Thousands of members of a Washington State First Nations now enjoy indigenous hunting rights across the border in Canada, after a Supreme Court of Canada (SCC) ruling..Rick Desautel had argued for years he and others in Washington state are descendants of the Sinixt, an indigenous people whose territory once spread across Canada and the US..On Friday, the SCC ruled Desautel and the 4,000 other members of the Colville Confederated Tribes were successors to the Sinixt and, as such, enjoy rights like the ability to hunt on their traditional lands in Canada..“I was so nervous before the decision. I don’t think I slept more than an hour the night before,” Desautel told the Guardian..“When the decision came through, I just let out a huge sigh of relief.”.After pushing the Sinixt down into Washington in 1955, the Canadian government declared the people “extinct.”.Nearly 60 years later, Desautel decided to challenge the idea his people no longer existed, the Guardian reported..In 2010, he crossed into BC without a permit to hunt elk, arguing he had long-standing treaty rights to do so. But the province disagreed and hit him with a fine, and fought him all the way to the Supreme Court..The court concluded that ‘Aboriginal peoples of Canada’ refers to the modern-day successors of Indigenous societies that occupied Canadian territory during European contact, even if those societies and their members, including the Sinixt, are now located outside Canada..Legal experts say the ruling could affect thousands of First Nations peoples separated from ancestral territory in Canada when the border was drawn..“The ruling also raises questions over whether the nations whose members live in the US, but have treaty rights in Canada, need to be consulted over resource projects,” said the Guardian..There is nothing in the US Constitution that would give Canadian First Nations peoples similar access to the States..Dave Naylor is the News Editor of the Western Standard.,dnaylor@westernstandardonline.com,.Twitter.com/nobby7694
