No decision about us, without us, say forestry companies
CBC
Three New Brunswick timber companies are seeking to have their forestry lands excluded from the Wolastoqey Nation's Indigenous title claim that's working its way through the courts.
J.D. Irving, H.J. Crabbe and Sons, and Acadian Timber say the land they harvest and privately own should be excluded from the claim because a lower court last year removed them as defendants in the lawsuit, filed by the First Nation.
Lawyer Paul Steep, counsel for JDI, said his client has the right to respond in a case that puts the company's land at risk.
So either JDI is restored as a defendant with standing, he said, or JDI land is no longer targeted by the claim.
In one affidavit, JDI claims to own 652,689 hectares included in the statement of claim.
The Wolastoqey launched the lawsuit in the early 2020s, asserting title to more than half of New Brunswick, saying they never surrendered their traditional territory.
Last November, Justice Kathryn Gregory ruled that landowners can't be directly sued for the return of land.
She placed the issue squarely between the Wolastoqey and the Crown and dismissed the "industrial defendants."
The companies appealed.
In the New Brunswick Court of Appeal on Wednesday, lawyer Alex Cameron said he took issue with the characterization of "industrial defendants' on behalf of his client, Donald Crabbe, the owner of a sawmill in Florenceville-Bristol.
Cameron said the mill employs 50 people, and those much needed jobs depend on the woodlots that were fairly purchased by Crabbe.
He said his client has been "startled and a little upset" to be pulled into "financially disastrous," years-long litigation.
Repeatedly, questions were raised about what kind of remedies might ensue if title is declared — whether it might include financial compensation to the Wolastoqey, land expropriation, or the power to determine how land is used.
At last year's hearing, Gregory did say, "the Crown may be directed or ordered to use its expropriation powers" to return land to the Wolastoqey.
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