Moose hunting disputes show governments need game plan to share public assets: expert

Conflict over moose hunting in Manitoba is seen as more than just a harvesting dispute, and one legal expert says Canadian governments are having an "increasingly difficult time" encouraging public discourse on a shared path forward for Indigenous and non-Indigenous people.

A Manitoba judge recently said public debate over moose hunting in the province raises complicated issues that go beyond hunting.

In late November, Manitoba Court of King's Bench Justice Theodor Bock dismissed an injunction request by the Manitoba Wildlife Federation, a conservation organization representing 15,000 hunters in the province, after Bloodvein First Nation allegedly turned away two hunting parties at its checkstop last summer.

"This litigation takes place in the larger context of a public debate about moose hunting in Manitoba: how much, where, when and by whom?" Bock wrote in his Nov. 27 decision. "The debate has raised complicated legal, social, cultural, economic and environmental issues."

Bock also noted that the case came alongside two recent legal challenges against the province's moose hunting decisions.

In September, Misipawistik Cree Nation launched a lawsuit against the province over the decision to issue licences on its traditional territory this year, accusing the province of infringing on its treaty right to hunt moose for food and of breaching the Crown's obligation to consult.

None of the allegations have been proven in court, and a statement of defence has not been filed in that case.

In October, Pimicikamak Cree Nation and the Manitoba Wildlife Federation both lost legal challenges to the Manitoba government's decision to cut some moose licences up north in 2024, with the judge in that case calling the province's decision "imperfect" but justified.

Chris Heald, the wildlife federation's senior policy adviser, says his organization launched its Access for All campaign, which advocates for public access to Crown lands in Manitoba, in response to the province's licence cut in July 2024.

"We feel that some decisions are getting made about Crown lands without everybody at the table," Heald told CBC News on Dec. 18.

One decision Heald referred to was the province's move to carve out a swath of land near Pimicikamak to be used exclusively by Indigenous hunters this year, which Natural Resources Minister Ian Bushie said was done to meet obligations under the Northern Flood Agreement.

That agreement, signed in 1977 between a group of northern Manitoba First Nations, the federal and provincial governments, and Manitoba Hydro, states Manitoba must prioritize Indigenous harvesters on Pimicikamak's traditional territory.

'We have to find a way of sharing'

The province made a similar move last September, when it established a hunting buffer zone near Bloodvein First Nation on the first day of licensed moose hunting in the area, after Chief Lisa Young said non-Indigenous hunters would be turned away.

A judicial review of the province's decision to establish the buffer zone, which was requested by the wildlife federation, remains pending.

The wildlife federation's lawyers claimed that Bloodvein's checkstop was a blockade because licensed hunters were prevented from accessing Crown lands north of the checkpoint.

When asked by Bock in court on Nov. 13, Young told the judge licensed hunters who complied with Bloodvein's booze ban would not be turned away at the checkstop during the December leg of moose hunting season, which ended in the region on Dec. 14.

While Bock did not conclude whether Bloodvein's checkstop — erected last May to curb the flow of drugs and alcohol into the community — was in fact a blockade, he did say that the wildlife federation raised a "serious question" as to whether it was one.

The province's lawyers did not take a position on whether or not the checkstop was a blockade, saying the road it sits on should be available for all Manitobans, but that the government would prefer to move forward through consultation with Bloodvein.

Heald says the wildlife federation didn't oppose Bloodvein using its checkstop to look for contraband, but it took issue with the fact that the First Nation initially said it would prevent hunters from accessing parts of its traditional territory that are outside of its reserve lands.

"Claiming the traditional areas has no legal framework to it whatsoever, and those are provincial Crown lands," he said.

Heald says he didn't hear of any issues at the checkstop in December.

"I think it was a fair compromise and the First Nation got to keep the checkstop."

Bushie previously told CBC News that his department is consulting with licensed hunting communities and Indigenous leadership as it develops a "framework for joint management" to ensure hunting traditions can continue for generations.

Moose face more threats than those posed by hunters, including climate change, brainworm and wolf predation, but Heald says harvesting is the only factor that can be controlled.

There's not enough moose in Manitoba to split among 62 First Nations in the province, the Manitoba Métis Federation, and licensed hunters and outfitters, he says.

Heald says the province is preparing to sit down with all stakeholders to talk about moose hunting in the new year.

"The truth is, I think everybody's got to realize that moose are never going to be a sole food source for anybody anymore. It's changed," Heald said.

"The moose are doomed, so we have to find a way of sharing that resource, that everybody is satisfied with, and that's the government's responsibility."

'When the moose disappear, everyone loses'

Thomas Isaac, a partner at the Cassels Brock & Blackwell law firm based in Vancouver and who's been recognized as a leading authority on Aboriginal law, says Canadian governments need proactive public policies to deal with disputes between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people.

A B.C. Supreme Court judge sparked controversy earlier this year with a legally unprecedented ruling establishing Aboriginal title alongside private property ownership of land that once housed a traditional Quw'utsun (Cowichan) Nation village in what is now the city of Richmond.

Isaac says he sees similarities between Manitoba's moose hunting debate and the public response to the Cowichan decision.

"Ultimately, the thread that I see is the need for public government leadership," he told CBC News on Dec. 16.

"It's critically important for governments to have a real game plan on what they're doing to protect public assets … that are available to non-Indigenous peoples and Indigenous peoples, but doing it in a balanced way."

Isaac calls the Cowichan decision the "biggest story in a generation in Aboriginal law," but it has led to a largely negative public response, when he says it could have been an opportunity to talk about reconciliation.

A public government's role is to ensure that "everyone's truth is heard" in a respectful way, he said.

"We have to maintain a civil society and we have to start encouraging honest dialogue on what reconciliation means," he said.

"What I see recently is public governments having an increasingly difficult time encouraging public dialogue about these issues, about how we're all going to live together in a way that promotes civil society."

A Winnipeg lawyer who's been keeping an eye on the legal proceedings describes them as a "collision of conservation concerns."

The moose hunting debate in Manitoba raises questions about land stewardship and coexistence between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people, says Carlie Kane, a lawyer at the Perrie Law firm based in Winnipeg.

"It's a story about how we choose to share land, respect treaty rights, and respond to ecological decline," she told CBC News on Dec. 18.

The situation presents a chance for Manitoba to shift "from conflict to opportunity," Kane said.

"Reconciliation isn't about these symbolic gestures, it's more about the shared decision making when it gets hard," she said.

"When the moose disappear, everyone loses."