The Ontario Superior Court will render its decision today in Keewatin v MNR, a precedent-setting legal action dealing with the battle between clearcut logging and Treaty rights. The case was brought over a decade ago by Grassy Narrows First Nation trappers against the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources. 

Read the Media Advisory

If successful, Grassy Narrows’ legal action will create real doubt about the legality of the provincial logging licenses issued on Treaty 3 lands north of the English River (Keewatin Lands).  The community’s legal action asserts that the Ontario Government does not have the authority to unilaterally infringe their Treaty hunting and trapping rights by authorizing clearcut logging on traditional lands.

In the statement of claim, Grassy Narrows seeks a declaration that “the Government of the Province of Ontario, its Ministers or delegates, have no power or jurisdiction to do or permit authorizations of forest operations related to the Whiskey Jack Forest, insofar as they apply to the Keewatin Lands.”

 

Read old media about the legal action here:  Grassy Narrows litigation against Ontario begins 

See the original full lawsuit text

Read the legal decision ordering Ontario to pay Grassy Narrows' costs in advance.

The Legal Action

The Grassy Narrows trappers have been in the courts for close to a decade fighting to protect their lands and their rights under Treaty 3.  Treaty 3, signed on October 3rd, 1873 by representatives of the Government of Canada and the ancestors of the Grassy Narrows community promises that the Indigenous people of the area “[s]hall have right to pursue their avocations of hunting and fishing throughout the tract.”

The trappers’ legal action “seeks a declaration that the MNR has 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 [Grassy Narrows] by Treaty 3.”

The case was launched in 1999 by three grassroots trappers.  Since that time, clearcut logging has devastated much of the land in question and Willie Keewatin, one of the trappers, has passed away while waiting for a decision.  Some Grassy Narrows trappers estimate that 75% of their trapping area has been disturbed.  The courts heard a marathon of evidence and arguments for seven months from Sept. 14, 2009 until May 3, 2010. Justice Sanderson has since been considering her decision for over a full year. 

In June 2006, Justice Spies ordered Ontario to pay Grassy Narrows’ legal costs in advance of the trial.  In her decision she wrote that the interpretation of Treaty 3 “is an issue of great public importance”  and   ”a serious issue that had not yet been squarely decided or even considered in any case before.”  She explained that the trial “test[s], once and for all, the constitutionality of those [logging] activities, which are being carried out at the expense of Grassy Narrows.”

This decision is the latest development in a long effort by this northwestern Ontario Native community to end destructive industrial clearcut logging on its traditional lands and to assert control over its territory.  Government and industry officials failed to heed years of official complaints, environmental assessment requests, meetings, and public protests, giving rise to a grassroots blockade beginning in 2002 that has kept logging trucks off highway 671. 

In 2008, the Grassy Narrows Band Council and Ontario entered into negotiations under a Process Agreement. These negotiations aim to create a positive government-to-government relationship between Grassy Narrows and Ontario by developing a long-term substantive agreement for the protection, management and use of the Whiskey Jack Forest. In April 2011, the parties entered into a Memorandum of Understanding to re-commit to this process and, among other things, plan for limited logging according to alternative forestry methods proposed by Grassy Narrows.  However, Grassy Narrows’ concerns have not been resolved yet, and no substantive agreement has been reached.

There are concerns that large-scale clearcut logging in the territory will resume, since in March of 2009 Ontario unilaterally approved a plan that identifies 27 areas to be clearcut in the Whiskey Jack Forest, including 17 that are more than 260 hectares in size. For the most part these clearcuts have not been carried out in Grassy Narrows’ territory, and Grassy Narrows and Ontario continue negotiations.  However, Ontario continues plans to unilaterally approve further clearcuts on Grassy Narrows traditional territory.

Ontario’s continued unilateral action threatens to feed the ongoing conflict on Grassy Narrows traditional territory.

 

BACKGROUND

Asubpeeschoseewagong (Grassy Narrows) is an Anishinabe community in northwestern Ontario.  Residential schools, hydro damming, relocation, and mercury contamination of their river system in the 1960s by a paper mill upstream plunged the community into extreme poverty from which it has never fully recovered. Despite these challenges, many community members continue to rely on the forest for hunting, trapping, fishing and gathering of berries and plant medicines, as well as a site for ceremonies and cultural teachings.

Several major logging companies, including Boise, Domtar and AbitibiBowater, have committed not to source conflict wood from Grassy Narrows traditional territory.  Little or no clearcut logging on Grassy Narrows’ territory has occurred since AbitibiBowater surrendered its license to Ontario in 2008 under intense international pressure.  

But Weyerhaeuser Corporation still refuses to respect the rights of Grassy Narrows by continuing to press for access to wood in their traditional territory, despite the ongoing negotiations between Grassy Narrows and the Province of Ontario. All the hardwood supply on Grassy Narrows’ traditional land is officially allocated by Ontario for use by Weyerhaeuser in their Kenora Trus Joist mill to make Timberstrand products used in homebuilding throughout North America.

In a September 2007 report, Amnesty International Canada called on companies to work towards a voluntary suspension of logging in Grassy Narrows traditional territory. In May 2009 Calvert Social Investments, one of the largest "socially responsible"  mutual fund managers in the U.S., announced that it would divest Weyerhaeuser citing the logging giant’s failure to meet Calvert’s criteria for respecting the human rights of Indigenous peoples.  Calvert manages over $16 billion dollars in funds.