Recent legislation (Bill C-3) passed in the Canadian House of Commons will allow grandchildren of Canadian women who lost their Indian status through marriage to have their own status restored.
Author: Peter Vicaire
Anna Mae Aquash – A.I.M. Murder Trial (Finally) Begins This Week
This week, John Graham (aka John Boy Patton) stands trial for the murder of Anna Mae Aquash. Graham is from the Tsimshian tribe in the Yukon.
In 1975, Anna Mae Aquash (Pictou), a Mi’kmaw Indian from Nova Scotia, Canada and a member of the American Indian Movement, was shot execution style in the back of the head in the South Dakota Badlands. It was erroneously believed that she was an FBI informant. For those interested, here’s a useful chronology of her life and the events leading up to her death.
“First Nations Chiefs Betray Their People”
There’s some pretty shocking figures discovered by the Canadian Taxpayers Federation as to the salaries some chiefs make. If they’re true, it’s pretty disgraceful. It will be interesting to see what the Assembly of First Nations (AFN) will do about it, if anything, considering it’s an entity made up entirely of chiefs from across Canada.
Supreme Court of Canada – Beckman v. Little Salmon/Carmacks First Nation – Duty to Consult Doctrine Met by the Crown
Hot off the presses! And the Canadian Supreme Court hits keep on coming.
This case, released just today, discusses important questions about the duty to consult and the interpretation/implementation of modern comprehensive land claims treaties between the Crown and First Nations.
Alberta Court of Queen’s Bench Has Authority to Make Métis Candidacy Eligibility Determination Prior to Election
Here’s the decision. East Prairie Métis Settlement v. Aiken. And here’s an excerpt…
Robertson v. Canada – Tax Court of Canada Allows Aboriginal Appeal
Interesting case (as far as tax cases can be) out of the Tax Court of Canada – Robertson v. Canada, [2010] T.C.J. No. 432. Two Aboriginal appellants from Norway House First Nation were allowed to maintain their tax exemption in light of the “commercial mainstream” test when they sold their catch through their Aboriginal co-op to a non-Aboriginal, commercial entity (Freshwater Fish Marketing Corp.).
“It has been established on the evidence, that taxing the Appellants would be an erosion of an important economic base that goes far beyond the emergence of an income source brought to the reserve by the outside world of commerce. It is a source that was always there and its present connections are not trappings. The connections to the reserve are genuine and historically based. As such, the subject income warrants protection from diminution by taxation.”
R. v. Morris – B.C. Provincial Court Rejects Treaty and Aboriginal Rights Claims as well as Kinship Reciprocity and Sheltering Defenses
Here’s the decision, which provides a useful breakdown of interpreting aboriginal and treaty rights, kinship reciprocity and sheltering defenses.
It’s been a long time coming, with the events in question having occurred during the Winter of 2001/2002 and after the death of one of the defendants.
Canada endorses the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. And itself.
Wow. Big news out of Canada. Or is it? On November 12th, the Government of Canada formally endorsed the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Here’s the official declaration, as given by Canada’s Ambassador to the United Nations, John McNee, to the President of the UN General Assembly, Joseph Deiss.
Call me a skeptic, call me a cynic, but something just doesn’t feel right with Prime Minister Harper’s perfect 180 degree half-pirouette on this issue.
Former AIM member pleads guilty to accessory in Anna Mae Aquash (Mi’kmaq) 1975 murder – given suspended sentence
Rapid City Journal – November 8, 2010
Thelma Rios pleaded guilty Monday to being an accessory to the 1975 kidnapping of American Indian Movement activist Annie Mae Aquash, three weeks before she was scheduled to go on trial on charges related to Aquash’s murder.
Supreme Court of Canada: An Indian child welfare agency providing services solely to Indian children does not fall within the protected “core of Indianness.”
Late last week, the Supreme Court of Canada released its decision concerning the intersection of Indian child welfare and labor law. Here’s the decision. NIL TU,O Child and Family Services Society v. B.C. Government and Service Employees’ Union, [2010] S.C.J. No. 45.
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