columbia [1997], and
2. Site specific Aboriginal rights - the right to engage in certain activities or use certain resources on a particular area of land - are outlined in R v Adams [1996] Sappier: R v Gray [2006].
   
   

Aboriginal land rights might refer to examples such as berry picking areas, trapping and hunting areas, harvesting trees for traditional and cultural purposes (which continues to be legislated) and preserving labrador tea beds.

Cultural Rights

Cultural rights include

1. Education and language rights,
2. Cultural objects and intellectual property rights (as outlined in Kitkatla Band v British Columbia),
3. Rights that meet the Van der Peet test, and
4. Rights that meet the Sparrow test.

"In order to be an Aboriginal right an activity must be an element of a practice, custom or tradition integral to the distinctive culture of the aboriginal group asserting the right." R v Van der Peet (para. 46).

The "Sparrow Test" has also been used by many experts as a way of measuring how much Canadian legislation can limit Aboriginal rights.

After the Sparrow case, provincial legislation can only limit Aboriginal rights if it has given them appropriate priority, because Aboriginal rights have a different nature than non-Aboriginal rights.

Impacts to KLCN Title

In order to make a claim for Aboriginal title, the Aboriginal group asserting title must satisfy the following criteria as outlined in Delgamuukw, Lamer C.J. (para. 143)

• the land must have been occupied prior to sovereignty,
• if present occupation is relied on as proof of occupation pre-sovereignty, there must be continuity between present and pre-sovereignty occupation; and,
• at sovereignty, that occupation must have been exclusive.
  
  

KLCN evolved through exclusive use and occupation of the land and by practicing a variety of gathering, hunting, trapping, traditional and customary practices. Our people have continued to live a traditional way of life (i.e., hunting and trapping), preserving the Cree language, customs and governance structure of how ancestral families govern our territory.

Economic development continues to be in violation of our attachment to our lands. The infringement of oil and gas activity is not only weakening our socio-economic well-being, but it is having serious environmental consequences that impact our sustenance and traditional way of life. Large energy corporations continue to remove valuable resources from our territory.

The Federal Government continues to permit energy activity in our territory without our involvement. They stall the land claim process, anticipating like so many other Nations that we will not afford to work through their litigation process.

KLCN should be receiving monetary compensation to secure employment for our citizens and to provide much needed infrastructure for our community. Our people are not benefiting from the economic prosperity in the Northeast, even though other remote communities, such as Tumbler Ridge, are benefiting hugely.

Our only measure to ensure our traditional lands are protected is to protect our traditional and cultural significant areas. In order to ensure this we will continue to protect our traditional laws through codification of our history.

We continue to ask ourselves, why should the KLCN have to ask the Federal Government how to govern our land and our way of life? This has always been our responsibility. An Aboriginal right affirms the inherent rights of our people to hunt, fish and trap on our lands, yet the Government continues to legislate our rights as to when we can hunt, how much fur bearing animals we are allowed, and how we utilize the land. We should be free to continue to seek economic opportunities within our lands in a manner which we decide is consistent with our own governance.

If we ignore the driving forces within the whole landscape, it will cause future cumulative impacts and nothing will be left of our territory.