tansi ninôtemik,
The Alberta government has documented the drastically declining Woodland Caribou populations since at least 1981.[1] From 1966 to 1981, the caribou had declined by at least 50% in Alberta.[2] Alarming habitat destruction has been the primary cause of the caribou’s dwindling population numbers, with oil and gas activity and the logging industry as the main culprits. [3]
The situation has only worsened for the Woodland Caribou since 1981, In 2013, members of the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation, the Beaver Lake Cree Nation, and the Enoch Cree Nation launched an application to protect Alberta’s boreal caribou (populations of the Woodland Caribou).[4] The Indigenous applicants sought an order from the Minister of Environment stating that the government had failed to prepare a recovery strategy for the caribou in the required time limit under environmental legislation.[5] The applicants also attempted to secure an order compelling the Minister to issue an emergency order to protect the Woodland Caribou.[6] Finally the applicants sought an order declaring that the Governor in Council’s
decision to not make an emergency order
was unlawful or unreasonable.[7]
The court held that the Minister had not accounted for the honour of the Crown or the applicants’ treaty rights when rejecting the emergency order for the Caribou; the Minister incorrectly stated that these considerations of Indigenous rights were irrelevant.[8] The request for the declaration regarding the recovery strategy was deferred and the request for the order compelling the Minister to issue an emergency order was rejected.[9]
When the emergency order decision was sent back to the Minister to reconsider with Indigenous rights in mind, the Minister still decided not to issue an emergency protection order.[10] Even though Alberta’s caribou were threatened, the Minister justified the decision by stating that caribou populations in Manitoba and eastern Canada were healthy. [11]
The Indigenous Nations had traditionally hunted the caribou.[12] The Nations also had a spiritual connection to the Caribou.[13] Healthy caribou populations elsewhere in Canada should not prevent the conservation of local caribou populations and protection of these Nations’ rights. The Indigenous applicants’ way of life depends on caribou populations in Alberta surviving.
With environmental legislation and the Court system failing the caribou, the Indigenous governments voluntarily stopped hunting caribou at the time of this case.[14] The situation for the caribou has only worsened in recent years, with research showing that the populations in Alberta decrease by 50% every eight years.[15] Is it fair for the Minister of Environment to decide not to protect the caribou in Alberta given the Indigenous rights at stake? How does other wildlife decline in Alberta disproportionately impact Indigenous ways of life?
ekosi.
The ReconciliACTION Team
Citations
[1] Michael Bloomfield and Marjory Sword, “Proposal to Designate Alberta’s Caribou as a Threatened Species” (1981) Alberta Energy & Natural Resources Fish & Wildlife Division Edson, Alberta at 1, online (pdf): <albertawilderness.ca> [perma.cc/NNC7-M79T].
[2] Ibid at 8.
[3] Ibid at 6-7.
[4] Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation v. Canada (Environment), 2011 FC 962 at para 201.
[5] Ibid at para 203.
[6] Ibid.
[7] Ibid.
[8] Ibid at para 204.
[9] Ibid at para 205.
[10] Ibid at para para 21.
[11] Ibid.
[12] Ibid at para 6.
[13] Ibid at para 33.
[14] Ibid.
[15] Alberta Institute for Wildlife Conservation Volunteer, “Declining Caribou Populations in Canada” (30 August 2023), online: <aiwc.ca> [https://perma.cc/QRT5-2Q9C].
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