The respondents, members of a Métis community near Sault Ste.
Marie, were charged with hunting a moose without a licence and possessing game in contravention of the Game and Fish Act.
They argued they had an aboriginal right to hunt for food under s. 35 of the Constitution Act, 1982.
The Supreme Court of Canada modified the Van der Peet test to account for the post-contact ethnogenesis of the Métis, establishing a pre-control test.
The Court found that the Sault Ste.
Marie Métis community had a historically continuous practice of subsistence hunting, and the respondents were accepted members of this community.
The provincial hunting regulations unjustifiably infringed their aboriginal right to hunt for food.
