Steven Mace
03-20-2002, 08:41 PM
Wednesday, March 20, 2002
Challenge to gun law gathers steam
By DOUG BEAZLEY, Edmonton Sun
Greg Ahenakew's got a gun. None of your business where he keeps it - he hasn't registered it, and he isn't about to.
The vice-chief of the Federation of Saskatchewan Indian Nations is taking his scofflaw stance a little further than the average mad-as-hell Canadian gun owner. The FSIN launches a lawsuit this week against Ottawa to win an exemption for treaty natives from the feds' gun-control law.
"We're talking about a law that violates our fundamental treaty rights to hunt, to bear arms," said Ahenakew.
"Treaty law is basic law, and it comes before the Firearms Act. This is an unjust law, passed without our consent."
If the cards fall the FSIN's way, they won't be going to court alone. The Assembly of First Nations, the most powerful native lobby group in the country, is mulling over throwing in with the FSIN in its bid to topple Ottawa's costly and controversial Firearms Act.
The AFN has deep pockets; if anyone can kill the registry, it can.
"It's a bad law," said Wilson Bearhead, AFN vice-president for Alberta. "It turns law-abiding citizens into criminals for no good reason.
"We're still talking to Ottawa, but we're getting nowhere. We're a patient bunch. But if we don't see progress soon, we'll support the Saskatchewan
application."
In recent months, negotiations between the AFN and the feds on the gun registry have soured. The natives want to use their treaty cards as proof of their right to own guns under the Firearms Act, and to buy ammunition.
"The feds are forcing this on us, trying to negotiate through the regulations," said Bearhead. "They're telling us we have to define who's a subsistence hunter and who isn't."
If the AFN should join the FSIN's court challenge, due to be filed tomorrow, it would be happy news for the Saskatchewan federation.
The FSIN abandoned negotiations with Ottawa on the registry a year ago, after Ahenakew accused the head of the Canadian Firearms Centre, Maryantonett Flumian, of reneging on a deal to establish separate registry rules for gun-owning treaty natives.
"The position of the government is that the (Firearms Act) does apply to (natives)," CFC spokesman David Austin said at the time.
The treaty natives' court challenge of the firearms registry could have wider implications. The FSIN is asking the Federal Court of Canada for an injunction to exempt treaty natives from the gun law until their lawsuit is settled.
That suit could take a decade to finish making its way through the Supreme Court. If the federal government grants the temporary injunction, that decision would almost certainly inspire new court challenges from non-native gun owners.
"The Firearms Act is part of the Criminal Code," said Saskatchewan MP Garry Breitkreuz, the Canadian Alliance's tireless gun control critic.
"An exemption for natives would mean two different versions of criminal law in this country, based on a division of race. It's pretty obvious the law hasn't been applied equally to date. The feds aren't prosecuting natives who ignore the law, because they know what the backlash would be."
Breitkreuz's argument is that the Criminal Code can't be divided: one law for everyone, or no law for anyone. That's not how treaty law works, of course. But it raises an interesting question - could the Firearms Act survive an exemption for treaty natives?
"Don't know," said Dan Carroll, an Edmonton lawyer who specializes in treaty law. "The (FSIN) case certainly isn't going to be laughed out of court.
"The courts have been extremely reluctant to limit treaty rights in any way. They've even read things into treaties that weren't explicitly written there in the first place."
The CFC, by the way, refuses to discuss the case. They've got other problems; Ahenakew says the vast majority of treaty natives haven't bothered to register their guns.
And he's already made a formal demand that the feds honour an old commitment the Crown made in several treaties to provide natives with all the free ammunition they need.
"The feds provide us with cash in lieu of shells," he said. "We've decided that isn't enough.
"The treaties say we're supposed to get free bullets. So, we want the bullets."
http://www.canoe.ca/EdmontonNews/es.es-03-20-0013.html
Steve Mace
Challenge to gun law gathers steam
By DOUG BEAZLEY, Edmonton Sun
Greg Ahenakew's got a gun. None of your business where he keeps it - he hasn't registered it, and he isn't about to.
The vice-chief of the Federation of Saskatchewan Indian Nations is taking his scofflaw stance a little further than the average mad-as-hell Canadian gun owner. The FSIN launches a lawsuit this week against Ottawa to win an exemption for treaty natives from the feds' gun-control law.
"We're talking about a law that violates our fundamental treaty rights to hunt, to bear arms," said Ahenakew.
"Treaty law is basic law, and it comes before the Firearms Act. This is an unjust law, passed without our consent."
If the cards fall the FSIN's way, they won't be going to court alone. The Assembly of First Nations, the most powerful native lobby group in the country, is mulling over throwing in with the FSIN in its bid to topple Ottawa's costly and controversial Firearms Act.
The AFN has deep pockets; if anyone can kill the registry, it can.
"It's a bad law," said Wilson Bearhead, AFN vice-president for Alberta. "It turns law-abiding citizens into criminals for no good reason.
"We're still talking to Ottawa, but we're getting nowhere. We're a patient bunch. But if we don't see progress soon, we'll support the Saskatchewan
application."
In recent months, negotiations between the AFN and the feds on the gun registry have soured. The natives want to use their treaty cards as proof of their right to own guns under the Firearms Act, and to buy ammunition.
"The feds are forcing this on us, trying to negotiate through the regulations," said Bearhead. "They're telling us we have to define who's a subsistence hunter and who isn't."
If the AFN should join the FSIN's court challenge, due to be filed tomorrow, it would be happy news for the Saskatchewan federation.
The FSIN abandoned negotiations with Ottawa on the registry a year ago, after Ahenakew accused the head of the Canadian Firearms Centre, Maryantonett Flumian, of reneging on a deal to establish separate registry rules for gun-owning treaty natives.
"The position of the government is that the (Firearms Act) does apply to (natives)," CFC spokesman David Austin said at the time.
The treaty natives' court challenge of the firearms registry could have wider implications. The FSIN is asking the Federal Court of Canada for an injunction to exempt treaty natives from the gun law until their lawsuit is settled.
That suit could take a decade to finish making its way through the Supreme Court. If the federal government grants the temporary injunction, that decision would almost certainly inspire new court challenges from non-native gun owners.
"The Firearms Act is part of the Criminal Code," said Saskatchewan MP Garry Breitkreuz, the Canadian Alliance's tireless gun control critic.
"An exemption for natives would mean two different versions of criminal law in this country, based on a division of race. It's pretty obvious the law hasn't been applied equally to date. The feds aren't prosecuting natives who ignore the law, because they know what the backlash would be."
Breitkreuz's argument is that the Criminal Code can't be divided: one law for everyone, or no law for anyone. That's not how treaty law works, of course. But it raises an interesting question - could the Firearms Act survive an exemption for treaty natives?
"Don't know," said Dan Carroll, an Edmonton lawyer who specializes in treaty law. "The (FSIN) case certainly isn't going to be laughed out of court.
"The courts have been extremely reluctant to limit treaty rights in any way. They've even read things into treaties that weren't explicitly written there in the first place."
The CFC, by the way, refuses to discuss the case. They've got other problems; Ahenakew says the vast majority of treaty natives haven't bothered to register their guns.
And he's already made a formal demand that the feds honour an old commitment the Crown made in several treaties to provide natives with all the free ammunition they need.
"The feds provide us with cash in lieu of shells," he said. "We've decided that isn't enough.
"The treaties say we're supposed to get free bullets. So, we want the bullets."
http://www.canoe.ca/EdmontonNews/es.es-03-20-0013.html
Steve Mace