Moose hunting disputes show governments need game plan to share public assets: expert

Conflict over moose hunting in Manitoba is seen as more than just a harvesting dispute, and one legal expert says Canadian governments are having an "increasingly difficult time" encouraging public discourse on a shared path forward for Indigenous and non-Indigenous people.

A Manitoba judge recently said public debate over moose hunting in the province raises complicated issues that go beyond hunting.

In late November, Manitoba Court of King's Bench Justice Theodor Bock dismissed an injunction request by the Manitoba Wildlife Federation, a conservation organization representing 15,000 hunters in the province, after Bloodvein First Nation allegedly turned away two hunting parties at its checkstop last summer.

"This litigation takes place in the larger context of a public debate about moose hunting in Manitoba: how much, where, when and by whom?" Bock wrote in his Nov. 27 decision. "The debate has raised complicated legal, social, cultural, economic and environmental issues."

Bock also noted that the case came alongside two recent legal challenges against the province's moose hunting decisions.

In September, Misipawistik Cree Nation launched a lawsuit against the province over the decision to issue licences on its traditional territory this year, accusing the province of infringing on its treaty right to hunt moose for food and of breaching the Crown's obligation to consult.

None of the allegations have been proven in court, and a statement of defence has not been filed in that case.

In October, Pimicikamak Cree Nation and the Manitoba Wildlife Federation both lost legal challenges to the Manitoba government's decision to cut some moose licences up north in 2024, with the judge in that case calling the province's decision "imperfect" but justified.

Chris Heald, the wildlife federation's senior policy adviser, says his organization launched its Access for All campaign, which advocates for public access to Crown lands in Manitoba, in response to the province's licence cut in July 2024.

"We feel that some decisions are getting made about Crown lands without everybody at the table," Heald told CBC News on Dec. 18.

One decision Heald referred to was the province's move to carve out a swath of land near Pimicikamak to be used exclusively by Indigenous hunters this year, which Natural Resources Minister Ian Bushie said was done to meet obligations under the Northern Flood Agreement.

That agreement, signed in 1977 between a group of northern Manitoba First Nations, the federal and provincial governments, and Manitoba Hydro, states Manitoba must prioritize Indigenous harvesters on Pimicikamak's traditional territory.

The province made a similar move last September, when it established a hunting buffer zone near Bloodvein First Nation on the first day of licensed moose hunting in the area, after Chief Lisa Young said non-Indigenous hunters would be turned away.

A judicial review of the province's decision to establish the buffer zone, which was requested by the wildlife federation, remains pending.