Section 1
History of Aboriginal rights is defined by Euro Canadians who could not accept the definition of land and possessions by the British. History has had several impacts on court decision making, and natives maintain that they cannot alienate their rights to land which were given to them by the creator. Euro Canadian still believe in Aboriginal rights which were a customary s legal rights that were acknowledged by the crown. The history of Aboriginal title has an impact on today’s court decisions as most of them have come to accept it as an inconvenience on the title the crown held. The crown now extinguishes the encumbrance before it alienates any further land. In the past, the crown decided the Aboriginal title had to be submitted to the crown and not a private person. Additionally, the courts have also come to use the “usufruct” concept which was found in the readings of the past, and it could sometimes describe the Aboriginal title.
Lack of legal court decisions has led to the cause of landlessness of Metis which led to poverty and loss of identity in the late 19 th century and early 20 th century. Land and legislation were the origins of predicaments in Manitoba in 1869 and Northwest regions in 1885. The Federal government has also been treating Metis and the First nations differently and were seen and dealt with as groups. The Metis claims have also been derived from and subordinate to Indian claims. Only the courts recognize Metis as communities. The Federal government today has to deal with Metis just like the Indians under the constitution. The rule accepted that Metis had rights that came from their Aboriginal society, but it still ruled that the rights had no collectivity. Powley’s case changed the direction of the direction putting Metis in a predicament because the arrival of Europeans was postdated by their rights.
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The Metis Land Aboriginal rights can be traced back hundred years ago in the Euro-Canadian law the Royal Proclamation of 1763 which King George III issued to bring harmony among the French Canadian superiors and their subjects in Amerindians and the 13 colonies. The proclamation dictated that could be transferred only the crown and the crown was responsible for disposing of or hold the land to prevent land speculations. The proclamation did not appear to apply on the Metis of the north or Canadian plains since they doubted on its applicability. One of the controversial court cases that affected the Native was the St Catherine Milling of 1885- 1889 which involved the federal Jurisdiction disputes.
The question remained if the government was right to control the pieces of property and alienate land. This case reached the main court of appeal. The courts were however liberal with the Aboriginal rights for hunting and fishing which were considered “usufructuary” After the partition of power between the provision and the federal government in 1867. Most of the native rights affected provinces which had jurisdiction over land, minerals, mines, and royalties. There were also cases of native rights like Gitxsan and Wet’tsuwet’en in 1991 and Van Der Peet of 1966 on the cases of Native and Aboriginal rights of the land. The Powley case of 2003 which was decided in 2016 that the Metis were the Federal government’s responsibility.
The major elements of Powley’s case were the identification of a person as a Metis, being a member of the Metis community and having ties with the Historic Metis community. In Powley, the court could not encompass individuals with European mixed with Indian heritage. It rather referred to distinctive people who in addition to their mixed ancestry could develop their own customs group identities that are recognized. The Powley’s decision was only dealing with the Metis community although it did not establish a legal test determining the Aboriginal rights of the other Metis groups. Metis groups and individuals demonstrated how they met the legal tests set out for their rights to be established. The court affirmed that the Metis had an Aboriginal right to hunt for food recognized under the constitution act of 1982 section 35.
Section 2
Metis defines the key recent perspectives on the major issues in the Canadian Metis history as an Aboriginal people, and there could be political, economic and social consequences for any person who was excluded by definition. The court later clarified the issue by determining it in the case of Daniel verses Canada the Metis and the non-status Indians was in under the constitution act. The act provided the federal government with jurisdiction over Indian and the lands that were reserved for them. Another issue is that the supreme court of Canada acknowledged the current lack of clarity on the status which has confounded many issues demanding the assignment of clear legislative responsibility. The court determined the historical precedent indicates that authority fell to the federal rather than provincial government. The court warned that their ruling was invalid to the existing constitution and its impact would be determined from case to case
The political, social and economic perspectives of the present day Canada started several hundreds of years ago after the European contracted that products of the fur trade and the fisheries. With their stops along the major rivers and lakes, the European traders exchanged manufactured goods like guns, tobacco, axes for muskrat pelts, quantitative beavers and marten from the natives. During the eighteenth century, beaver was abundant and treated as a currency. Politically, the Metis people of Western Canada have long considered themselves a nation since 1816, after they fought against the colonists of Red River at Seven Oaks. During the time the Metis community leaders emerged. The group of leaders led the political system of the Metis during the twentieth century. Socially the Metis saw women as the backbone of their faith and religion which has held them together to manage the needs of the community. The Metis also had the law by which people had to follow and maintain good relationships together. They also had a culture that determined the direction of the community.
Historically, the Metis existed in Canada during the 1700s when the Scottish and French fur traders married the Aboriginals like the Anashinabe and the Cree. The descendants of Metis established a distinct culture, nationhood in the Northwest and collective consciousness. Other distinct Metis communities came along as a result of fur trade routes. Their Homelands included Manitoba, Alberta, British Columbia and part of north united states. The Metis grew into a divergent culture and became one of the people of Northwest and finally become a part of Canada. Over the past century, the Metis community have assimilated to into European Canadian populations making their heritage more common. Today, most of the Metis people are not direct results of the intermarriage between the Europeans and First nations. Most of them are have identities of Metis as the descendants of nations among the generations of Metis people in Canada.
The sociability and lifestyle of the Metis people during the nineteenth century generated much folklore. They place much importance on their social life, extended families, churches and hunting. Most of them lived along the narrow river lots, with their homes made of wood using the Quebbe post on sill method. They had plenty of buffalo and worked on wages on their boats along the northern rivers and the red river which was a foundation for most of their extended families. During that period the metis also observed their folk dressing codes. The women dresses were conservative and had a remarkable floral beadwork which originated from the catholic mission of the north. Historians believe that the cultural behaviors of the Metis are the root of separateness as an Aboriginal people.
