Beaver Lake Cree Nation is going to court to defend its rights to hunt, fish, and practice their culture as guaranteed under Treaty 6. In the process, the First Nation is also pushing back against one of the largest and most carbon-intensive energy developments on the planet. Are you in?
The homeland of the Beaver Lake Cree Nation in northern Alberta is being taken over by Canada’s biggest fossil fuel extraction project: the oil sands.
Beaver Lake Cree Nation is going to court to defend its rights to hunt, fish, and practice their culture as guaranteed under Treaty 6. In the process, the First Nation is also pushing back against one of the largest and most carbon-intensive energy developments on the planet.
Indigenous people are drawing a line in the sand.
Not one project, not one mine: all of them at once.
After hearing the Beaver Lake Cree Nation’s case, the court will have to consider whether Canada and Alberta have authorized too much industrial development without meaningful regard to treaty rights. A victory for Beaver Lake Cree Nation would become a strong precedent for other treaty Nations — and all Canadians — to allow for the protection of land, air, and water for future generations.
”Beaver Lake Cree Nation is so very grateful for the unwavering support of our allies; you all have consistently shown up and stepped up when we called out. We lift you up and give thanks to you all. No one said that this would be easy, but we know it will be worth it. Together we stand up together for the health and longevity of our Mother Earth.
Crystal LamemanBeaver Lake Cree Nation
Stand with the Beaver Lake Cree in this historic, precedent-setting case. Your support is vital.
Treaties are living agreements between First Nations and the Crown. All Canadians, Indigenous and non-Indigenous, are therefore treaty people. Treaty rights of the Aboriginal peoples of Canada are affirmed and recognized as central to Canada’s very existence as a nation by The Constitution Act, 1982.
Yet despite these lofty commitments, Canada continues to turn treaty lands like Beaver Lake Cree’s territory into sacrifice zones. Beaver Lake Cree lands, waters and resources have become inaccessible and unusable for the exercise of the Nation’s rights under Treaty 6.
The Supreme Court of Canada has said that although the Crown has a right to authorize land use, there may come a time when treaty rights are rendered meaningless because of too much Crown-authorized land use. Beaver Lake Cree Nation is determined to halt the destruction before it reaches that point. This is what the Defend the Treaties case is all about.
Indigenous communities are increasingly taking the lead in the transition to renewable energy. Even as they fight the oil sands giant, the Beaver Lake Cree are solarizing their schools and community buildings – exercising energy sovereignty and building an alternative to the oil and gas economy on their land.
“The beauty of this moment is that our future could easily hold much more than just oil and gas. The time for a just transition beyond fossil fuels is now. The transition in Germany, where they have created 400,000 clean-energy jobs, is waiting to be emulated here,” Beaver Lake Cree’s Crystal Lameman wrote in an editorial for the Globe and Mail.
March 8: The Supreme Court of Canada overturned a ruling from Alberta’s top court that Beaver Lake Cree Nation wasn’t entitled to advance funding for its long-running legal case. The Supreme Court said the band was entitled to put first priority for the money it had on “pressing needs.” BLCN must return to lower court to prove need for Advance Costs based on new criteria laid out by the Court.
November 4: The Supreme Court of Canada will hear Beaver Lake Cree Nation’s appeal to restore its advanced cost order.
The Supreme Court of Canada announces it will hear Beaver Lake Cree Nation’s appeal to restore its advanced cost order.
The decision to revoke funding for Beaver Lake Cree essentially closes the door for other Nations to receive advance costs awards to pursue justice. It is a massive setback to reconciliation: that’s why the Beaver Lake Cree are filing an appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada.
Alberta’s highest court has overturned an order that would have required the provincial and federal governments to each pay advance legal costs of $300,000 per year to BLCN.
Court of Queen’s Bench Justice Beverly Browne ordered the provincial and federal governments to pay advance legal costs in an action she deemed ‘of national importance’.
The Alberta Court of Appeal ruled in favour of the Beaver Lake Cree. They are the first community to ever be granted a trial in relation to the cumulative impacts this industry has had on inherent Treaty rights.
One spill was discovered under a lake on the south-west shore, where elders say ancestors are buried. Over 200 animals and amphibians died as a result and over 300,000 kg of oily vegetation was removed from site.
