Hunting charges dropped against Sask. Métis man

Chuck Chiang, March 12, 2008, Fort McMurray Today -- The provincial government has dropped charges laid against a Métis man from hunting moose during a closed season, a move that local Métis are hailing as a major step towards establishing the group's land use rights in Northeastern Alberta.
Officials from Fort McMurray Métis Local 1935 said establishing such rights is crucial for them, since the group isn't being properly consulted and compensated for the oilsands-related developments sprouting up in the region.

The case at the centre of this issue involves Alfred Janvier, a Métis man living in La Loche, Sask, just across the border from Wood Buffalo.

Janvier was charged when he harvested a moose in 2005 while travelling from his home town to Fort McMurray. That's when a patrolling Alberta Resource officer charged him, Janvier said.

"I told him, 'I'm Métis, and I have nine kids,'" said Janvier, a trapper by trade who lives off the land. "I said, 'I don't want to go on welfare.' "

Under a precedent set by a 2003 Supreme Court of Canada case, Métis peoples have a constitutionally-protected harvesting right, provided they prove their ancestral roots in the region where the hunt takes place.

Clement Chartier, Janvier's lawyer, said the provincial government dropped the charges because it realized it could not convict Janvier, and wanted to avoid creating a precedent for Métis land use rights in Alberta courts, where the case was being tried.

"If my client did not have that right, they would not have withdrawn," Chartier said, adding that local Métis could have used the legal precedent to negotiate with the province and oilsands companies.

Darcy Whiteside, a spokesman with Alberta Sustainable Resource Development, declined to comment specifically for the reason for dropping the charges.

"Our government lawyer said there isn't a reasonable likelihood of a conviction," Whiteside said. "That's all I can comment on."

He added that the provincial government will continue to judge Métis land use rights on a case-by-case basis while a comprehensive agreement is being created.

That answer, however, did not satisfy Bill Loutitt, president of Fort McMurray Métis Local 1935.

Loutitt said a significant number of his people still live off the land, and many have gradually lost the ability to support themselves as the provincial government develop roads, oilsands mines and other infrastructure on former hunting and fishing grounds.

He added that his group will use the dropping of the charge against Janvier to spur the province and oilsands companies to properly recognize Métis rights and consult the group properly.

"The Métis are working-class people," he said. "But one aspect where we haven't kept up (with First Nations groups) is community-based business. … It's not so much compensation we're looking for, but the duty to consult is very important."