Members of indigenous communities during an interview at a restaurant in Montreal on Thursday.Andrej Ivanov/The Globe and Mail
A group of Indigenous elders and chiefs is suing to void all forestry permits on a vast territory in northern Quebec, claiming that the land’s ancestral occupants were not properly consulted and the logging activities violate their traditional rights.
It is the first time a group of land defenders – a traditional role not clearly defined in Canadian law – has claimed Aboriginal title in Canada, lawyer Frédéric Bérard said.
The region about five hours north of Montreal has been the site of blockades by Indigenous groups in recent years to protest clear-cutting and the Quebec government’s recent reform of the province’s forestry regime.
The lawsuit against the Crown, filed in Quebec Superior Court Thursday, comes at a sensitive time for relations between the resource sector and Indigenous communities, as the federal government tries to accelerate projects in the name of economic sovereignty and national unity.
At the same time, last year’s court ruling granting Aboriginal title to the Cowichan Tribes over a section of suburban Richmond, B.C., already occupied by homeowners has raised the possibility of further clashes between private-property rights and Indigenous land claims.
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The suit also comes at a difficult moment for the Quebec forestry industry. The pain of U.S. tariffs recently prompted Premier François Legault to speculate that the sector could lose half its 60,000 jobs in the coming years.
The claimants say their goal isn’t to harm forestry workers, but just to enforce their rights.
“We’ve never been against the industry, we’re opposed to the way they awarded permits and they do their cuts,” said Dave Petiquay, a land defender for Nehirowisiw Aski, the ancestral territory of the Atikamekw people.
Logging in the region has deeply damaged the land and his people’s use of it, Mr. Petiquay said. It is now more difficult to find medicinal plants and the tree bark needed to make traditional canoes.
“Blueberries are rarer and rarer because of the machines they use, which attack all the vegetation.”
Government consultation about forestry projects in their region has historically been insufficient and in bad faith, added Lisanne Petiquay, president of the Association of Land Defenders.
“If they consult, they will already have made the decision – a forestry permit is already awarded to a company before coming to the territory and consulting the elders.”
Quebec’s Ministry of Natural Resources and Forests did not provide comment Thursday afternoon by press time.
The lawsuit focuses on three specific areas of Crown land in northern Quebec that have “undeniably” been used by the Atikamekw historically and on a continuing basis, the lawyers argue in the suit.
It is unclear how many permits would be affected by a positive judgment in this case, but most of the big players in the Quebec forestry industry are active in the region, including Domtar, Arbec and Kruger.
By going to court to resolve their conflicts with the government and private sector, the Atikamekw say they hope to provide a legal strategy for other Indigenous peoples who feel their rights are infringed by resource-extraction projects.
“If we go by negotiations, only we will be recognized,” Mr. Petiquay said. “Using jurisprudence will allow other nations to use this.”
The lawsuit calls on the courts to declare that the land defenders hold Aboriginal title on the territories in question, “including the exclusive right to use, occupy, and control the lands as well as the right to benefit from the economic advantages that flow from it.”
The community hired Mr. Bérard, a prominent constitutional lawyer with a high media profile in Quebec, after blockades of roads failed to bring the government to the table, and amidst the Legault government’s controversial forestry reform.
Mr. Bérard said his office is pursuing a novel argument in this case, by claiming Aboriginal title on behalf of an Indigenous governance structure that is not clearly defined in law.
Land defenders are a traditional part of Atikamekw governance, Mr. Bérard said, and were an important part of their culture well before European contact.
Since the passage of the Indian Act, Canadian governments have largely contented themselves with consulting with band councils when they consult Indigenous peoples at all, the lawyer said. The lawsuit shouldn’t be seen as an attack on governments or industry, but rather as a “message of hope and reconciliation and a message of justice to all governments in Canada.”