In May, Beaver Cree filed their case, challenging the governments in Canada and Alberta. The case rests on a treaty entered in 1876 under which the Beaver Lake Cree agreed to share land, in return for a guarantee that rights to hunt, fish, and practice culture would be upheld “as long as the sun shines, the grass grows and the rivers flow.”
The Beaver Lake Cree belong to the Wood Cree group of the Cree people, who are one of the most numerous tribes in Canada. The Beaver Lake Cree territory is north of Edmonton, and encompasses an area of boreal forest the size of Switzerland. Dotted with hundreds of freshwater lakes and rivers, this land is home to caribou, moose and elk.
Beaver Lake Cree Nation is suing the federal and provincial governments for failing to uphold Indigenous rights to fish, hunt, trap, and gather plants and medicines, as guaranteed by Treaty No. 6 and Canada’s constitution. By authorizing unlimited oil sands expansion, these governments have allowed the homeland of the Beaver Lake Cree to be despoiled beyond recognition. Lush boreal forest is being gobbled up at an alarming rate. More than 19,000 fossil fuel permits have been issued to date. Impacts from all of these projects threaten to destroy the Beaver Lake Cree Nation’s way of life —by polluting and fragmenting the land and waters that have sustained them for millennia.
The Supreme Court of Canada has said that although the Crown has a right to authorize land use, there may come a time when treaty rights are rendered meaningless because of too much Crown-authorized land use. For Beaver Lake Cree, that time is near.
The “Defend the Treaties” case is the first legal action ever to challenge the cumulative impacts of industrial development in the oil sands. Rather than focusing on infringements to its rights as a result of one project or government regulation, Beaver Lake Cree Nation says that the governments have breached its treaty rights by authorizing too much industrial development in Beaver Lake lands. It contends that the cumulative impact of industrial development has fractured the ecosystem, rendering its lands, waters and resources inaccessible and unusable for the exercise of its treaty rights.
Beaver Lake Cree Nation’s Defend the Treaties case will be the first time the Court will have to consider whether the Crown has crossed the line when authorizing industrial development without meaningful regard to treaty rights. In this way, the case serves as a vital precedent for Treaty Nations, and indeed all Canadians, to allow for protection of land, air and water for future generations.
This is a precedent-setting, historic case. To prove cumulative impacts on treaty rights, the range of potential evidence is vast. Evidence will need to be collected from the community to describe the treaty promises and their unique way of life, including with respect to the importance of traditional activities such as hunting, fishing, trapping, and gathering. Ethnographic evidence will be required to describe the original Crees in Beaver Lake area; the promises made to the signatories of Treaty 6; and the conduct of government after the Treaty was signed. Community and expert witnesses will be required to describe the impacts of industrial development on the land, water and resources, including ecologists, wildlife experts, traditional land use experts, disturbance analysts, and hydrologists. Evidence from the community will be required to address how industrial development has impacted their way of life and culture.
A lawsuit of this magnitude requires a team of dedicated legal experts working full-time towards getting the case to trial. Stepping in to provide access to justice through donating, fundraising online and organizing events will provide Beaver Lake with the financial support it needs to advance the legal action.
Alberta and Canada have far exceeded the land’s capacity for development by taking up more than 88 per cent of the Beaver Lake Cree’s traditional territory for oil and gas wells. They have recklessly authorized oil sands projects, military facilities and other development without any real regard for the rights of Beaver Lake Cree and other Treaty Nations. As a result, the Beaver Lake Cree territory is now covered with 35,000 oil and gas sites, 21,700 kilometres of seismic lines, 4,028 kilometres of pipeline and 948 kilometres of road. While any one of these projects by themselves might be tolerable, when taken together they threaten to destroy Beaver Lake Cree’s way of life and the land that has sustained them for thousands of years.
Oil sands extraction has polluted most of the water bodies in the region. The sheer size of the area occupied by oil and gas wells and other infrastructure has displaced moose and elk, and most traditional hunting and gathering grounds are no longer available.
All the funds raised for BLCN campaign go to Indigenous litigation. 85% of the funds raised go to BLCN to fund their legal challenge. RAVEN receives 15% of campaign funds raised to sustain our operations.
If a legal challenge is terminated, or RAVEN raises more money than needed for litigation expenses, we place the remaining funds into the Discretionary Litigation Fund. We use the money in that fund to support any of our campaigns that need extra funds for any reason (e.g. to respond to a Crown motion, or to commission additional expert reports).
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