EDMONTON — A recent deal giving registered Métis rights to hunt and fish year-round throughout northern and central Alberta could lead to wildlife being over-harvested, a provincial conservation group says.
“When you open up the system to allow unlimited hunting, fishing and trapping, there’s some conservation items that are definitely of concern for us,” said Brian Dingreville, president of the Alberta Fish and Game Association.
On March 12, the Alberta government quietly reached a deal that brings the province in line with a 2003 Supreme Court of Canada decision that ruled Métis have a constitutional right to hunt for food.
The deal increases the area where Métis can exercise those rights and removes restrictions tying hunters and fishers to specific communities, said lawyer Jason Madden, who represented the Métis Nation of Alberta in the negotiations. It also allows Métis to control who possesses those rights.
“This new agreement allows for the Métis Nation of Alberta to issue tags to individuals who are ancestrally connected to those regional harvesting areas,” Madden said.
Ontario and Manitoba have had similar arrangements in place for years, he said.
Métis hunters will still have to follow safety and conservation laws. Sale of fish and game will not be allowed. Fishers will have to follow fishing licence conditions, although they will be allowed to use gill nets.
But Dingreville wonders how those rules will be enforced.
“(Alberta) Fish and Wildlife are so short-staffed that in most regions of the province, there’s maybe one or two individuals that are looking after areas that are massive. The management part of it is going to be horrendous.
“The policing of it is going to have to be done by Fish and Wildlife, and they’re lacking now.”
Métis Nation president Audrey Poitras said the Métis will do much of the management and monitoring of the harvest themselves. Each community will have a “hunt captain” who knows local hunters, issues registration stickers and keeps track of who’s taking what.
“Based on the agreement, (individuals) will have harvesting areas where they can hunt,” she said.
“That will be provided based on that sticker — where they can hunt, what they can hunt. We will be keeping track of that.”
Data will be collected yearly and delivered to the government. Hunt captains will be responsible for keeping track of infractions or over-harvesting and will report them to a joint Métis-government committee, said Poitras.
“Our captains will know that and our captains will bring it forward.”
Some communities already have hunt captains, she said. Staff are also keeping some track of how much game is taken.
“That will just become a little bit bigger in order to make sure we document everything,” said Poitras.
Dingreville said information on the harvest collected by hunt captains should be made public.
“Our concern is the openness of the whole system,” he said.
Poitras said the deal won’t take effect until the Métis have a chance to set things up and get organized. The agreement comes with provincial funding to pay for those efforts.
The Métis will now turn their attention to a deal for the remaining one-quarter of the province in southern Alberta, she said.
Poitras said her group will reach out to other Albertans who hunt and fish.
That would have been nice before the agreement was released, Dingreville said.
“We would appreciate a little more consultation,” he said. “It just didn’t happen.”