In this article by journalist Rob Shaw featuring Public Land Use Society (PLUS), a First Nation group’s claim over Canadian airspace is answered by Transport Canada, following a conflict in BC and letter sent by PLUS.
As quoted in the article:
“The story was shared with PLUS by the pilot, and represents what we now hear about regularly,” said executive director Warren Mirko.
“As encapsulated in our letter to the Government of Canada, First Nations groups emboldened by the province and UNDRIP are demanding free, prior, and informed consent before granting access to claimed territory, otherwise Crown land. Enabling or encouraging this abdicates the authority of the provincial and federal governments and in this case is flat-out dangerous.”
An Indigenous group in northern B.C. has attempted to use Aboriginal title to claim the airspace above Crown land, expelling a local helicopter company and B.C. government forestry officials.
The conflict, which occurred over the summer, grew to involve the federal and provincial governments, before Ottawa declared in writing to four B.C. cabinet ministers in a Dec. 12 letter that Aboriginal title cannot be used to restrict any flights in Canadian airspace.
It’s the latest in a series of escalating, and confusing, interpretations of Aboriginal title in British Columbia.
The issue has captured intense public interest after the B.C. Supreme Court in August ruled the Cowichan Nation not only had Aboriginal title over 800 acres of land in the City of Richmond, but that Aboriginal title was of superior legal standing to private property rights.
Premier David Eby has promised to appeal that ruling and protect public property. But he has not made any similar promises to protect Crown land, or the airspace above it, from restricted public access due to title declarations.
The issue of airspace played out near Burns Lake in July, after the Wilps ‘Wii K’aax, a house in the Wolf Clan of the Gitxsan Nation, wrote a letter to local company Interior Helicopters saying it should no longer fly above the territory upon which it claimed Aboriginal title.
“Any activities, including aviation, conducted without the free, prior, and informed consent of Wilps ‘Wii K’aax will be documented and may be subject to follow-up under our stewardship and enforcement protocols,” hereditary chief Dorothy Smith Lattie wrote in the July 16 letter, CC’d to then-Indigenous Relations Minister Christine Boyle.
Read the full story here: