General strike at Port of Montreal set to begin on Monday, says dockworkers union

MONTREAL — A general strike at the Port of Montreal is set to begin on Monday after the union representing dockworkers issued the required 72-hour notice to the Maritime Employers Association.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

Barring a last-minute reprieve, the 1,150 port workers affiliated with the Canadian Union of Public Employees will be in a legal strike position as of Monday at 7 a.m., which would paralyze the port.

The dockworkers have been on an overtime strike and refused to work on weekends since April 17 and 18.

They say the actions are in response to a change in work shifts the Maritime Employers Association wants to impose as of Monday. That would see thwork seven-hour shifts, up from five hours and 20 minutes.

The union said it is responding to "frontal attacks" from the employer "to try to bend" the workers.

"If the employer agrees to lift its measures, we would normally lift our overtime strike, our weekend strike and our Monday morning indefinite general strike notice and operations would resume immediately in the port," said Michel Murray, CUPE union adviser, at a Friday news conference.

He said the Maritime Employers Association does not want to negotiate and is pursuing a position of provocation in order to force Ottawa to react.

The MEA said it was disappointed with the union executive's decision, adding that it is reviewing its options and wants a quick resolution to the impasse.

Quebec's minister of the economy and innovation, Pierre Fitzgibbon, on Twitter called on the federal government to “intervene quickly,” without specifying exactly what he wants.

The port is "a strategic public service for the revival of our economy," he tweeted. "Now is not the time to cripple it with a strike. Our companies have already suffered enough from this labour dispute.”

Federal Labour Minister Filomena Tassi wouldn't say if she will intervene in the dispute and her office said she was not available for an interview.

In a written statement, the minister describes the events of Friday as "a very worrying escalation." Businesses and the economy "need to see this situation resolved quickly," she said, adding that "we are currently looking at all options."

In Ottawa, the New Democratic Party called for the Trudeau government to stand up for workers' rights and asked it not to introduce back-to-work legislation.

“Ottawa has already suggested that such a law is in the works; nothing surprising coming from the Liberals who have at heart only the interests of the richest,” said deputy leader Alexandre Boulerice.

Montreal Board of Trade CEO Michel Leblanc, said that "the union is taking the economy hostage," a situation he considers "totally irresponsible and unacceptable."

Meanwhile, the Quebec Employers Council noted that the Port of Montreal is "an essential link" in the supply chain.

“For us it is an essential service that cannot stop functioning. The federal government has all the tools to act," and should do so, president and CEO Karl Blackburn said.

The Canadian Federation of Independent Business estimated that the strike will be "very damaging."

The dockworkers at the Port of Montreal have been without an employment contract since December 2018.

They started a first strike last summer, which ended in a truce that lasted seven months.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 23, 2021.

The Canadian Press

NEVER SAY NEVER

Nunavut NDP MP apologizes for comments about fellow politician's Inuk identity

© Provided by The Canadian Press 

LIBERAL MP YVONNE JONES

IQALUIT, Nunavut — The member of Parliament for Nunavut has apologized for comments she made demanding a fellow politician prove her Inuk identity.

In a 33-minute live Twitter video posted Thursday, NDP member Mumilaaq Qaqqaq asks Labrador Liberal MP Yvonne Jones to prove her Inuk ancestry and claims Jones is not an Inuk.

In the now-deleted video, Qaqqaq says that southern Labrador, where Jones has said her family comes from, is not an Inuit region.

Qaqqaq apologized for the comments in a post on her social media accounts Friday.

"I want to fully apologize to everyone for my recent comments on Twitter that personally challenged the identity of Yvonne Jones," the post reads.

"The way that I commented was aggressive and disrespectful. I apologize for how I handled the situation."

Qaqqaq grew up in Baker Lake and worked for the Nunavut government before she elected in 2019.

Jones was first elected as MP for Labrador in 2013 and was mayor of her hometown of Mary's Harbour from 1991 to 1996.

