First Nations protests demanding explorative drilling in New Brunswick to stop, became violent when RCMP brought in reinforcements in an attempt to shut down the demonstrations.
The RCMP came in full force against the protests by Elsipogtog First Nations resulting in violent clashes. Elsipogtog is in the area where the Mi'kmaq have won important legal victories at the Supreme Court, establishing their rights to hunt, fish and trap and harvest lumber.
ELSIPOGTOG, NB-Since June, First Nations people have held protests at a potential shale gas site in New Brunswick. However, recent protests by Elsipogtog First Nations and their supporters resulted in a violent clash when the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) moved in to enforce a court ruling against the protesters' blockade.
According to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), First Nations leaders had raised concerns about the failure of the government and the oil industry to consult with First Nations before they started any kind of exploration or development.
This is the key issue in these protests-the duty to consult and accommodate Aboriginal people when there are plans for oil exploration on their traditional land.
According to rulings by the Supreme Court of Canada, a duty has been established to hold discussions with First Nations leaders before any exploration or development work is done. According to CBC News, since the mid 1980s, Aboriginal groups have won 186 victories over resource development. This is a 90 per cent success rate.
"First Nations have far more legal rights than most Canadians understand," Ken Coates told CBC Radio in Moncton, N.B. One of Canada's leading experts on aboriginal issues and a professor at The University of Saskatchewan, Coates explained that the Supreme Court "has made it absolutely, unequivocally clear that First Nations people have to be consulted... and accommodated."
"It means following the law," Coates stated.
New Brunswick First Nations didn't give up their land through treaties according to Stephen Augustine, the principal of Unama'ki College at Cape Breton University. "Those pre-Confederation treaties were just treaties of peace and friendship, the government of Canada has acknowledged that," he told CBC News.
According to the Canadian government, the situation is "unlike any other found in Canada. Under the Peace and Friendship Treaties of 1760 and 1761 in the Maritimes, the Mi'kmaq and the Maliseet signatories did not surrender rights to lands or resources," Aboriginal Affairs states on their website.
The lack of perceived progress in land claims settlement underlies the latest protests in New Brunswick and across Canada, according to Augustine. He is originally from Elsipogtog and is a hereditary chief of the Signigtog region.
Elsipogtog is also in the area of the province where the Mi'kmaq have won important legal victories at the Supreme Court, establishing their rights to hunt, fish and trap and harvest lumber.
"This is an area that has seen a fair amount of rocking and rolling in the access to resources and treaty rights and aboriginal rights drama," says Bill Gallagher, lawyer and author of the 2012 book "Resource Rulers: Fortune and Folly on Canada's Road to Resources."
