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Trampling on Indigenous and Treaty Rights after R v. Stanley: “That's What You Get for Trespassing”

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 February 2023

Cheryl Zurawski Open the ORCID record for Cheryl Zurawski [Opens in a new window]
Cheryl Zurawski*
Affiliation:
Independent Scholar, General Delivery, Qualicum Beach, BC V9K 1A0, Canada
*
Corresponding author. E-mail: [email protected]
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Abstract

This article reports on institutional ethnographic research into how texts and talk were mobilized in social relations leading to the Government of Saskatchewan's enactment of the Trespass to Property Amendment Act, 2019. The act, proclaimed January 1, 2022, requires First Nations people to get advance permission from rural landowners before exercising their Indigenous and treaty rights to hunt and fish on land deemed private property. Findings (1) connect the 2018 acquittal of Gerald Stanley for the 2016 killing of Colten Boushie to political developments that paved the way for the new legislation and (2) trace how the advance permission requirement at the heart of the new legislation tramples on Indigenous and treaty rights, making it even more difficult for First Nations people to access their traditional territories for purposes such as hunting and fishing.

Résumé

Résumé

Cet article rend compte d'une recherche ethnographique institutionnelle sur la façon dont les textes et les discours ont été mobilisés dans les relations sociales qui ont mené à l'adoption par le gouvernement de la Saskatchewan du Trespass to Property Amendment Act, 2019 (Loi sur la violation de propriété, 2019). Cette loi, promulguée le 1er janvier 2022, exige que les membres des Premières Nations obtiennent l'autorisation préalable des propriétaires fonciers ruraux avant d'exercer leurs droits autochtones et issus de traités de chasser et de pêcher sur des terres considérées comme des propriétés privées. Les conclusions établissent un lien entre la fin du procès de Gerald Stanley en 2018 pour le meurtre de Colten Boushie en 2016 et les développements politiques qui ont conduit à la promulgation de la loi et retracent comment l'obligation d'obtenir une autorisation préalable pour laquelle les propriétaires fonciers ruraux ont fait pression et qui est désormais une loi provinciale est spoliatrice et limitative, car elle rend encore plus difficile l'accès des membres des Premières Nations à leurs territoires traditionnels aux fins de l'exercice de leurs droits de chasse et de pêche.

Keywords

Indigenous rightsinstitutional ethnographylawmakingtreaty rightstrespass to propertyDroits des autochtonesethnographie institutionnelleactivité législativedroits issus de traitésviolation de propriété
Type
Research Article/Étude originale
Information
Canadian Journal of Political Science/Revue canadienne de science politique , Volume 56 , Issue 1 , March 2023 , pp. 72 - 91
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2023. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Canadian Political Science Association (l’Association canadienne de science politique) and/et la Société québécoise de science politique

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