In the Thursday video, Qaqqaq outlines her family tree, names her parents and asks Jones to do the same publicly.

"So Yvonne Jones, who is your family?" Qaqqaq repeats in the video

"I'm not going to apologize," Qaqqaq also says. "I know, until I am proven otherwise, Yvonne Jones is not Inuk.

"Until you can tell me who your family is, and where you come from, and how you're Inuk, and validate your Inukness, you have no space to say you're Inuk. Stop saying you're Inuk."

Last week, Qaqqaq also replied to a 2019 tweet from a blog called Indigenous Politics that referred to Jones as an Inuk.

"Jones is not an Inuk," Qaqaqq replied.

Jones demanded earlier this week in the House of Commons that Qaqqaq apologize for that comment.

"Her domination attitude is the most prevailing one I've heard in some time," Jones told the House of Commons.

She also said Qaqqaq's comments were "laterally viscous" and "threatening" to herself "as an Inuk woman."

Jones also said she is a "descendant of Inuk and white parents."

"I have never seen such disrespect from another parliamentarian in my 25 years of political office," Jones said.

Jones demanded Qaqqaq apologize and "stop committing racial erosion against her own culture."

The Canadian Press reached out to Jones for an interview, but her office said she was unavailable. Qaqqaq did not repy to an interview request.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 23, 2021.

Emma Tranter, The Canadian Press

A tortured soul with the voice of an angel

When entertainer Tiny Tim was married live on The Tonight Show in 1969, the television audience that tuned in was the second biggest in history at the time. First place? The moon landing.

© Provided by National Post Tiny Tim's instrument of choice was the ukulele.

That alone should provide a sense of what a star was Herbert Butros Khaury, known at the height of his career and ever after as Tiny Tim. (At an early low point, he performed in a Times Square freak show and flea circus as Larry Love the Human Canary.)

Swedish director Johan von Sydow has to reach back a bit for this portrait of Tiny Tim. He died of a heart attack at the age of 64 in 1996, on stage at the end, with his third wife in the audience. Tiny Tim: King For a Day checks in with her as well as his first wife, and various relatives, friends and musical fans.

We also get some incredible footage of the performer during his heyday, when he appeared on variety and chat shows hosted by Ed Sullivan, Jackie Gleanson, Dick Cavett, Merv Griffin, Johnny Carson, David Frost and more.

The fast pace of the documentary, which runs to just 75 minutes, leaves a few questions. I’m still not sure what (if any) connections he had to the mob, and whether his FBI file contained anything more incriminating than his obsession with women. This is spite of his mannerisms and trademark falsetto singing style, which led many to label him as gay. His widow calls him half-gay, straddling a grey zone between identity and sexual preference.

But what comes through in his diary entries (read by Al Yankovic, toning down his usual weirdness) is a tortured soul, religious and horny and hungry for fame. “My greatest unfulfilled ambition,” he once said, “is to be one of the astronauts or even the first singer on the Moon. But most of all, I’d love to see Christ come back to crush the spirit of hate and make men put down their guns. I’d also like just one more hit single.”

Tiny Tim: King For a Day is available April 23 on demand through FilmsWeLike.com.

3.5 stars out of 5

Chris Knight 

POSTMEDIA

4/23/2021

Italy's Uffizi discovers lost frescoes during COVID shutdown


MILAN — The Uffizi Gallery in Florence used the winter COVID shutdown to push ahead with renovations, discovering lost frescoes that will greet visitors when the leading repository of Italian Renaissance art reopens on May 4.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

Uffizi director Eike Schmidt said the six months of closure were put to good use: renovating 14 new rooms that will open to the public next month, and discovering frescoes that would otherwise have remained hidden.

But he hopes that the most recent reopening — the third during the pandemic — will be the last.

“We very much hope that now we will be able to open stably and without further closures. We hope so for the museum, but we hope it also for the world and for human society,? Schmidt said.

