Shown are some members of the Treaty Land Sharing Network grassroots group from a workshop last year. The group encourages supportive relationships between rural land owners and First Nation peoples, and a step toward reconciliation. (Submitted photo/Valerie Zink)

By Angela Brown

Treaty rights issue

TLSN group opposed to province’s new trespassing legislation

Jan 21, 2022 | 4:42 PM

NORTH BATTLEFORD, Sask. — The Treaty Land Sharing Network are voicing their concerns about the province’s trespassing legislation that went into effect this month.

Under the Trespass to Property Amendment Act, those wishing to access a rural landowner’s property for recreational purposes will need to gain consent from the owner. The legislation also provides legal protection to landowners, as trespassers can be fined.

The Treaty Land Sharing Network, a grassroot organization comprised of farmers and Indigenous land users across Saskatchewan, say the legislation does not support Treaty agreements.

Autumn Baptiste, from Thunderchild First Nation, is a member of the network, as well as a hunter and land user.

“We are on Treaty 6 territory and treaties were signed to provide a framework and a way we could live together,” she told battlefordsNOW. “The agreements were [so] we could share the territory with non Indigenous and Indigenous people that would be mutually beneficial.”

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But, she said, the trespassing legislation creates a barrier between the two groups, and is a step backwards from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada’s calls to action.

Baptiste said the Treaty Land Sharing Network helps build relationships to honour Indigenous people’s inherent rights to be able to access land for hunting purposes, for example, as a Treaty promise, so people can share the land in a harmonious relationship.

Instead, the government’s trespassing law, she said, “creates a barrier that makes it feel unwelcoming.”

The Treaty Land Sharing Network (TLSN) representatives said in a release the province’s legislation “further criminalizes Indigenous people practicing their way of life and exercising their Treaty and Inherent Rights by requiring them to obtain permission from each landholder prior to accessing land.”

The TLSN group related, without this permission, Indigenous people accessing land may be subject to penalties, including fines up to $25,000 or jail time up to six months.

“Although the Treaty Land Sharing Network recognizes that rural people have real concerns about their safety and harm to the lands and animals that they steward, members believe the amended trespassing legislation will only create more problems, rather than solutions,” as stated in the release.

A spokesperson for the Saskatchewan Ministry of Justice and Attorney General said in a statement to battlefordsNOW the recent trespass related amendments “were never intended to affect Treaty hunting and fishing rights and, indeed, by law cannot affect those rights.”

The spokesperson went on to say Indigenous peoples rights continue to be protected under Canada’s Constitution.

“First Nations hunting and fishing rights are Constitutional rights that are set out in the Treaties and are protected by the Natural Resources Transfer Agreement of 1930…,” he stated. “Whether First Nations people have a right of access to any particular lands will continue to be governed by the Treaties, the Natural Resources Transfer Agreement, and the court decisions that have interpreted those rights.

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Angela.Brown@pattisonmedia.com

On Twitter: @battlefordsnow