Report on the Sencot'en Alliance's participation in the planning and management of the Gulf Islands National Park Reserve

This part includes an analysis of the Sencot’en Alliance First Nations’ Aboriginal and treaty rights, Parks Canada’s duty to consult and accommodate Aboriginal peoples, and sections of the Canada National Parks Act that affect the relationship between Parks Canada and Aboriginal peoples. [...] The legal relationship between the Sencot’en Alliance and Parks Canada is based in three things: (1) the Sencot’en Alliance First Nations’ constitutionally protected Aboriginal and treaty rights, (2) Parks Canada’s duty to consult and accommodate the Sencot’en Alliance whenever it considers an action that may affect those rights, and (3) the type of relationship between the two parties that is all [...] The oral history indicates that the treaties may have been peace and friendship treaties, through which the First Nations at the time of the signing would have concluded that it acknowledged their sovereignty over their ancestral lands.9 There is therefore uncertainty about whether the surrender of land was of the scale indicated in the written text.10 Most of Gulf Islands, however, is not within [...] Section 2(2) of the Act recognizes constitutionally protected Aboriginal and treaty rights by explicitly forbidding anything in the Act to, be construed so as to abrogate or derogate from the protection provided for existing aboriginal or treaty rights of the aboriginal peoples of Canada by the recognition and affirmation of those rights in section 35 of the Constitution Act 1982.27 Section 10(1) [...] It states that consultation must be inclusive to ensure access of Aboriginal peoples to the process, meaningful and “based on openness, trust, integrity and mutual respect for the legitimacy and points of view expressed.”61 Key elements of consultation include: • Agree beforehand on the process, the rules and the parameters before you start; • Acknowledge and be respectful of concerns and issues r