The previously hidden frescoes include a life-size figure of a young Cosimo II de Medici — part of the Renaissance family that commissioned the Uffizi — dating from the 1600s, as well as decorative plant motifs from the 1700s on the walls and ceiling of nearby rooms.

They are located in the museum's west wing, which is where the new visitors' entrance will be when the Uffizi reopens.

Schmidt said the new entrance facing the Arno River would provide “a glorious introduction” for visitors. Classic statuary will be added to the entrance in the future.

Workers also completed restoration on new rooms dedicated to 16th Century high and late Renaissance art from central and northern Italy, beyond Tuscany. They complete the sweep through art history from the Middle Ages with Giotto, to the Renaissance masters Botticelli, Raphael and Michelangelo, beyond to the counter-reformation and Venetian galleries.

"You can now seamlessly walk through, or hike through, art history if you wish to do so,'' Schmidt said.

Under the Uffizi's new entry system, visitors will buy tickets, deposit coats and bags in the west wing and cross through a courtyard to the east wing, where they will pass through metal detectors and pick up audio guides before starting their rounds of the museum.

The number of visitors at the museum last year dropped to about a quarter of those in 2019 due to the COVID lockdowns in the spring and fall, with some 1.2 million people visiting in 2020, down from 4.4 million a year earlier.

Booking requests have already started coming in for the summer months, which the museum will be able to satisfy now that an opening date is official, Schmidt said.

With prospects for the resumption of international tourism only beginning to come into focus, Schmidt expects the gallery will operate at about half its capacity for the foreseeable future. Pre-pandemic, peak visitation reached as many as 12,000 people a day.

“Actually to visit the museum now and over the next few months will mean you will really feel even more as if you are part of the de Medici family,’’ Eike said. “Especially if you come in the early morning, you might be in the Botticelli room to yourself for two or three minutes before someone else arrives. That never, ever happens.”

The Uffizi has been closed since Nov. 5 except for two weeks in January when Tuscany was under Italy's lowest level of restrictions. Italy on Monday begins a gradual reopening. Along with museums being allowed to open their doors, restaurants in low-risk zones on Monday will be allowed to offer outdoor dining before a 10 p.m. curfew.

Colleen Barry, The Associated Press

4/23/2021

U.S.A. could declare first-ever water shortage declaration

Duration: 00:49 

Man-made lakes that provide water for millions of people in the western U.S. and Mexico are expected to drop to record lows in the next few months. This could force the nation's first-ever water shortage.

More from The Weather Network

PURE SPECULATION
'Black Swan' author Nassim Taleb says bitcoin is an open Ponzi scheme and a failed currency

A currency not backed by a government is "just speculation" and a "game," the author said.

ilee@insider.com (Isabelle Lee) 4/23/2021

© Photo by Anton Novoderezhkin\TASS via Getty Images Nassim Nicholas Taleb at the Synergy Global Forum on November 27, 2017. Photo by Anton Novoderezhkin\TASS via Getty Images

Nassim Taleb doubled down on his view that bitcoin is a Ponzi scheme and a failed currency.

Some analysts view the cryptocurrency as a hedge against inflation.

A currency not backed by a government is "just speculation" and a "game," the author said.

The "Black Swan" author Nassim Taleb doubled down on his view that bitcoin is an open Ponzi scheme and a failed currency in a CNBC interview on Friday.

"There's no connection between inflation and bitcoin," Taleb told CNBC, adding that everyone knows bitcoin is "a Ponzi."

Some analysts view the cryptocurrency, often referred to as digital gold, as a hedge against inflation, highlighting its similarities with the precious metal.

"If you want to hedge against inflation, buy a piece of land," Taleb said. "The best strategy for investors is to own things that produce yields in the future. In other words, you can fall back on real dollars coming out of the company."

He also said bitcoin had failed in its supposed role as a replacement for government-backed money, mainly because of its volatility. The author said he'd been "fooled" into thinking it could be a viable alternative to fiat currency but realized that a currency not backed by a government is "just speculation" and a "game."

