Supreme Court Must Close Restoule Decision’s Open Floodgates

The truly frightening piece on the other side of the paywall, written by retired lawyer and prolific and intelligent editorial writer Peter Best, describes the possible consequence of a December 21, 2018, Ontario Superior Court of Justice ruling in Restoule vs. Ontario and Canada decision that went to appeal before the Supreme Court of Canada that released its somewhat equivocal decision on July 26, 2024, you can read here or by clicking on the following link: https://www.scc-csc.ca/case-dossier/cb/2024/40024-eng.pdf.

While it did not fully uphold the lower court’s decision, whose broader implications suggest that all 19th and 20th-century treaties did not “mean” what they said, namely the surrender of lands occupied by indigenous people to the Crown in exchange for reserve lands and other benefits but rather meant that all traditional lands would be shared in perpetuity with the indigenous people who signed the treaties, the SCC certainly did not close the door to never-ending and possibly violent conflict over land rights this country has never before seen.

An excellent take on this piece from Robert MacBain posted on November 14 is found here or by pasting the following link into your Web browser: https://hymie.substack.com/publish/posts/detail/141219340?referrer=%2Fpublish%2Fposts