Respect the treaties. Draw the line.

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 tar 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’s way of life —by polluting and fragmenting the land and waters that have sustained them for millennia.

In 1876, the Crown and the ancestors of Beaver Lake Cree entered into Treaty 6, whereby the Crown made a solemn promise that Beaver Lake Cree would be able to  maintain their way of life. Since the signing of Treaty 6, the Crown has authorized non-aboriginal land uses including agriculture, oil and gas, settlement and other activities without due regard or respect for Beaver Lake Cree’s way of life.

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 Tar Sands Trial is the first legal action ever to challenge the cumulative impacts of industrial development in the tar 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.

The Tar Sands Trial 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.

Tar 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.