"I was told it was going to be a currency," he said, but "you don't replace the currency with something that's so volatile that you can't really commit to a transaction in it."

Bitcoin's price has swung wildly recently. The world's largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization inched near $65,000 ahead of Coinbase's listing on April 14. Less than 10 days later, bitcoin slid below the critical $50,000 level, extending losses for the seventh day in a row.

The decline below $50,000 has bitcoin testing a new technical support level that could signal continued weakness, especially after its 50-day moving average failed to hold as support.

The broader crypto market has come under pressure after reports said this week that US President Joe Biden would look to double the capital-gains tax rate for wealthy investors.

Read the original article on Business Insider

CANADIAN SOCIAL DEMOCRATS APPROPRIATE ANARCHIST SLOGAN #EATTHERICH

It’s also a platform where hashtags like #eattherich and #abolishbillionaires proliferate, and those posters and viewers would seem to be receptive to the NDP’s policies.


The federal NDP are heading into the next election betting their strategy to target the “ultra-rich” will resonate with younger voters. But whether Millennial and Gen Z’s online posts to “abolish billionaires” will translate into votes remains to be seen.

© Provided by National Post Federal NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh:

A part of that game plan to target youth rests on social media and leader Jagmeet Singh himself, whose embrace of TikTok grabbed attention in the last election campaign, and who has been using the video platform and its memes since to promote his party’s ideas.


Singh said in an interview the NDP is working on “building a big team” around social media. “People want to be reached out to and spoken to where they are, and young people are on social media, and they are frustrated with the injustice going on,” he said.

Singh said he took it as a “personal initiative” to double down on social media as a way to reach voters. The effort extends to other platforms popular with younger Canadians. In November, he streamed a game of “Among Us” with U.S. congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Twitch.





How much of the social media content is posted by Singh and how much is by his team depends on the platform. Singh said he is behind most of his TikTok videos, since “it’s a platform I really understand.”

It’s also a platform where hashtags like #eattherich and #abolishbillionaires proliferate, and those posters and viewers would seem to be receptive to the NDP’s policies.

At its policy convention two weeks ago, the party voted in favour of a marginal tax rate of 80 per cent for personal incomes over $1 million, a one per cent tax on “fortunes over $20 million,” and a tax on “pandemic and disaster excess profit.”

Singh’s line of attack on the Liberals has been to paint the party as being in bed with billionaires, in contrast to the NDP, which would make the “ultra-rich” pay “their fair share.”

To what extent hashtags translate into political support isn’t exactly quantifiable, but that kind of messaging is more likely to resonate with younger voters, pollsters say.

“I wish we had specific data saying X per cent of young Canadians say ‘eat the rich,’ ” said Angus Reid Institute president Shachi Kurl.

There is a trend where younger people are “definitely” — though not exclusively — “of the view that either increasing taxes on high-income earners, like $250K-plus, or on corporations or on businesses, is the way to pay for things,” she said.

“These types of eat-the-rich statements have always been popular with youth,” noted Christian Bourque, executive vice-president at Leger.

But what is new is that younger Canadians are more concerned about fairness, he said. “I believe that the way people frame this issue of the ultra-rich needs to be about some form of fairness,” he said, giving the example of the government’s recent Air Canada bailout that caps compensation for executives.

Singh said the notion of making the ultra-wealthy pay resonates among all voters, but youth are more open to it because they’re facing a more difficult reality than their parents did.



“They are the first generation ever that has less opportunities than the previous generation,” he said. They saw their parents be able to buy homes and have jobs that supported families and now “young people don’t have that same opportunity,” given how much housing costs have increased in proportion to income, he said.

“There is very clearly an extra burden on young people, that they’re feeling that the system is really rigged. They’re feeling even more frustrated, so young people are certainly even more open to this message, because they’re feeling the impact in their lives right now, that this rigged system means that they can’t find a good job that will help them earn a good living, start a family, find a place to live.”

