Claims should start with good legal advice: Crown – The Chronicle Herald

March 11, 2016

Claims invoking Section 35 of the Constitution of 1982 may send Nova Scotia prosecutors into deep archives.

It’s a sector of law rooted as far back to the date of first European contact — commonly accepted in Nova Scotia as 1504. But the case law file on aboriginal and Metis hunting and fishing rights in the Maritimes and other provinces is thick with paper on cases that have gone all the way up the appeal chain — or languished somewhere on it for a decade or more.

One of the 10 factors to be considered when establishing Metis rights is the “date of effective European control.”

Experts testifying in the Charles Francis and Aaron Paul case harkened back in Nova Scotia history to first contact with Europeans. In the discussion of aboriginal hunting and fishing rights in Canada, the historical significance of the Maritimes is sometimes forgotten, said Crown prosecutor Jim Clarke.

Read More: http://www.thechronicleherald.ca/novascotia/1348483-claims-should-start-with-good-legal-advice-crown