The Grassy Narrows First Nation has won an important legal
victory, affecting Ontario lands north of the English River, the "Keewatin Lands". After 11 years of
litigation, they have succeeded in obtaining a ruling that the
Ministry of Natural Resources (MNR) had no right to issue forestry
licenses permitting logging in part of their traditional
territories, because of the interference that such logging would
cause to their rights to hunt and fish under Treaty 3.
Justice Anderson of the Superior Court of Justice granted Grassy
Narrows a declaration that the MNR had no authority to approve any
forest licences, forest management plans, work schedules or make or
give any other approvals or authorizations for forest operation,
within the Keewatin Lands, so as to infringe, violate, impair,
abrogate, or derogate from, the right to hunt and fish guaranteed
to the band by Treaty 3. The Keewatin Lands have a special legal
status because they only became part of Ontario in 1912.