Singh noted Millenials and younger voters make up a large portion of the electorate and said they could “make history” in the next election.

“I see the frustration that they’re feeling. I see how engaged they are politically, how engaged they are on social media platforms, and how engaged they have been” in organizing big protests in real life, he said.




The COVID-19 pandemic has also played a role, Kurl said. She noted it has “stressed younger Canadians in a way that it hasn’t necessarily stressed older Canadians.”

One of the reasons the NDP plans to double its campaign spending in the next election is Singh’s polling numbers. Mainstreet Research president Quito Maggi said Singh’s performance in the last election, in which he came across as authentic and likeable, is the reason the party didn’t get nearly wiped out.

Of course, things could shift. The Liberal government outlined more than $100 billion in new spending in this week’s federal budget, which extends pandemic supports and includes a promise to implement $10-a-day child care.

A post-budget Leger poll also found voter intention for the Liberals and Conservatives remained the same, while the NDP’s inched up from 18 to 19 per cent. But Maggi noted, “the budget would appear to address most of those economic anxieties that could increase support for those NDP policies.”

The next election will also come at a time when younger voters may be less enamoured with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. “Young people haven’t completely abandoned Justin Trudeau but, he’s not the bright young thing that he was six years ago,” Kurl said. “Jagmeet Singh does have appeal among young voters.”

Bourque said there are opportunities for the NDP to target that demographic, given that the “Conservatives are in trouble with younger voters in Canada,” and Trudeau no longer has that “newness” and “freshness” element he did in 2015.

But while there is an opening for the NDP, that spot could also get taken up by the Green Party, he warned.

Gaza militants fire rockets after clashes flare in Jerusalem

Violence in Jerusalem spiked on Thursday night as hundreds of far-right Jewish Israelis marched down city streets chanting “death to Arabs” and confronted Palestinians.

Oliver Holmes in Jerusalem 

4/24/2021

Militants in Gaza have fired at least 35 rockets into Israel in one of the most intense flare-ups in months, seemingly triggered by days of tensions in Jerusalem in which far-right Jewish groups and the Israeli police have clashed with Palestinians.

Hours of sustained rocket launches early on Saturday – and Israel’s retaliatory strikes on the strip using fighter jets and attack helicopters – broke a months-long lull along the frontier with the coastal enclave.

The rockets, some of which were claimed by a small military group affiliated with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, caused no injuries. They appeared to be a response to several nights of unrest in mostly Palestinian east Jerusalem as well as protest across towns in the occupied West Bank.

Violence in Jerusalem spiked on Thursday night as hundreds of far-right Jewish Israelis marched down city streets chanting “death to Arabs” and confronted Palestinians. Mounted police in riot gear attempted to keep the two sides apart but Palestinian medics said that by the end of the night 100 people had been injured, with 21 taken to hospital. Israeli police said they had made 50 arrests without specifying if they were Israelis or Palestinians.

© Provided by The Guardian Smoke and flames rise after Israeli war planes carried out airstrikes over Gaza city. Photograph: Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

One video shared on social media showed what appeared to be several Jewish boys throwing stones at an Arab house as children screamed. Another filmed a group of Palestinian youths kicking a person on the ground as a voice off-camera shouts “break the settler”, a reference to Israelis who have taken land in the Palestinian territories.

Meanwhile, Palestinians have accused Israeli police of brutality in their handling of nightly protests, which erupted in response to restrictions on gatherings during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

Fears of a further crackdown were raised on Friday after Israel’s public security minister, Amir Ohana, posted on Facebook that police forces had his “complete backing to use all means, force and the necessary power to restore law and order”.

Later that night, police again used stun grenades to disperse Palestinian crowds, including young men who hurled stones and firecrackers at officers and set fire to rubbish bins. However, due to the weekly Jewish Sabbath, most of the far-right Israelis from the night before were at home.

