The defendants sought to qualify Dr. Sidney Harring as an expert on the existence and territory of the Amikwa Nation to support their Section 35(1) aboriginal rights claim.
The Crown opposed.
The court applied the two-stage test for expert evidence admissibility from White Burgess and R. v. Abbey (Abbey #2).
The court found Dr. Harring's evidence failed the threshold requirement for proper qualification due to lack of impartiality, independence, and bias, stemming from his reliance on secondary sources, unverified information from an interested party (Stacey McQuabbie), and contradictions with source documents.
The court also found the evidence would be excluded at the gatekeeper stage due to unreliability.
Consequently, Dr. Harring was not qualified as an expert.
