There are different levels of Crown representation in Canada. This includes the Governor General at the Federal level and the Lieutenant Governor General at the provincial level. Below the Governor General you have the Federal legislature.Below each of the provincial Lieutenant Governor Generals you have the provincial legislatures.Under the Constitution certain areas are federal responsibility and others provincial.
FN Treaties are under federal crown responsibility and are 100% federal responsibility to negotiate and maintain.The Feds are the ones that are legally and financially responsible for meeting the treaty obligations ‘on reserve’.The confusion that we are dealing with is that the province is constitutionally responsible for health and education in their province so they provide these services or oversee them on reserve but the feds pay for them (imagine the confusion there).Similarly we have confusion over provincial “Crown Lands” which for simplicity are all the lands in Ontario that don’t have private title or Federal designations.
All the mining claims up in the ROF are on provincial crown lands which are a provincial responsibility.
The courts have decided that any decision that anyone makes on provincial crown lands that impacts the Treaty Rights of FN on reserve or on “traditional lands” have a duty to consult with the FN.While the duty to consult is a provincial responsibility on provincial crown lands they have downloaded the responsibility to the mining companies.Duty to consult has not been defined.
So with regard to FN there are provincial crown issue and federal crown issues.
Hope this helps to clarify.
…. Been There