In an unusually strong rebuke, Ned Price, the US state department spokesperson, seemed to condemn the anti-Arab chanting without mentioning it specifically. “We are deeply concerned by the escalation of violence in Jerusalem,” he tweeted. “The rhetoric of extremist protesters chanting hateful and violent slogans must be firmly rejected,” adding that Israeli authorities should ensure the “rights of all in Jerusalem”.

In his Friday sermon, Sheikh Muhammad Hussein, the grand mufti of Jerusalem, condemned the “police and settlers’ attack on Palestinians in Jerusalem” but called on worshippers to remain calm.

Neighbouring Jordan blamed Israel for the violence. “We strongly condemn the racist attacks on Palestinians in occupied Jerusalem and urge prompt international action to protect Jerusalemites,” foreign minister Ayman Safadi tweeted.

Since Ramadan began on 13 April, Palestinians have complained that police have prevented them from gathering on the steps near Damascus Gate in the Old City following night-time prayers, a long but unofficial tradition. Authorities have blocked access by erecting metal barriers in the plaza.

At the same time, videos of street harassment and several attacks between Jews and Palestinians during the past two weeks have inflamed the situation. One photo, taken in the coastal port area of Jaffa in Israel and widely shared domestically, showed an Arab man kicking a rabbi who local media reported was in his 60s.

Jerusalem has always been the centre of the Israeli-Palestinian crisis, with its holy sites revered by both Jews and Muslims. The Old City’s Western Wall forms part of the holiest site in Judaism – the Temple Mount. It is equally part of the al-Haram al-Sharif, or the Noble Sanctuary, however, with the Dome of the Rock and al-Aqsa mosque above it, where ten of thousands of Muslims pray nightly during Ramadan.

The unique sensitivity of the complex has been a focal point of previous violent episodes. A period of intense Israeli-Palestinian violence, known as the second intifada, began in 2000 when Israeli politician Ariel Sharon made a provocative visit to the site. In 2017 the installation of security cameras and metal detectors there led to days of clashes and fatal incidents.

Related: The US media is touting Israel's Covid recovery. But occupied Palestinians are left out | Yara M Asi

Israeli forces captured the whole of Jerusalem in 1967 and later annexed it, claiming the entire area as its “undivided” capital. Palestinians hope the eastern parts of the city will become the capital of a future state to include the occupied West Bank and Gaza, although a decades-long effort to end the Israeli occupation has floundered.

An increase in clashes is common during the annual Ramadan month of fasting, usually at night but calming down in the daytime. Incidents in Jerusalem are often closely linked to Gaza, which is about 40 miles away but whose roughly 2 million Palestinian inhabitants cannot travel freely to the holy city due to a crippling Israeli blockade.

On Saturday, Hamas, the Islamist group that rules inside Gaza, did not claim it fired any rockets, but its armed wing voiced support for east Jerusalem Palestinians. “The spark you light today will be the wick of the explosion to come in the face of the enemy,” it said in a statement.

Israel said its air force had bombed several “military targets in the Gaza Strip” belonging to Hamas. The country has fought three wars with Hamas and holds it responsible for all rockets fired out of the enclave.

Crown, OPP fail to stop $16.5M lawsuit by former brewery owner

The former owners of the Molson brewery property in Barrie — where the country’s largest indoor marijuana grow operation was discovered in 2004 — have the go-ahead to move forward with their $16.5-million lawsuit against the federal government and Ontario Provincial Police (OPP).

In the latest twist following a decade of legal wrangling, an Ontario Court of Appeal panel has unanimously upheld a lower court’s finding that the limitation period had not expired for the malicious prosecution lawsuit filed by Fercan Developments Inc. and GRVN Group Inc., dismissing the Crown’s attempt to put an end to the case.

Lawyer Brian Greenspan says it’s no longer about Fercan and its owner’s insistence that he had nothing to do with the illegal grow-op in which his brother and others were convicted.

