The applicants, members of the Grassy Meadows First Nation, brought an application for judicial review challenging the Minister of Natural Resources' authority to approve forest licences and management plans that allegedly infringed their Treaty 3 hunting and fishing rights.
The Minister and the licensee, Abitibi-Consolidated Inc., brought motions to quash the application.
The Divisional Court held that a single judge has jurisdiction to quash an application for judicial review.
The court quashed the application on the basis that much of the relief sought, which involved constitutional challenges and declarations against a private company, fell outside the court's judicial review jurisdiction.
Furthermore, the court exercised its inherent jurisdiction to quash the application because the complex factual and constitutional issues, including aboriginal treaty rights, required a full trial rather than a summary application.
The application was quashed with leave to commence an action.
