Aboriginal Rights In Canada Can Include Indigenous Persons In The United States

On May 2, 2019, the British Columbia Court of Appeal released its decision in R v Desautel, 2019 BCCA 151. The Court of Appeal upheld the lower courts decisions to acquit Richard Desautel of charges under the Wildlife Act and confirmed his Aboriginal right to hunt in the Arrow Lakes Area, even though he is a resident and citizen of the United States.

This case raised novel questions about the territorial scope of the phrase "aboriginal peoples of Canada" in section 35 of the Constitution Act, 1982. The Court decided that section 35 Aboriginal rights can extend to Aboriginal peoples who are not citizens or residents of Canada, even though the modern Aboriginal group no longer occupies the same geographical area where the historic pre-contact collective exercised those rights.