“It’s not just our claim anymore. There’s been a determinative finding that the Crown engaged in prosecutorial misconduct, (and) should never have brought the application for forfeiture,” Greenspan, one of the lawyers representing Fercan, said shortly after the appeal court released the decision Thursday.

On Jan. 10, 2004, police uncovered “one of the largest and most sophisticated indoor marijuana-growing operations in Canadian history" in the 450,000-square-foot former brewery alongside Highway 400 in Barrie's south end.

Inside they found 20,000 plants, 300 pounds of cannabis and extensive growing equipment located behind concrete block walls, which was all protected by a series of locked doors and surveillance equipment. Nine people were arrested.

Fercan had purchased the 35-acre site three years earlier and was developing a coffee and a bottled water business on the site and renting out sections of the building to small businesses. The former brewery building has since been demolished.

The series of lawsuits began with the federal government’s attempt to take ownership of the property through a lengthy criminal forfeiture hearing under the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act.

When that failed eight years ago, the investigator took it to the provincial government, which then launched its own forfeiture proceedings under the Civil Remedies Act. That also failed, as did an attempt to revive it in appeal.

Fercan and GRVN were awarded $570,000 in costs, which the Crown also tried to appeal, after winning the forfeiture case.

They now want the government to make up for the earnings lost through that process which they say amounted to civil conspiracy, claiming malicious prosecution, negligent investigation and misfeasance in public office.

“It’s become a rather strange approach. You can’t prove your case criminally, so you then try to seize assets civilly,” said Greenspan. “It’s bizarre that these two pieces of legislation can live together. But they tried both here.

“What more decisive conclusion can you reach than Fercan, the owners of the property, were absolutely blameless," he added.

Marg. Bruineman, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, barrietoday.com

CANADA

'A landmark decision': Sinixt First Nation react to Supreme Court ruling confirming existence

 "We're not going back to the museum and standing next to the dinosaurs."

© Submitted by Mark Underhill Richard Desautel went to the Supreme Court of Canada with the goal of proving the Sinixt First Nation's existence in Canada.

"We're not going back to the museum and standing next to the dinosaurs."

That's how Richard Desautel of the Sinixt Nation reacted Friday morning after Canada's highest court upended the federal government's 65-year-old claim that his Indigenous nation from southeastern British Columbia was extinct.

Desautel, the man at the centre of the case, is a member of the Lakes Tribe of the Colville Confederated Tribes based in Washington state, a successor group of the Sinixt people..

In 2010, he purposely shot and killed an elk in the traditional territory of the Sinixt in the Arrow Lakes region in B.C.'s Kootenay region in order to challenge the extinction claim. Desautel phoned the B.C. Conservation Officer Service after his successful hunt to report himself and was charged with hunting without a licence.

Lawyer Mark Underhill, who represented Desautel and the Sinixt, said it's been a long journey for him.

"He was the one willing to step up and get charged to bring Sinixt rights to the forefront. So he was very emotional this morning," Underhill said.

"I welcomed him home."© Rob Easton/CBC The majority of the Sinixt's traditional territory is in British Columbia.

The Sinixt live on both sides of the U.S.-Canada border, Underhill said, and many Sinixt people are now members of other bands in Canada, principally the Okanagan, and the Colville Tribes in the U.S.

Underhill said it's been illegal for members in the U.S. to come up and practice their culture in British Columbia since 1896. The ruling — which only focuses on hunting rights — sets up the Sinixt as rights holders, no matter where they live.

"This is about reclaiming their identity," said Underhill. "It really, really, really means everything to them."

Rodney Cawston, chairman of the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation and the Sinixt Confederacy, said the ruling is a first step.

"We're going to continue that work of addressing our aboriginal title again back in Canada and also recognition of all of those areas for our people of where they once lived that are very sacred to us still today.

"This is a landmark decision."

