Lori R. Sterling

The Supreme Court of Canada heard multiple appeals from New Brunswick, Ontario, Alberta, and Quebec regarding the constitutional requirement for independent judicial compensation commissions.

The Court clarified the principles from the Provincial Judges Reference, establishing a three-stage analysis for determining whether a government's response to a commission's recommendations meets the standard of rationality.

The Court upheld the government responses in New Brunswick and Ontario, found the Alberta government's response partially irrational but globally effective, and struck down the Quebec government's response for failing to address the committee's core recommendations.

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.

The appellants, non-band aboriginal communities, challenged their exclusion from the proceeds of Ontario's first reserve-based commercial casino (the First Nations Fund).

The province had restricted the distribution of the fund to First Nations communities registered as bands under the Indian Act.

The Supreme Court of Canada held that the exclusion did not violate s. 15(1) of the Charter, as the casino project was a targeted ameliorative program designed to support the self-reliance and self-government of First Nations bands, and the exclusion did not demean the appellants' human dignity.

The Court also held that the province did not act ultra vires its jurisdiction under s. 91(24) of the Constitution Act, 1867, as it was simply exercising its spending power.