exempting<\/a> celebrity businessman Kevin O\u2019Leary\u2019s AI data centre proposed for SLCN\u2019s traditional lands from an environmental review, despite concerns Chief Sunshine has expressed about its impact on nearby Little Smoky River.<\/p>\n\u201c[First Nations] are constantly going to the courts because this government does not listen to our chiefs,\u201d said Arcand-Paul.<\/p>\n
Calahoo Stonehouse, a former band councillor for Michel First Nation, said that the rally represented a \u201cmovement of love.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s love for the land, love for the water, love for the people, love for our province and love for this country,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Arguments heard in court<\/p>\n
While Sturgeon Lake\u2019s litigation named the provincial government, federal government and Alberta\u2019s chief elections officer as respondents, ACFN and the Blackfoot nations were grouped together because they both list Stay Free Alberta CEO Mitch Sylvestre, the Crown and chief electoral officer as respondents.<\/p>\n
ACFN lawyer Kevin Hille\u2019s main argument focused on the impact of creating an international border on ACFN\u2019s ability to exercise its Treaty rights.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe implications of an international border are not abstract. They are readily apparent from the very beginning of sovereignty,\u201d said Hille. \u201cSovereignty equals a border. Borders interfere with rights.\u201d<\/p>\n
Treaty 8 promised ACFN freedom of movement throughout the \u201centirety\u201d of its traditional territory, he emphasized.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe threat to that is Alberta independence and the international border that would come with it that would divide that territory,\u201d Hille explained. \u201cThose interests are diametrically opposed.\u201d<\/p>\n
ACFN\u2019s legal team also focused on the Justice Statutes Amendment Act, or Bill 14, which removed a prohibition on citizen initiatives that would violate constitutional rights from the Citizen Initiative Act.<\/p>\n
The legislation was signed into law after the Court of King\u2019s Bench ruled that a citizen-initiated referendum on Alberta\u2019s independence could not proceed because its desired outcome would by definition result in the removal of constitutional protections for Albertans, including First Nations.<\/p>\n
On April 7, Sturgeon Lake\u2019s lawyer Orlagh O\u2019Kelly argued that Bill 14 was a deliberate effort by the government to circumvent the court\u2019s ruling and enable a separatist petition to proceed, despite its impact on Treaty rights.<\/p>\n
James Shields, another ACFN lawyer, took a different approach to the legislation.<\/p>\n
He agreed with the provincial government that the purpose of Bill 14 was \u201cto streamline the act to avoid delay and to avoid unnecessary waste of court resources,\u201d but argued that it was done in an \u201coverbroad\u201d way.<\/p>\n
Bill 14, Shields argued, \u201cdid not authorize\u201d chief electoral officer Gordon McClure to retroactively approve the separatist petition, which had already been deemed to violate the old Citizen Initiative Act.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe always apply presumption against the retroactive application of laws, and that is because the retroactive application of law is an assault on the rule of law itself,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
In addition to removing provisions from the Citizen Initiative Act prohibiting a referendum that could remove constitutional rights, Bill 14 added a provision to the Referendum Act that says the government \u201cis not required to implement\u201d the results of an unconstitutional referendum.<\/p>\n
Echoing O\u2019Kelly\u2019s argument from the previous day, the Blackfoot nations\u2019 lawyer Paul Reid argued that this section of the legislation is \u201cdiscretionary,\u201d leaving the decision to proceed with the results of an unconstitutional referendum up to the government.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn these circumstances, discretion is danger,\u201d Reid said.<\/p>\n
This amendment to the Referendum Act offers \u201ccompletely insufficient protection\u201d and is \u201cconstitutionally defective,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
On April 9, the Blackfoot Confederacy will continue its arguments and separatist lawyer Jeffrey Rath will make his case for why the petition should proceed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Jeremy Appel, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter (ANNews) \u2013 First Nations chiefs from Treaties 6, 7 and 8…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":591592,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194294],"tags":[49,48,23752],"class_list":["post-591591","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-edmonton","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-edmonton"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/591591","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=591591"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/591591\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/591592"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=591591"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=591591"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=591591"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}