HURON NEWSLETTER Jul 27, 1998

From: "Michel Gros-Louis"
To: Red Crane
Cc: ishgooda@tdi.net
Subject: Re: Hunting rights
Date: Tue, 28 Jul 1998 08:16:07 PDT

Kwe kwe

I do not know if you are aware but our Nation succeeded to get recognize in Supreme Court of Canada one of his treaty. The Murray Treaty in the Sioui brothers cases vs Crown. These Sioui brothers (Conrad, Hugue, George and Grégoire) fought during 10 years in Court. After appearing in different levels of Court, finally the Supreme Court recognized that the Huron have a treaty that confirm the Huron rights within the limit of their hunting ground in 1760. It means between Saguenay river (Tadousac) and St-maurice river (Three Rivers).

In 1990, The Court wrote in the judgement that the customs of the Huron have to be explained and prove it in order to come in application, and then they added that the customs of the Huron can not be apply on private land. So we were left with only the crown land to live off our land. But, according the moose hunting, Quebec argued that the moose hunting is not written on the treaty, so the Huron have to prove that the moose hunting is part of the huron life.

Government of Quebec continue to harass the Huron in the bush. They seized moose, fish and they said that they want to accumulate prove against us, and the that the Huron still have to defend their right in Court. In 5 years about 200 fines were giving to the Huron. The Huron band council never wanted to fix this concern in Court. So, finally in 1995, the huron band council signed the agreement with Quebec. Few Huron, leaders for this agreement said that the Government will stop to harass us. (Stop to harass just for one week , what a big deal !!!)

To resume the situation we can say... manipulation... manipulation.... manipulation and manipulation...

When we appeared in Court last june, we won that the moose hunting is part of our custom (we brought up a report on this subject from a historian that we hired for $9,000 ). So, now Quebec did not deny that the moose hunting is part of our custom, but they argued that the place where we hunted was not secure and then they argued that the agreement between the Council and Quebec is replacing the treaty rights for that fall. We have to remember that the agreement was signed for one year, but renewed by the next council for 5 years. On this agreement it is written that this agreement does not affect or confirm the Huron rights.

We argued that the band council have no rights to signed this agreement without consulting the people and then that the longhouse was the only legal Government on the Huron territory.

The judge got upset when i told him that Quebec is not a Country , so a treaty is between two Nation and Quebec has nothing to do in this matter. I also said that we do not recognized the band council because this structure was imposed and forced on our people. The people from the band Council are in interest conflict between the rights of their Nation and their employers (Canada).

Judge will release his decision within 5 months.

Tarehta'deh  

U:nenh