Manitoba grand chief wants meeting with Saskatchewan premier over hunting rights

A Manitoba grand chief is calling for a meeting withSaskatchewan Premier Brad Wall after accusing the province ofharassing indigenous hunters.

Derek Nepinak with the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs has written aletter to Wall outlining concerns over hunters, who the chief sayshave been ticketed and threatened by Saskatchewan officials.

• Indigenous hunters in Manitoba say treaty rights violated by Saskatchewan

"These actions have been taken as harassment, bullying andoutside the scope of authority of provincial government employees,"he wrote in a letter releasedThursday.

"These tactics are beingemployed by men and women bearing arms and wearing the crest of theprovince of Saskatchewan in the commissioning of their activities."

The chief of the Pine Creek First Nation has said officers raidedtwo homes last month and confiscated moose meat harvested from theirtraditional territory, which crosses the Manitoba-Saskatchewanboundary. Nepinak said it happened the day the Truth andReconciliation Commission released its final report.

Saskatchewan officials have said they recognize the rights ofindigenous hunters and would only step in if hunters were on privateland without permission.

The law is clear -- indigenous hunters have the right to feedtheir families by traditional means, Nepinak said.

"I would like to extend to you the opportunity to meet withIndigenous leadership to begin a discussion about deconstructing thecolonial legal and regulatory regimes of the past and begin movingin the direction of truth and reconciliation," he wrote to Wall.

"To this end, I will always be personally open to meet withyou."

Wall was not immediately available to comment on the letter.

When asked about the issue last week, the premier said hecategorically rejected some of the allegations that have been madeby the chiefs. Treaty rights don't trump private property rights orthe need for a province to manage its wildlife, he said.

"Whether you have a treaty card or not, you still need thepermission of the landowner to hunt on private property," Wall
said. "Our officials have been very careful to make sure they'renever enforcing anything beyond what's enforceable. We respecttreaty rights, but there are certain things that treaty rights donot trump when it comes to hunting."

Nepinak dismissed the argument that Saskatchewan is trying toconserve its moose population. Saskatchewan hands out 6,000 moosetags to sport hunters every year, but allows officials to bully andharass indigenous people who are trying to feed their families, hesaid.

"There is a correlation between a growing limitation of accessto our traditional food sources and the explosion of diabetes toepidemic levels in our families," Nepinak wrote. "As such, theability of a hunter to bring home natural foods to their families iscritical to the health of the family."