Supreme Court affirms American Indigenous man's right to hunt in Canada

The Supreme Court's recognition that rights are rooted in historical ties to a region has implications for other First Nations who have been forced from traditional lands

OTTAWA — An American Indigenous man has a constitutionally protected right to hunt in British Columbia given his people's historic ties to the region, the Supreme Court of Canada has ruled.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

The top court's 7-2 decision Friday upheld the acquittal of Richard Lee Desautel, a U.S. citizen who was charged with hunting without a licence and hunting big game while not a resident of B.C. after shooting an elk near Castlegar in 2010.

Desautel defended his actions on the basis he had an Aboriginal right to hunt protected by section 35(1) of Canada's Constitution Act of 1982.

Desautel is a member of the Lakes Tribe of the Colville Confederated Tribes of Washington state, a successor of the Sinixt people, whose ancestral territory extended into what is now B.C.

The trial judge found the sections of B.C.'s Wildlife Act under which Desautel was charged had infringed his constitutional right to hunt in the province.

The decision was upheld by the B.C. Supreme Court and the province's Court of Appeal, prompting the Crown to take its case to the Supreme Court of Canada.

A central issue in the case was the interpretation of the Constitution Act's affirmation of the rights of "the aboriginal peoples of Canada," namely whether the phrase includes only Indigenous Peoples who are resident or citizens of Canada, or also those whose ancestors occupied territory that became Canada.

In writing for a majority of the high court, Justice Malcolm Rowe said the scope includes the modern-day successors of Aboriginal societies that occupied Canadian territory at the time of European contact.

"As a result, groups whose members are neither citizens nor residents of Canada can be Aboriginal peoples of Canada."

Rowe cautioned that, beyond this central issue, he would say little more about what that means for the exercise of rights protected under section 35(1).

"First, questions of law are better resolved in cases where there is a dispute that requires the answering of those questions," Rowe wrote. "And, second, the defence of a prosecution for a provincial regulatory offence, while it may serve as a test case (as here), is not well-suited to deal with such broader issues."

When Europeans first made contact in the early 1800s, the Sinixt were engaged in hunting, fishing and gathering in their ancestral territory, which extended into what later became Washington state to the south and B.C. to the north.

Due to a variety of reasons, the Sinixt moved to the United States, though not voluntarily.

Until 1930, members of the Lakes Tribe continued to hunt in B.C. despite living in the U.S. Periods followed when no hunting took place in the province, but the tribe maintained a connection to the land.

Meanwhile, by the early 1900s, only 21 Sinixt still lived on their traditional territory in Canada, in the Arrow Lakes Band reserve. The band was declared extinct after the death of the last member in 1956, and the reserve lands reverted back to the Crown.

The Crown had argued the Lakes Tribe might be able to establish common law Aboriginal rights in B.C., but this would not include the right to cross the international border into Canada.

In his arguments, Desautel stressed the Sinixt people's long-standing ties to the West Kootenay region of B.C.

"The Sinixt were here in Canada first, long before the assertion of sovereignty and the imposition of an international border which artificially divided their traditional territory in a manner foreign to their Indigenous perspective," said his written submission to the high court.

"The honour of the Crown requires that their prior occupation be reconciled with the assertion of sovereignty through the constitutional protection of their hunting rights in Canada."

Desautel travelled to Kettle Falls in Washington state, in the southern portion of the traditional territory, where he received word of the Supreme Court decision Friday through a video call from his lawyer Mark Underhill.

"I am at the end of my own journey through the court system, and at the beginning of the new journey of reconciliation for our people," Desautel said in a statement.

"I am grateful to the ancestors for their guidance and in helping our rights, traditions and natural laws prevail. I look forward to the hard work ahead together with the people of British Columbia."

The Supreme Court's recognition that rights are rooted in historical ties to a region has implications for other First Nations who have been forced from traditional lands, Underhill said Friday.

"It's a really important decision in that way, to affirm where rights come from and that they're not going to be lost by various forces of colonialism."

This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 23, 2021.

Jim Bronskill, The Canadian Press